overhead micing

B

bigtee

New member
Can anyone give me some pro's or cons as taking your overhead mics (condensors) for cymbals and using them directly "under" the cymbal instead?
My friend came back from a show where the sound man mic'ed the cymbals this way and said the drums sounded great. Just wondering if anyone has ever tried this and what the outcome was. thanks
 
Well I know that for live it's pretty good as to keeping the separation at it's best but for recording I've never tried it...a little bleed is a good thing when it comes to overheads while recording.;)





:cool:
 
You are confusing overheads with cymbal mics. They are two different things. Cymbal mics can be over or under, it doesn't matter.

Overheads are meant to pick up the whole kit.
 
When you say "directly under the cymbal" do you mean literally under a cymbal or particular cymbals or do you mean below the level of the cymbals ?
If you mean the latter, then yeah, in a recording situation it can work well. I've got friend {funnilly enough I have a session with him later today} who sometimes goes a little too wild and there have been times when the cymbals almost drown out everything. But I thought I'd experiment with putting the overheads below the level of the cymbals and pointing towards the snare and toms and it certainly cut down the cymbal wash and left me with more manageable and balanced drums. Farview is right though, overheads aren't really cymbal mics although it's easy to think of them that way.
 
according to him they were directly under the cymbals approx. 3-4 inches below pointing straight up at the outter edge about 2" in. sorry farview i should have been more specific these were for cymbals..the drummer had no "overhead" to catch the kit....although all his drums were mic'ed...he also stated that there were no amps on stage...all heads with DI
 
Hey guy !
A little question : During the mix, are you putting the left mic ( HH, Crash... ) on the left channel, and the right ( ride etc.. ) on the right one to get the stereo image ? Or just place both of us in the center ?
Thank you!
 
Not sure if your asking his preference or a technical question but:

It depends on the perspective you want the listener to hear. Left mic panned left right mic panned right would be from the drummer's perspective and opposite would be from the audience's. I prefer the audience's perspective in recordings. Unless everything is in mono I wouldn't keep the overheads panned to zero. Depending on the song though, it would be cool to have mono drums especially if they were panned completely to one side.
 
I always pan the cymabls to their perspective sides...as per listeners ears, only things i put in center are kick and snare
 
I assume you'd get a considerably darker sound than cymbal mics on top. This might be a good thing for live performance, but I'd really miss the sound of wood/nylon on brass.
 
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