Mic Phase

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TPCPunk

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I was reading some articles on the web about phasing and drum micing. I've been struggling with getting a good drum sound, and this sounded like the ticket. I use overheads (2 AKG CS100s) and some radioshack mics (whose sound I DO like) on each tom, snare, and hats. I usually miced the toms and the snare from the bottom. After reading article though, I finally realised how phase works wiith drum heads. The overheads and tom mics are out of phase. Now, I don't have a fancy "phase switch" on my microphones like the article talked about. So I was wondering, how would I switch the phase of my mics? Do I need to re-sodder some of the wires (ugh), or is there someway to change my cables around or something? I like the sound of the mics underneath, plus, the drummer doesn't hit them then (I know some wild drummers) so I want to switch the phase. If you guys could help me out, that'd be great.
Thanks!

-Chris
 
I'm assuming you don't have a phase switch on your mixer or preamp either. What are you recording to? Most software packages, AFAIK, have a feature where you can reverse the phase of your recorded wav file. Simply select it, click on "invert phase" or something like that, and you're home.

Chris
 
You can NOT flip phase, but you can flip polarity, which is what you need in this case. You can do so by making a few polarity reversed mic cables, or addapters. Just make sure you mark them, because you do not want to use them by mistake. To be honest, however, you will have a much better results if you mic from the top of the drums, particularly on the snare. The sound of the snares is just not good. It is common to use a top AND bottom mic on snare drums, but even then the top mic is the primary sound source.

THIS thread has a great deal of good stuff on both phase and polarity.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
what kind of radio shack mics do you have? do they still make them?
 
Try the 2 stick method, it works by getting your mics in phase BEFORE flipping switches and making cables and shit. Much better way to do it, IMO.
THe great thing about it is, when you have the kick and snare in phase with the overheads, the close almost always seem to work just fine without phase problems. Throw a gate on them where they only open when you have toms hit, and you are macking.
Dont worry so much about switches and tricks and cables as much as just getting it right in the 1st place. Learn to hear it, and then adjust it til its right.
Peace.
 
And how do you get it right you may ask... monitor your recording in "one speaker mono"... if you can pan everything to the left or to the right and it still sounds like a complete drum kit... you're in business.

If it doesn't sound like a drum kit... start with one mic... get a good tone. Add another mic... get it to work well with the first mic. Continue to add mics until a good tone is impossible to achieve, you run out of mics... or if it happens to sound like a drum kit.

Best of luck.
 
The Radioshack mics...

Thanks for the help guys, I'll try a few of the things you've suggested and hear which works out the best. I thought phase and polarity were interchangeable, apparently I was mistaken. Either way, the radioshack mics I have are those 20 dollar Sennheiser copies that there is a recent thread about. I got mine about six months ago, and the do a fine job. I'm not a professional recording studio, so I don't want to pay for one. I just experiment and see what I can get.

Thanks again,
Chris
 
Re: The Radioshack mics...

TPCPunk said:
I thought phase and polarity were interchangeable, apparently I was mistaken.
Click to expand...

They are not. Many use the terms interchangablly, but they are not.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Sorry for my ignorance.... what's the difference?? Is polarity the difference between positive and negative parts of the wave (ie up and down), and phase more of a right-left placement (ie, placement in time)?

Chris
 
So to fix a phasing problem, you could simply move one track a couple of milliseconds to line it up with the others?

Chris
 
pretty much, yeah... but remember it will never line up perfectly, because certain parts of a drum kit are closer to one mic than the others... so if you move the track of the left overhead mic so that it is phase-aligned with the right overhead mic for a snare hit, your snare might sound a bit better, but the kick and maybe toms could sound worse, because they will not be perfectly in phase. you can't get them all in phase at the same time.
also, phase misalignment is not always a bad thing, especially with hard-panned mics like overheads... by removing the phase shift, you destroy one element of stereo imaging. our ears and brain actually use this slight shift in time to indicate a wider stereo field.
 
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