Overhead Mics for recording nice drums in a bad room???

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pisces7378

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If you will follow this link: http://www.nuci.org/practicespace/ and then click on the "Take a virtual tour".
Here you will see a "Practice Space" place in Athens where I can go and rent out the rooms for like $9-$10/hour. I will track most of my drums in rooms 9 or 10. They do not have paralell walls but I am sure the cielling is parallel to the floor and it is not a high cieling. But... it is better than my f*&%ing bedroom. These rooms are not "ideal" by any means but they will give you a good yardstick to see what I will be dealing with as far as rooms go.

My basic concern will be the tom mics, overheads, and the hi-hat mic. I am very particular that the hi-hat have a crip sizzle. I use smaller 13" hi-hats because I do not like the dark "clang" of 14" hats. I will be using Zildjan New-Beat high hats so I want a hi-hat mic that will take advantage of these nice cymbals. That is why I had originally thought to use the AKG C451B that I already have on the hats and look for a pair of overheads in another line. Would it be rediculas to get a stereo pair of AKG C451B for drum overheads AND have one on the hi hats? That is quite boring. What about the Neumann KM184? I can get a pair of them for $1,050 here in Germany. Maybe I should go ahead and pick those up before coming home.

So basically which overheads would you recommend considering that I already have an AKG C451B? Should I stick with the AKG on the hi-hats and find a pair of overheads? Or should I move the C451B over and use it as an overhead and buy another one, and find a new hi-hat mic?

Thanks guys!
 
The microphone choices are less important than your choices of placement for the mics. As the room goes from bad to worse, the placement becomes even more critical.
 
There's no rule of thumb that says you can't (or shouldn't) use the same mic on the hihat as on the overheads. A lot of people don't, because they tend to use their best sounding small diaphragm condensers on the overheads, and may not happen to have a third one for the hihat.

Depending on your overhead scheme, you'll tend to pick up so much hat in the OH's that your HH mic will probably be blended in at a relatively low level (if at all) which makes the mic choice not as important.

As always, Harvey's advice should be considered heavily before mine.
 
hehe... both harvey and little dogs opinions should probably be considered befor mine... But i use a pair of AKG c451's for overheads and they sound great!. there pretty good for acoustic guitar too... And i do agree with what little said... I pick up so much hihat in my OH's I almost never use a HH mic.
 
Wow, I drove past Nuci's Space about fifteen minutes ago! I've done some playing there but I must admit I can't think of anyone who's done anything more than a stereo rehearsal recording in any of those rooms.

As for the mic selection - I never really mic the hats separately... but some folks seem to like a 57, saying it gives a more raw sound for hats. Personally I usually have more than enough hat with just the overheads, and I use a set of 12" Bosphorus Ferit series standard hi-hats, which are unlathed, with a splash-thin top and a bottom about twice as heavy. They sound like a James Brown record.

Andrew
 
Buy the 184 neumanns. And I personally LOVE 451's.But then,you see, you'll have both. I never liked the 451 close to the hihat.I always used either an sm-81 shure or an old Beyer vocal mic and tippd it back away from the snare.Its a soundstar something or other.It was a little brittle sounding for vocals but it has always worked in a troublesome drum set-up.Especially on the hat.
 
morte sicura

Hey morte sicura

How are things back home in Athens? To be honest, when I do record my record "for real" I will track the drums at Full Moon Studio. They have a huge live room that has all the dimensions of an excellent drum room. I haven't physically stood in the room and heard it so it might be shite. I only posted the Nuci's Space stuff to give a worst case scenario so that I wouldn't get answers like... Just set up some overheads and some ambience mics and let the room acoustics take care of it. When it comes to drum mixing I am a control freak and it would bug the ever living shit out of me if I had to bullshit around trying to get the hi-hats just right, only to find that it makes the crash or ride sound like a trash can lid. (dramatic worst case I know... but still.)

Anyway, I have been living in Europe for tha past three years and come change, but I am moving back to Athens to rebuild the band I had before I left. I am looking to play with some new people... I will be needing a good drummer, and bass player. Are you, or do you know anyone that fits this bill? What kind of music are you into?

You can e-mail me privately (dolmetscherrecords@hotmail.com) and just tell me about yourself. Maybe we are completely 180 degrees away from what the other is about, but maybe you know someone that would like to play a little.

What do you think?
 
morte sicura said:

As for the mic selection - I never really mic the hats separately... but some folks seem to like a 57, saying it gives a more raw sound for hats. Personally I usually have more than enough hat with just the overheads, and I use a set of 12" Bosphorus Ferit series standard hi-hats, which are unlathed, with a splash-thin top and a bottom about twice as heavy. They sound like a James Brown record.

Andrew
Click to expand...

Putting an sm57 on the hi hat occured to me after hearing alot of hi hat bleed from the snare (I have the hi hat and snare about 8 inches from each other with the edge of the hat overlapping the edge of the snare). It sounded really good compressed. Kinda sharp, defined and aggressive, but not bright.
Sits really nice in some mixes.
 
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