Gidge said:
i thought you swore by single overhead.......
anywho, exactly where "on each side of the kit" are you placing them?.......always looking for a new idea.......
I swear by the single over head if I'm doing Mono tracks.
Since we began recording pre-productions for a CD that we intend to record, my Bass player (and my co-founder of the band) wanted the toms and cymbals in stereo..(figure 14 cymbals....ranging from a 3" Cup chime to a 22" China)..so we are micing everything on the kit, and using overheads, but so far I haven't even needed to bring up the tom tracks- and he hasn't even realized that they are muted on the board! BWAHAHAH!
He's been listening to a ton of
Tool,
A Perfect Circle, and
System of a Down, just to try and pay attention to the mixes of Heavy bands that are popular today, and he really wanted the stereo imaging on the drumkit, so I said "what the heck, we'll go with it"
Right now we're mic'ing the Kicks from inside, but we're going to build a pair of tunnels on the Kick drums, and mic them from a few feet out as well when we actually record the CD.
I have the overheads literally 4 feet to the left and right of the center of the snare on a pair of boom stands The Mic capsules are 6'8" from the floor, and angled at a 45-degree angle at the center of the snare. (I used a Tape measure to set all the mic's, so that when I found what I wanted, I would be able to replicate it fairly easily. Since we are doing this CD ourselves, I'm trying to capture the best sound that I can with the gear that we have. I want to use as little EQ as possible, and I'm trying to capture the sounds as naturally as I can.
Now, for my normal recordings, I would just pop an overhead directly over my head on a stand, and I personally am fine with the drumsound, it sounds killer, but I'm digging the stereo spread I've got right now.

Normally, I wouldn't want to "waste" the tracks (I have 16 tracks on a pair of DA-38's) because we use alot of tracks to build the vocals (we're heavy on the BG vocals, using a lot of layers, and we have alot of vocal lines that overlap...but one person singing those).
I'm in the middle of selecting components for a Pentium IV to be used strictly as a DAW and Video editing setup, because we're going to make the jump to recording on a PC, that way we will have almost unlimited tracks (more than I'll need....we're figuring that if we can use 32-48 tracks, we will be able to make this thing sound really "extra Thick".)
I'm still unsure about how I'm going to get my tracks into the DAW though.....I'm thinking about a pair of Tascam Digital Mixers, and using TDIF Cards so that I can get at least 16 tracks into the PC at one shot.
Hell, if I had it my way-I wouldn't even use a Mixer...I'd just go for a ton of Mic Preamps, because once the signal is in the PC, I want to keep it digital.
We'll have to see though.
I've just gotten sick of fighting noise, so I'm trying to keep everything in the digital domain when I go into the DAW because right now, I have to go Analog to get into the CD burner (Mixing with a Mackie mixer, and i'm really sick of it...so once we get the new set, the Mackie is going to be a dedicated live board)....and we want to get an internal DVD burner, so we're trying to make sure everything will be at least 48khz or better.
It's funny, I was always against Digital Recording, and now I LOVE it!
Oh, and my Tom mic's (ATM Pro-25 kick mic's) are 4" above each batterhead, and 1" in from the rim, and aimed almost straight down....about a 70 to 80 degree angle. (They sound killer, but like I said, I really haven't needed to use them because the Toms are coming through loud and clear in the overheads....but when we start recording on the DAW, that may change...it depends upon what kind of Reverbs I'll have to toy with.....I personally have been listening to Manowar's new CD, recorded in the Newest Protools platform, and man it is disgustingly huge sounding, and the bass guitar goes down so low and is so clear that it's almost frightening!)
Tim