Is double snare micing necessary?

S

SeekingTheTruth

New member
Hey so I have a couple Shure sm57's and a bright well tuned snare. I'm looking to keep the bright sound and am wondering if it is necessary to mic the snare on top and bottom.

Also is an sm57 even a good bottom snare mic?

I've heard it's good for the top.

What are your opinions on top and bottom snare mics and are sm57's good for it?

Thanks.
 
It's not necessary, but it can sound good! I've used a pair 57s on top/bottom before and the results were very satisfying! I think some others use a small-diaphragm condenser on the bottom, but since you've got the goods, I'd just play around with the 57s and see if you like the results.
 
Glad to know that others have had success. Obviously top mic is aimed a little of the center and a couple of inches off center. But I don't really know anything about bottom mics. How do you do it?

Thanks man
 
With a bottom mic, I've found it's best to have it pointed at the same distance and angle that the top mic is. Also, don't point it directly at the snare wires, you will end up with kind of a papery sound. Make sure to reverse the polarity of the bottom mic (flip the phase).
 
SeekingTheTruth said:
Hey so I have a couple Shure sm57's and a bright well tuned snare. I'm looking to keep the bright sound and am wondering if it is necessary to mic the snare on top and bottom. ..
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I pretty much skip the bottom. Work your way to the rim and even down into the side. You're balancing from the thicker top sound to the brighter stuff.
Folks I record generally do several songs w/o a lot of tweaking in between so I do a lot of CYA mode :rolleyes: Lately I've been doing rim-top and a side (a fig-8 nulls the hat) just for the options later.
 
A lot of it has to do with the surface the kit is on. On a riser or a hardwood floor, the high frequencies of the snares are reflected off the floor and bounce back to the top mic quite a bit. If you are on a carpeted floor or similar, the floor can suck up those high frequencies, making a bottom mic a really good thing.-Richie
 
Richard Monroe said:
A lot of it has to do with the surface the kit is on. On a riser or a hardwood floor, the high frequencies of the snares are reflected off the floor and bounce back to the top mic quite a bit. If you are on a carpeted floor or similar, the floor can suck up those high frequencies, making a bottom mic a really good thing.-Richie
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Yeah, good stuff Richie! I've never thought much about that.
 
Having both perspectives lets you balance the snare side to top side sound regardless of the space. Plus peoples tastes vary and having options is always nice.
 
I never mic my snare bottom. Don't need it. My snares sound good.

Re-phrase: I never keep or use the bottom snare mic track. I've mic'd it several times. I never use it.
 
I've miced the bottoms of snares, but I find I get pretty much what I want by placing the top mic about an inch or two horizontally off the top rim of the snare, aimed across the head. The trade-off is a bit more bleed in the snare mic.
 
SeekingTheTruth said:
Hey so I have a couple Shure sm57's and a bright well tuned snare. I'm looking to keep the bright sound and am wondering if it is necessary to mic the snare on top and bottom.
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Not only is it not necessary to mic the bottom, it's not necessary to mic the top. Some genre's/songs/productions get along just fine with the overheads alone.

As far as brightness goes, even if you do use a bottom mic you will get large amounts of snare brightness from your overheads or room mics. Don't try to get the entire sound from the close mics. It won't sound like a snare drum.

Obviously top mic is aimed a little of the center and a couple of inches off center. But I don't really know anything about bottom mics. How do you do it?
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Don't jump to conclusions. The top mic isn't obviously placed anywhere. I've put it almost touching the rim pointing mostly down, almost totally horrizontal pointing across the drum head, backed off several inches off of the edge to pick up sounds coming from the sides of the shell in addition to the head, two feet off of the snare, etc. Keep the feel of the song in mind and go after a sound. Put the overheads up first, wear some sealed headphones, and move the snare mic while listening to both the overheads and snare mic at the same time. Obviously the drummer has to be playing. Where it sounds good is where you put the mic.

As luck would have it, the technique for placing the bottom mic is exactly the same, only now you are listening to 4 mics in your headphones instead of 3. Hint: You will want the polarity reversed on the bottom mic relative to the top.
 
I nearly always mic the bottom of the snare, I use a small diaphragm condenser reverse phased to the top mic. I record it to a separate track. Do I use it? Well, sometimes no, sometimes yes. If using it I take off the lows, sometimes I gate it so it's triggered by the top snare mic (even if the top mic is not gated), sometimes it's all open.

The reason I do this is it gives me options later. If the snare is a bit dull or lacks snap add a bit of bottom mic. I like options due to the fact I am always recording different drummers with different snares with different styles for different types of music. Record it, it's only another track.

alan.
 
I record the bottom of the snare, phase reversed, sometimes with an sm57, sometimes with an MD421. I never use the bottom track. I record the top of the snare with an sm57 about 1/2" above the edge of the rim pointing towards the center of the snare, always tend to boost highs and add lots of reverb.
 
Okay folks, lets get this right. You can't reverse or flip or invert phase. What you are talking about is polarity. There is a difference and it does matter.
 
does it? I never hear anyone talking about polarity issues. But phase issues are common and expected. My tracks are so out of polarity... Never heard anyone say that IME. The menu item in audacity is Invert. Says neither phase nor polarity. But if it's wrong, I bet you 9 out of 10 times, it's out of phase, NOT out of polarity, in terms of the jargon that is used.
 
'Invert to me is the term for saying what the polarity switch does - even if it has been labeled and called a 'phase switch. Either invert or polarity are at least more specific, where (in this use/meaning) the term 'phase is not.
All we have going on here I think is we're trying to steer toward being more accurate when we talk about this stuff.
 
Shadow_7 said:
does it? I never hear anyone talking about polarity issues. But phase issues are common and expected. My tracks are so out of polarity... Never heard anyone say that IME. The menu item in audacity is Invert. Says neither phase nor polarity. But if it's wrong, I bet you 9 out of 10 times, it's out of phase, NOT out of polarity, in terms of the jargon that is used.
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Polarity switching is often used to attempt to address phase problems, sometimes successfully. In the cases above of micing a snare from top and bottom they're addressing a polarity mismatch with polarity switching. No doubt there are also differences in phase between the top and bottom mics as well, which will be affected by a polarity flip. The problem being addressed doesn't matter, it's polarity that's being switched.

Phase is a frequency specific comparative measurement between two waves. When one wave is out of phase with another it is specified in degrees @ frequency. It can result from a copy of a signal being delayed, in which case the phase change is proportional to frequency. Phase change can also result from filters, in which case phase change is not necessarily proportional to frequency.

Polarity has two states: + or -. Phase can be any value from 0° to 360°, and it requires a reference frequency. In both cases one wave has to be compared to another to derive a value.

With pure sine waves and some other simple symmetrical waveforms there are conditions of phase and polarity difference that look identical. Inverted polarity looks just like 180° out of phase, but one is an inversion of the vertical amplitude dimension while the other is a shift horizontally in the time dimension. With complex sound signals there generally aren't situations where phase and polarity have essentially the same effect.
 
So when Doctor Who talks about polarity, I should just make a fist of rock and yell rock on?

Sure, polarity if you're talking about PRE-recorded tracks. But post recorded tracks? When dealing with the resultant data, not the signal chain. i.e. Two tracks (top and bottom) to be mixed.

Polarity to me has always been an electronics term. And I guess that if you're tweaking the electronics with a modified cable that would apply. But I don't do anything that involves outputting sound live. It's all just captured data to be mangled later in my case.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Okay folks, lets get this right. You can't reverse or flip or invert phase. What you are talking about is polarity. There is a difference and it does matter.
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I've known saying phase' and meaning polarity' is vague and/or unspecific, but is it technically incorrect to say 'phase inversion- ?
 
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