know its asked before..but Overheads, obove snare and lo tom?

[earworm]

ok,
finally bought small condenser overheads,
replaced my sm57's with oktava 012s
(from budget to better)

first i never cared about the position, as long as i had some crashes left and right, then i noticed extreme phasing problems,
then i started to work on my sound.

some guy told me that the "left" mic (when u're sitting behind the drumkit, im the drummer myself) should stand above the snare,
ok, did that,
then i put the right mic above the floortom,
it all worked, but i'm so uncertain about it,

at first i thought you'd just put the two mics straight above the
left crash and right ride, but this seemed to give phase problems,
and i guess i always put my mics too high,

don't have a good sounding room,
so what do you suggest,

put the mics about 6 inches above the crash? (wow thats close i think !!)
or u put them above the snare?
i especially wanna pick up cymbal sounds, all the rest is miked so there's enough volume

and my left crash sounds louder, more agressive and there's more hihat,
so the right mic should be a bit Lower (closer to the drums) so i get a more balanced stereo image?


can it harm my oktava mk012's with 10db pad screwed on if i put them about 6 inch above crash and ride?
i have no idea how much SPL these things produce,
and i think...the mics can handle about .... 130 if i can believe the unreadable russion specs

gonna record my first "seriuous underground band" this saturday...
he's bringing two crashes and a ride, its already set up , tomorrow i take an entire day for soundcheck,

so whatever you guys post, i'll try it out...
i can't mike from behind the drummer, cause the drums are a bit in the corner of the room, sorry, no other option, its a bedroom


since i got all toms and blabla miked up i assume i can put the mics pretty "low" and don't need a super overall sound, but a little more cymbals?

thanks in advance,

Earworm

 

[mattamatta]

One thing to keep in mind is that you'll probably want to arrange them so that both the kick and snare are centered in the stereo image.

 

[northsiderap]

Mics and Stuff

For me it always depends on where the drummer's cymbals are and how good the room is.

The last drummer I recorded had his ride cymbal half eclipsing his low tom so I mic'd low on the shell for the low tom (mk012) and right inbetween the two mid tom shells about 1' away (mk012)

Use the height & distance of the L/R MK012s to determine the cymbal mix too. That and a touch-o-EQ on the higher end. Helps to have a room mic/overhead mixed in somewhere. If recording drums to four tracks only (which I often do) I just pan L&R at 75% or so and mix in the overhead/room mic in about 15% for starters right in the middle pan-wise.

I also mix my hihats with the snare track, and sometimes a little boom from the low toms into the bass drum track by backing those mics up a little occasionally...

I use the bass drum and snare drum tracks panned a tad to even out the mix a little.

Four or five mics on four tracks. That's it. Sounds keen.

If you have a good room just throw an XY or coincident pair out in front a distance for boomy toms and bass drum, or above for lots of head attack.

I think it was Chet Atkins who used a single Sony C38 above his drum kit. That's it.

No need to freak out. It's just a drum track As long as the drummer/drums/room sounds good it might be as easy a single XY pair somewheres in the room...

 

[Speedy VonTrapp]

Keeping the snare and kick in the center is one of the keys here.

Check out this great thread. It seems to disappear, only re-surface again, begging to be a sticky.

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=39030

 

[pietro79]

oh's and pasing

I'm no expert, but generally, I like using the overheads as the main drum sound, and fill in with the close mics however much is needed. And, as everyone has said, the farther your overheads, the more they act like room mics.

Regarding phasing, you just need a tape measure to make sure the distances are equal between the overheads, and also the bass drum mic, if it's far away enough to be a factor...like, if it's outside the kick

 

[giraffe]

just listen to what you have. make sure the volume of the cimbals is ballanced
remember, you have to "mix" the cimbals with mic placement. make xure you're getting enough ride, hat, etc.....

my stock answer is mic the gutters of your house if it sounds good

beware of crappy cimbals

 

[grn]

recorderman technique is definitely good and easy, and with proper setup and EQ, you can get a decent sound.

 

[punkin]

I like the x/y over the drummer's head with a bass drum mic and a snare (sometimes 2 on the snare...one underneath and one on top. With the snare I tend to pick up a little more high-hat as well. That's usually all I ever need. I've tried micing everything but it turns into a headache. Best results by keeping it simple.

 

[Ronan]

ok,

some guy told me that the "left" mic (when u're sitting behind the drumkit, im the drummer myself) should stand above the snare,
ok, did that,
then i put the right mic above the floortom,
it all worked, but i'm so uncertain about it,

You are talking about the 3 mic technique developed by Glyn Johns and used on a lot of the old Led Zep stuff. Part of the trick is to make sure the two mics are the exact same distance from the snare and pan them hard left and right in the mix.

 

[Farview]

Part of the problem with having the mics close to the cymbals is that as the cymbal flops around the sound the mic picks up varies wildly. I would go with the xy over the drummers head approach.

 

[earworm]

thanks for the suggestions,
weird , i always thought that the most used method was putting an
AB pair above the kit, like one above the left crash, and one above the (right) ride

sure gonna use the XY setup from behind the drummer (thats me) this week,

but a question:

someone said in a post here:
make sure the distance from the snare is the same from the two mics...
is that for an AB or XY pair?
how can the distance be the same if one mic is above the snare and one above the tom? (the one above the snare is closer...right....or am i looking at it the wrong way)

the last thing i recorded was OK, the kick sounded so amazing (in real life) so it also sounded amazing on the computer,
but when i use my drumkit its....mhhhh...donno, gotto work real hard to tune my drums i think..

in the mix i'm doing now i mainly use kick and snare for the drumsound,
just use the overheads to fill up the sound, its punk musick,
don't like too many loud cymbals, eventhough the MK012's sound nice nice nice, i mean, not special, but very clean.

i already read that one post on miking with 3 mics but forgot all about it,
gonna read it again...
its funny, its all so easy in theory untill you start recording...THEN WHAT

 

[Farview]

I haven't used the 'one over the snare and one over the floor tom' approach. If I use a spaced pair, I always make sure that the snare is in the middle of the two mics. If you are using an XY config, both the mics will be the same distance from the snare anyway. Otherwise, it wouldn't be an XY config.

Close mic'ing the cymbals was an 80's thing. It was stupid then, and continues to be foolish now.

 

[punkin]

You mentioned that currently most of your drum sound comes from the kick and snare...I'm of another approach (others....feel free to comment), I get most of my sound from the over heads and pump up the bass and snare to taste. In fact, I always do some dry runs just using the over-heads to make sure they sound as good as possible. I've found that depending upon the musical style like classic jazz, I can get away using only the over-heads.

 

[mikecoleman]

good samaritain

On my last recording i had a lot of phase problem with the overheads,
tryed XY and AB then some jazz cats drop buy and make me try just one overhead in a sweet spot , no more phase problems , ok the sound is a little weaker, but, its not bad, might be something worth trying ,


The cat from Canada

 

[blackdiscoball]

for what its worth for overheads I really like the sound of two PMZ's for overhead mics. they do a great job for cymbals and then just add in the right amount of close miking

 

[earworm]

mh,
ok,
after mixing a few hours i cleaned up my 3 tom tracks,
had lots of cymbal bleed there,
now the drums sound more powerful and i can push the overheads-volume more up

indeed, for "slow" music i also prefer to use overheads and fill it in with bass from kick and slap from snare

but in fast music.... at some parts the drummer hit the half open hihat too loud, even sounds louder than the snare, i find that very annoying,

now.... do you guys ever ride the faders of the overheads?
or do you keep that volume stable?

in the chorus i'd like to push the guitars a little bit up,
maybe the snare too a bit

but i don't know about overheads, u guys got "rules" or habbits on that?
cheers

 

[Farview]

I never do that. It sounds like your drummer doesn't have his dynamics together. If the hats are louder than the snare, he needs to lay off on the hats and hit the snare harder. Drummers are supposed to 'mix themselves' to a certain extent. If you put 1 mic 5 feet away from the kit and recorded it, the drum mix should work. If you did that and the cymbals were overpowering, the drummer isn't doing his job. There is no good reason for the hats to be louder than the snare in the snare mic, same thing with the cymbals in the floor toms.

 

[hueseph]

It seems to me that an A/B pair is fine. If there are phasing problems you can try adjusting the distance between them. In regards to the Hihat being too loud. Well that's what the volume fader is for on the console. Other than that, gating your snare and kick would probably help(and toms and field drum). I always thought that the overheads were for capturing the cymbals anyway.

 

[Farview]

The overheads are for capturing the entire kit.