mixing drums in the soundstage

I agree with the post immediately above this because when I record I want to make sure it sounds roughly like it would hearing it played by a band.

If the guitarist is slightly on the right side of the stage (from his perspective) the the audience will hear him slightly more prominent in their left ear, for instance. However, ambience will be coming from all around them so nothing is really truly hard panned from an audience's perspective. GUitar parts get double tracked and hard panned to sound thick, but they still apear somewhere in the middle when combined, the combination appears full and around the listener (like a guitar amp filling a room) but it doesn't seem unbalanced or prominent from one ear to the other.

This is especially true for drums in my opinion, which I record most of without close micing (kick and snare maybe for some punch, but not always), and including roomy sound and reflections, making it in stereo, not all just crammed in the middle which doesn't sound 'real' either. Also, the idea of a ride cymbal and a floor tom waaaay on the left side of the stage by the rest rooms and a hi-hat waaay over on the right side near the bar or something gives the impression that the entire drumset is engulfing you by a drummer with 20 foot long arms. This is why I think hard-panning drums, while interesting to use for the special effects it can create if you like that sort of thing, aren't very convincing for a "real" sounding drum track - regardless of if the drummer is a lefty or a righty, or sets up his drums in an unorthodox way or if the engineer happens to like the drummers perspective or whatever it just sounds overdone productionwise.
 
Captain Ego said:
Also, the idea of a ride cymbal and a floor tom waaaay on the left side of the stage by the rest rooms and a hi-hat waaay over on the right side near the bar or something gives the impression that the entire drumset is engulfing you by a drummer with 20 foot long arms. This is why I think hard-panning drums, while interesting to use for the special effects it can create if you like that sort of thing, aren't very convincing for a "real" sounding drum track
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I've read this from many people and I don't understand it. I'm not saying it's wrong, it's just never been explained to me convincingly. If the width of a drum set is about 3'-4' wide, and your mics are 3'-4' apart, why would it ever sound like a drum set is 10 feet wide? It's not as if the mic far from the hi-hat isn't picking up any hi-hat at all. It's just picking up less than the mic that's close to the hi-hat. Isn't that what a stereo image is, 2 mics placed at pre-determined distances from whatever you're micing? So, if the drums sound too wide during mixing, wouldn't the solution be to move the mics closer as opposed to distorting the stereo image you tried to capture in the first place?

I personally pan my overheads hard left and right and have never heard or been told that my drums sound too wide. When I do a roll around the drums, for example, my first tom sounds like it's coming from just inside the right speaker and my floor tom sounds like it's coming from just inside the other speaker...neither of them sound like they're coming from 5' outside of the speakers. I can't see how this would even happen since both mics are still picking up everything in different amounts anyway. To be honest, I don't think I've ever heard anyone's drums sound 20' wide.

I've heard "weird" panning, but that's usually because of someone screwing up the panning of the close mics, like having toms bouncing all over the place, etc....

Please, someone convince me that hard-panning my overheads is a bad idea. :D
 
Captain Ego said:
when I record I want to make sure it sounds roughly like it would hearing it played by a band.
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This kind of assumes two things ~ firstly that members of all bands always stand in the same place and secondly, that there is an intrinsic instrument location, which, while true of an orchestra, does not necesarilly apply in every situation to smaller band situations.
Of course, one could be pedantic and ask when was the last time a band played in one's living room or car but the point is that however one mixes, mixers create aural illusions for an artificial situation. Without a doubt, some 'types' of mix {and by extension, some 'types' of drum mix'} sound 'better' than others ~ to different ears. That's partly why there is no intrinsic right or wrong when it comes to panning, positioning and degree. That things may seem more standardized over the last 20 years is neither here nor there. Recording and playback have evolved ~ records didn't come out of the womb quoting Shakespeare.
 
@RAMI. I wasn't talking about overheads. I mic at a distance and I do hard pan the left and right. Was referring to close-miced stuff which won't really have much else in it. People especially now in the iPOD era listen to a lot of music in headphones during their commute or whatever, and to me, it just sounds way too wierd if one of your ears get this continuous bonky noise of a floor tom, while the other gets a ticky noise of a hi-hat. like it throws your head off balance.

@Grimtraveller: not implying right and wrong, just what sounds like I was standing in front of a stage because thats how I would hear it. The people may move around on a stage but the cabs aren't going to, hence a little separation between two different guitars, even if both are a bit on the other side too, that makes sense. just my personal prefferance that hard panning, unless its a room capturing stereo thing, seems to me like its best left for thickening tracks like guitar doubling or vocal doubling kind of thing on either side. Like I said, that's just how I hear it, and it doesn't make one ear feel heavy and the other annoyed like if close sources are way over on one side or the other.
 
Captain Ego said:
@RAMI. I wasn't talking about overheads. I mic at a distance and I do hard pan the left and right. Was referring to close-miced stuff which won't really have much else in it. People especially now in the iPOD era listen to a lot of music in headphones during their commute or whatever, and to me, it just sounds way too wierd if one of your ears get this continuous bonky noise of a floor tom, while the other gets a ticky noise of a hi-hat. like it throws your head off balance.
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OK, makes sense. :cool:
 
The top 3 forums, Newbies, Recording Techniques, and Mixing Techniques; all their latest posts are about drums. Suck on that guitarists :cool:
 
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