Overhead/Room Mic Treatment

[ez_willis]

When mixing drums, what are some routine things you do to make the room mic and the overheads sound better. i.e., compression, eq, etc.

I'm looking for what you do after it's already tracked. I don't need a lecture about mic choice and placement.

I use 2 Octava mc-012's as the overheads and an SP B1 as the room. It's a shitty room, 12' x 12', drywalled, with almost nothing in terms of treatment.

 

[pianosaur]

it depends on if you have close mics on all the drums or not. the room mic i tend to roll a lot of highs off and boost a lot of bass. in an untreated room that might make things really low mid heavy though. overheads i either leave completely untouched or i parallel compress the snot out of them about 60/40 with the original. maybe some rolloff around 8k and 16k if its a crappy chinese condenser.

 

[ez_willis]

Everything is close mic'ed, too.

 

[nuemes]

I'm looking for what you do after it's already tracked. I don't need a lecture about mic choice and placement.
It's a shitty room, 12' x 12', drywalled, with almost nothing in terms of treatment.

Yeah, it's kind of like coming home to your dog after forgetting about him while on vacation for three days. There's nothing you can do with your carpet. Why didn't you get a rental with wooden floors to begin with?

So, as far my experience goes your best bet is to spend quite a few hours messing around with whatever until something clicks. 3 mics in a shitty room = many hours screwing around. You don't need anyone telling you what you already know... yet you still recorded in a crappy room eh? Your best bet is to make it your own sound and not try to achieve the sound in your head at this point. I'm in the middle of handling a similar issue. I'm lecturing both of us.

For next time: buy cheap carpet, bed covers and save egg crates. It's a $400 project that will make a big difference.

 

[nuemes]

Everything is close mic'ed, too.

Can you get those mics sounding good and bring the overheads/room mic down? If you already know your room mic sucks based on the room why are you using one to begin with?

 

[ez_willis]

It's not that I think any of them suck, I'm just looking to see how people treat the overheads and room mics.

My studio is in my garage. Not more than 20 people will ever hear the mix. I'm not trying to advance a career, I just want to know what other people do with those three tracks.

 

[ez_willis]

Can you get those mics sounding good and bring the overheads/room mic down? If you already know your room mic sucks based on the room why are you using one to begin with?

The cymbals aren't close mic'ed, so not really.

 

[tarnationsauce2]

I would ditch the room mic. Room mics are really best in good sounding rooms.
What capsules did you use thith the mc012's? Personally I would have used cardioid.

I find that the overheads help a lot with the dynamics of the drums.
So, usually when I mix overheads, I go for a minimalist approach, in fact more so than any other track for a whole project usually.

EQ: I'll give them a roloff around 80-90Hz to help stop any phase issues that may exist with lower pitched parts of the kit like toms and kick. Don't boost the highs. I know it's natural to want to. You can easily make a good sounding set of cymbals harsh and brittle. I'd only boost highs with a good hardware EQ. usually 12k+ range. Again, it's usually not even needed.

Compression: Slow attack! something like 60-120ms. Release depending on the song's tempo. Usually equal to the 1/4 beat time. Ratio 2:1 to 4:1, nothing too drastic. Unless you want that "compressed" sound, but I doubt that you will because it'll make it more evident that the recording was done in a small untreated room.

Effects: Verb. Tasty, small amounts of realistic verb. Maybe a convolution of a good studio room with about 350ms of decay for a 125 bpm song (no math there, just a guestimate of what I'd do).

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I just get the kit sounding it's best in the OHs. Parametric sweeps followed by cuts to take out the sludge and the unwanted rings. Perhaps some light blanked (2:1 and below, low-med threshold) compression to pull the kit together, and I'm good to go.

G.

 

[xfinsterx]

Ill take the L and R's and duplicate them.

Ill put an eq across the dupes with a serious high pass so there are no lows or low mids (up to 1k). Then ill dip out some of the presency stuff (5-8k). Then add a high shelf starting at around 9-10k and boost it up till it sounds bright and pretty. Then whack both dupes back 3-5 db with a compressor, fast attack, fast release.

At that point turn those off, and get your kit sounding good using your initial overheads, and close mics.

Then to add some life in there ease in those bright overheads to taste.

Typicly, when drums are miced in small rooms i find myself rolling out alot of the boxy woofy shit from my overheads, and relying more on my close mics and reverb to get things sounding good.

 

[xstatic]

Some interesting suggestions here. Bad room or not, noone here really knows how good or bad your room actually sounds with your kit, your playing, your mics, placement etc... Personally, ditching the room mic altogether is just a silly suggestion to me. If you have the means to add the room mic, then I would do it. You don't have to use it, but at least the option is there. Personally, I would experiment with compressing the snot out of the room mic. Try a 6 or 10 to 1 ratio with a fairly fast attack and a medium release. Let that thing comp down to about 20 or more db of gain reduction. Then try lightly placing it in your drum mix. You could even try panning it slightly. You may find that it gives you a killer verb type sound that really adds a lot of dimension to your drums. As far as EQ'ing goes, experiment with a few boosts and cuts. See how it goes with your kit and how it effdects things at different volumes. There really isn't any right or wrong, only what sounds good and what doesn't. To me, the room mic itself may be very valuable since you are recording in what seems like a less than desirable room. It may be just what you need to give your drums the right flavor. It just depends on a whole list of variables including personal taste. For the overheads, I would try muting everything except the OH's and pretending they are the only two mics you have to make a good drum mix. You may find yourself shaving a little of the 4 to 10k region, and notching a bit of the 630hz area and then comping lightly to contain certain exaggerated dynamics based on your mic selection and room. Then try dropping that in with your close mics and listen to how the overall image widens and deepens.

The next time you track, you might want to experiment with moving your room mic a bit too. Try putting it down low to the floor and point it at the kick. Try putting it in cardiod about 6 feet away from the kit at head height and point it away form the kick at the back wall. You could also try putting it in the corner and point it away from the kit up high pointing into a corner where two walls and the ceiling meet. The "rules" are only there to be guidelines. If you are in a bad room, then using the rules to go for that "safe" sound probably won't work too well. Try different things and in return those will probably spawn new ideas that may prove to be useful and even give you ideas for other tracks (not drums) down the road

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to xstatic again.

Excellent post and suggestions, x .

G.

 

[TerraMortim]

When mixing drums, what are some routine things you do to make the room mic and the overheads sound better. i.e., compression, eq, etc.

I'm looking for what you do after it's already tracked. I don't need a lecture about mic choice and placement.

I use 2 Octava mc-012's as the overheads and an SP B1 as the room. It's a shitty room, 12' x 12', drywalled, with almost nothing in terms of treatment.

it depends on what sound you want. one really odd thing that I've tried for room micing is putting two RE20s just below chest height at the far edges of the room. Then when it comes to mix (believe it or not..the RE20s are so good that you hardly even need the other mics (except for a little of the overheads for cymbals... that is if you want a really aggressive sound), I will ususally send the room mics to a bus, compress the crap out of them, throw them through a distortion plugin or actually physical distortion pedal. (on a lighter distortion setting) and then mix it in with the rest of the drums. Overheads, I ususally just EQ it so it's mostly cymbals so that I can control them more easily. However, if you're room sounds terrible, results may vary. Really, undfortunately, with room mics, your room is king. It has to sound good in the room or it'll be hard to get the room mics to sound good (it's possible tho). If you're room is terrible, I would try more close micing and maybe throwing some impulse responses on it of a better room. If you want I can send you a few impulse responses I did of the drum room I've been working in (just PM me)

 

[TerraMortim]

Some interesting suggestions here. Bad room or not, noone here really knows how good or bad your room actually sounds with your kit, your playing, your mics, placement etc... Personally, ditching the room mic altogether is just a silly suggestion to me. If you have the means to add the room mic, then I would do it. You don't have to use it, but at least the option is there. Personally, I would experiment with compressing the snot out of the room mic. Try a 6 or 10 to 1 ratio with a fairly fast attack and a medium release. Let that thing comp down to about 20 or more db of gain reduction. Then try lightly placing it in your drum mix. You could even try panning it slightly. You may find that it gives you a killer verb type sound that really adds a lot of dimension to your drums. As far as EQ'ing goes, experiment with a few boosts and cuts. See how it goes with your kit and how it effdects things at different volumes. There really isn't any right or wrong, only what sounds good and what doesn't. To me, the room mic itself may be very valuable since you are recording in what seems like a less than desirable room. It may be just what you need to give your drums the right flavor. It just depends on a whole list of variables including personal taste. For the overheads, I would try muting everything except the OH's and pretending they are the only two mics you have to make a good drum mix. You may find yourself shaving a little of the 4 to 10k region, and notching a bit of the 630hz area and then comping lightly to contain certain exaggerated dynamics based on your mic selection and room. Then try dropping that in with your close mics and listen to how the overall image widens and deepens.

The next time you track, you might want to experiment with moving your room mic a bit too. Try putting it down low to the floor and point it at the kick. Try putting it in cardiod about 6 feet away from the kit at head height and point it away form the kick at the back wall. You could also try putting it in the corner and point it away from the kit up high pointing into a corner where two walls and the ceiling meet. The "rules" are only there to be guidelines. If you are in a bad room, then using the rules to go for that "safe" sound probably won't work too well. Try different things and in return those will probably spawn new ideas that may prove to be useful and even give you ideas for other tracks (not drums) down the road

that's defi9nately true too...if you can record it, might as well. Nowadays you pretty much have unlimited recordings you can do, due to big hard drives and what not. The worst that could happen is you wouldn't use it.

 

[giraffe]

i record drums in a 12X12 box too, though mine is treated to the best of my personal ability.

that's a tough room, i really don't see that room mic being of much use.

like finster said, cut some "boxy" crap, in my room it's almost always between say 450-550. but like i said mine has some absorbtion.
couldn't hurt to try.

i hi pass the ovrs at like 200-250 (usually) and then compress a little.

 

[travelin travis]

When mixing drums, what are some routine things you do to make the room mic and the overheads sound better. i.e., compression, eq, etc.

I'm looking for what you do after it's already tracked. I don't need a lecture about mic choice and placement.

I use 2 Octava mc-012's as the overheads and an SP B1 as the room. It's a shitty room, 12' x 12', drywalled, with almost nothing in terms of treatment.

Do you have a hard floor? A cloud above the kit might do some good. Maybe a couple of gobo/broadband absorbers too.

 

[mixsit]

Ill take the L and R's and duplicate them.

Ill put an eq across the dupes with a serious high pass so there are no lows or low mids (up to 1k). Then ill dip out some of the presency stuff (5-8k). Then add a high shelf starting at around 9-10k and boost it up till it sounds bright and pretty. Then whack both dupes back 3-5 db with a compressor, fast attack, fast release.

At that point turn those off, and get your kit sounding good using your initial overheads, and close mics.

Then to add some life in there ease in those bright overheads to taste.

Candy!

 

[ez_willis]

Here's a partial mp3 of the drum tracks for my last song.

The drums alone are named CMR Drums, the entire track is Catch My Recovery.

Here are a couple pics of the kit/room. They may or may not give you an idea of the room.

 

[ez_willis]

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