"overhead"

T

triple-zero

New member
right... let me set the scene:- your recording your bands first demo on a TASCAM 488 (8track) and your on a very limited budget. All you have to record with are 2 Shure SM58s and an old AKG vocal mic [that's for drums and vocals]. You use 1 of the SM58s for vocals. That leaves you 2 mics to record the yor drums with.... obviously nowhere near ideal but you want to get the best sound possible from you limited gear.... the big question: what do you do with/where do you put your two vocals mics? {with the heads screwed off}


????


***just thought I'd add the kit set up:

DRUMS: Pearl ELX
10" Rack Tom
14" Floor Tom
22" Kick
13" Pearl Piccolo Snare
CYMBALS:
16" Sabain AAX studio crash
20" Zildjian A ping ride
18" Stagg DH Brilliant rock crash
14" Zildjian ZXT trash former
18" Zildjian ZXT total china
14" Zildjian quik-beats hats
 
Well,

What model is the AKG?

Here is what I would do:


Make sure the kit sounds awesome!

Use one 58 on the kick drum.

Take the AKG, and put it directly over the drummer's head (from behind the drumkit - using a boom mic stand) and aim it either the top of the drummers head, or at the drummer's "kick drum knee".

Then, the center of the overhead mic's field of pickup will be right around the middle of the kit .

Then, put the other 58 on the snare.

Use 3 tracks for the drumkit (the foundation of the music) and don't worry about "stereo" panning the drumkit.

When you mix, just scoop out 3 to 6 decibels of the mids, with the EQ centered around 750 Hz to 1khz.

Use your guitar tracks to set the "stereo" field.

Place the Kick, Snare, and bass guitar dead center when you mix, pan your overhead to "11 o'clock" (i.e., off-center by 1 mark)

so, your rhythym section will take up 4 tracks.

1. Kick
2. Snare
3. Overhead
4. Bass Guitar
5. Guitar
6. Guitar
7. Vocals
8. Vocals (or whatever else you need the extra track for)

Do you have any outboard gear at all? (i.e., effects units, EQ, or outboard gear like a rackmount compressor/gate.)




Tim
 
thanks for all that...we have a guitar pod...... works as outboard fx.... has reverb, compresser, chorus, flange
 
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Mic the drums with a single 58. I've tried recording my similar drumset with a Rode NT2, a pair of SM81's, and many 57's and 58's - sometimes alone, often altogether. Even with close mics on every drum and carefully submixing it all to two tracks, I never got the balanced sound I could achieve with a single 58.

I tune the kick a little tighter than most. Batter head is pretty floppy, but the resonant head is tight-tight-tight! Snare is pretty average - not real floppy or deep, yet not in the piccolo realm. Think Stewart Copeland. Toms are really deep and muffled - this helps them sit in the mix a little better.

Drive the 58 as hard as you can at the mixer, and just do it!

I hate mixdown. You can spend a lot of time tinkering with snare sounds, compressed kick drums, smooth/even overheads, stereo imaging, whatever. Some of the best drum sounds in the history of recorded rock and roll were recorded with one and two mics.

I've also had really good luck running both preamp and delay pedals right inline with the 58 and tracking the effect to tape.

Have fun!
 
cheers :) recording today so i think gonna have to go with one 58 overhead, one 58 in the kick and just tune the kit to make it sound amazing. [I'm gonna need the other 6 tracks for the other instruments - we are a only three piece but we need two vocal tracks and two guitar tracks and a bass track. Plus one track for my new drum machine!] I'd love to mic-up the snare but I dont have the spare track:(
 
well...

have you considered bouncing tracks?? Then you could just record the snare and just mix the drums to one track then record some other parts later. Hell, you could record the drums first and get a couple more mics and you have 8 tracks to do it in, so use them then mix the drums, then put all the other stuff over it... That is what i would do, and do pretty much do, but i have a multitrack program and interface... so i just don't bounce tracks.
 
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