Overheads are weird.

[Symph]

I hope this hasn't been asked/covered too extensively, I looked around a little but Im lazy... Basically, overheads make very little sense to me. What do I do with them? Do I want them to add to the tones of the kick and snare and toms? Do you hi pass filter until just the cymbals come through? I'm also not sure what makes a better reference to start with, the overheads or the individual mics. I tend to get my individual tracks where I want them, but then have no idea what to do with the overheads. They always make me feel like they destroy the punchy qualities I had with my other tracks/mics. What is a general compression ball park for what you're looking for in them? I feel like they either sound tiny and thin or they wash over everything else. Any tips for helping them sit right? I use Drummica and Addictive Drums, so "recording them better" isn't an option, and I tend to find them very mid-heavy in these programs. When I cut out the mid though I fear I've lost something... maybe I'm over thinking, I just can't seem to get overheads right.

 

[Mack Caster]

Depending on what mics you choose, it can make a lot of difference. First of all, you need to pick the mics suited for this type of application. Some will all in certain parts from this track recording at a lower mixing level to add some width, body, thickness or however you want to say it. You can check out this article that deals with your question here. Just keep in mind it is just someones opinion but it does go into some detail.

This video goes into a little bit of using these mics for the drums.

 

[gecko zzed]

Overheads give a sense of space to drum kits. They also present the sound of the kit as a whole, not as a series of components.

What has confused me totally is you reference to Drummica and Addictive Drums.

 

[ashcat_lt]

These are drum VSTis that have outputs for each mic on and around the kit. Been around for years. It's not anything different than the tracks you'd record on a real kit, except you don't get to go back and change mics or positions.

In EZ/Superior Drummer, I more often than not just solo the room mic. Maybe bring in some of the close kick. With real drums I prefer to use the overheads or room mics as the bulk of the sound, especially if I get to place them where I think they work best. But that's just because it gets the sound I'm shooting for in most of what I do.

You can and will get a much different sound by focusing on the close mics. That is completely valid in some genres. In that case, I think I'd tend to use as little as possible of the OH, mostly to fill out the cymbals a little and add some air and glue.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

What you do with the overheads depends largely on whether they're recorded as cymbal close mics or overall kit mics. If they're just cymbal mics then the bleed from the other drums should be low enough that you can treat them as separate sources and mix at will. If they're kit mics then it may benefit you to start the kit sound with overheads and kick, then fill in with the other close mics.

 

[gecko zzed]

These are drum VSTis that have outputs for each mic on and around the kit. Been around for years.

I've been around for years as well. But in all that time I seemed to have missed that feature. You live and learn!

 

[mjbphotos]

In EZ Drummer 2, you can adjust the bleed to both the snare mics and overheads - zero the OHs and you get only the cymbals. Which sounds very weird in a mix, unless the room mic is used. I zero the room mic and use a reverb to match the other instruments, and leave the bleed up on the OHs.

 

[witzendoz]

The overheads completely make the drum sound. I do carry out some hi pass filtering up the low end of low mid type frequencies, this is usually to take out some of the kick mud from picking up the shell of the drum from above (I also often use an acoustic blanket on top of the kit drum to reduce this).

The trick is to get the placing of the overheads correct before hitting record, checking the phase relationship of the close mics and the overheads, spend time on this as I often find that the overheads need to be out of phase to the close mics but again this depends on the distance the overheads are from the close mics so there are no rules.

If using a spaced pair make sure the overheads are equal distance from the snare. Don't be afraid to lower the height of the overheads if there is too much room for the sound you want, or even raise them if you want a more open sound. I sometimes compress the overheads when mixing (not tracking) but if depends on the type of sound wanted and the players hitting style.

Alan.

 

[JimmyS1969]

The overheads completely make the drum sound. I do carry out some hi pass filtering up the low end of low mid type frequencies, this is usually to take out some of the kick mud from picking up the shell of the drum from above (I also often use an acoustic blanket on top of the kit drum to reduce this).

The trick is to get the placing of the overheads correct before hitting record, checking the phase relationship of the close mics and the overheads, spend time on this as I often find that the overheads need to be out of phase to the close mics but again this depends on the distance the overheads are from the close mics so there are no rules.

If using a spaced pair make sure the overheads are equal distance from the snare. Don't be afraid to lower the height of the overheads if there is too much room for the sound you want, or even raise them if you want a more open sound. I sometimes compress the overheads when mixing (not tracking) but if depends on the type of sound wanted and the players hitting style.

Alan.

Yep.

And I can't spread rep because I have been too busy to give lately. That sounded strange...

 

[ashcat_lt]

Yep.

Pretty sure the guys at Addictive Drums have that covered.

 

[Symph]

WOW... ok I'm definitely just not getting alert notifications for some reason, I went all this time thinking no one was responding but goodness! So many responses! Yeah I guess I should have made it clearer I have no real drumset I use VST's, drummica and Addictive Drums, I did not know I could change the mic placement on AD either! I think on Drummica they have the "isolated cymbals" kind of feel and in addictive drums it's the "whole kit" feel, blending them in addictive drums has been a pain for me cause I get the cymbals how I want them but then I feel they change the tone of the other sounds. One of you mentioned putting the overheads in before the close mic'd individual parts, that's something I've never really tried, I might give that approach a shot.

I think what bugs me is that when I listen to a professional recording I really sense that the cymbals are a part of the kit, it seems like it all works together, but I feel like I never achieve this, they're always either a difficult to hear element that I've pushed down to let the other parts be heard, or they are a distraction swallowing my whole kit. I wonder if resonant peak sweeping would be in order, I just learned about that like 2 days ago, it may help getting the mid frequencies out of the overheads.

I don't see a way to tag but witzendoz that was really helpful, I've never thought of overheads in that way, always thought I was supposed to just place them on top of everything once everything else was in place, thinking of them as more foundational could be helpful. Do you have a reference you could point me to about checking phase and all that? I've tried to learn but it's still not fully making sense to me in a practical way. Meaning, I understand what phase IS and I understand how to invert it, I even understand somewhat how to hear when something is out of phase, but people say they will go through an entire mix and fix phase issues across the board before they even start mixing. I'm just not sure like... what am I checking for? I use reaper, isn't there some sort of phase checking software in there or something? Sorry to sound like a noob, I'm technically not one but at the same time I am, since I've always only recorded by feel and just recently wanted to UNDERSTAND what I was doing haha

 

[ashcat_lt]

I'm also pretty sure the folks who sampled these drums used proper techniques and spacing to avoid too much in the way of real phase interaction problems. These are well-paid professional engineers in good-if-not-great-sounding rooms using the right mics in the right place to get real good sounds that can work in a number of different ways. You usually don't really get to move the mics. You can sometimes swap out drums, but you don't get any control of the recording chain itself. By the time you're mixing, you've basically just got a set of drum tracks that were recorded by somebody else and you do with them what you can. And frankly, they should be pretty close to ready right out of the box.

Assuming that you can't retrack, it kind of doesn't matter whether it was AddictiveDrums or like the band went to a decent studio to track drums. The problem for me trying to give advice here is that I can't hear their tracks, nor the mix they're meant to sit in. You have to listen to what you've got and make your decisions about what direction you're going to take it and then work it out from there.

But actually there ARE a couple extra tricks you get with this software. mjbphoto's hint with the bleed controls is a good one. I've been known at times to render the tracks to audio in two separate passes - one without cymbals (not OH's, the drums themselves, mute the MIDI), and another that's only cymbals. Here you can not only change the relative level of the bleed, but also process (EQ, compress...) independently.

But do make sure it's not actually a performance issue. Maybe you just need to adjust the velocities of the various hits relative to one another. Like, if the cymbals aren't loud enough without too much tom bleed, you're either not hitting the cymbal hard enough, or hitting the tom too hard. Maybe?

But yeah, depends what you're trying to do. If you're compressing and gating and EQing each individual close mic to get that hyperreal larger than life thing happening, then maybe you're better off without any bleed. If you're looking for real natural "kit in a room" kind of sound, it's usually a lot better to build around the overheads, assuming they were placed with that intent and the drummer mixed itself reasonably well.

 

[Symph]

I'm also pretty sure the folks who sampled these drums used proper techniques and spacing to avoid too much in the way of real phase interaction problems. These are well-paid professional engineers in good-if-not-great-sounding rooms using the right mics in the right place to get real good sounds that can work in a number of different ways. You usually don't really get to move the mics. You can sometimes swap out drums, but you don't get any control of the recording chain itself. By the time you're mixing, you've basically just got a set of drum tracks that were recorded by somebody else and you do with them what you can. And frankly, they should be pretty close to ready right out of the box.

Assuming that you can't retrack, it kind of doesn't matter whether it was AddictiveDrums or like the band went to a decent studio to track drums. The problem for me trying to give advice here is that I can't hear their tracks, nor the mix they're meant to sit in. You have to listen to what you've got and make your decisions about what direction you're going to take it and then work it out from there.

But actually there ARE a couple extra tricks you get with this software. mjbphoto's hint with the bleed controls is a good one. I've been known at times to render the tracks to audio in two separate passes - one without cymbals (not OH's, the drums themselves, mute the MIDI), and another that's only cymbals. Here you can not only change the relative level of the bleed, but also process (EQ, compress...) independently.

But do make sure it's not actually a performance issue. Maybe you just need to adjust the velocities of the various hits relative to one another. Like, if the cymbals aren't loud enough without too much tom bleed, you're either not hitting the cymbal hard enough, or hitting the tom too hard. Maybe?

But yeah, depends what you're trying to do. If you're compressing and gating and EQing each individual close mic to get that hyperreal larger than life thing happening, then maybe you're better off without any bleed. If you're looking for real natural "kit in a room" kind of sound, it's usually a lot better to build around the overheads, assuming they were placed with that intent and the drummer mixed itself reasonably well.

Yeah that makes sense, I haven't been able to do any tinkering cause my wife's computer is the one I have to use to record right now and she needs it today, I think more than anything I'm just gonna see what happens when I put the overheads in first and blend the individual mics to that. I'll be posting examples of what I'm working on eventually but I just don't want to ask for a "mix critique" until I feel like I've done all I'm capable of doing with it. I THINK my velocities are ok, I always go through and try to tweak to make it more even and natural before adding other instruments (I do drums first) The last thing you said, about compressing/gating/eq'ing each individual track kinda hit me. I've been putting everything, overheads and all through a buss, and then eq'ing compressing it all as a whole, suddenly this hits me as dumb lol I mean... different sounds are gonna need different things, hell my problem with overheads may be that they're eq'd like the rest of the kit! Just hearing other's perspectives on it gets me thinking outside my usual box and that's a good thing, so thanks again

 

[witzendoz]

I keep forgetting that nobody records real drums these days LOL.

Alan.

 

[Symph]

I keep forgetting that nobody records real drums these days LOL.

Alan.

Man I would if I could! I am a guitarist primarily but I find jamming on a drumset to be more fun than playing guitar, but living in a little 1 bedroom apartment and having no drumset and 2 mics well.... it's gonna a be a while before that can happen haha Well and who am I kidding, I can jam out live on a set pretty well but playing to a click? Pffft, I need quantization lol

 

[witzendoz]

I understand, well back to the original question with sampled drums,

If the overheads are causing a lack of punch try not putting as much overhead in the mix, still try what I suggested with the low mid low cut. Get the drum mix happening without the overheads then bring them in so that you can hear the cymbals. When you have done this mute the close mics and see what the kit sounds like with the overheads only. Then bring in the kick, snare and toms one at a time and see what changes. How are the overheads panned? Maybe try narrowing the stereo so that the overheads are not fully paned left and right? Or try widening the pan if this is not working, also check the panning of the other drums in relation to the overheads, remember if there is a spaced pair the ride overhead will be above the floor tom so the pan should be similar. Same goes with the snare /hi hat / crash cymbal side. Picture the kit from above.

I think like this with a real drum kit so I imagine that the kits you are working with have been recorded in a similar fashion.

So how that goes.

Alan.

 

[Mack Caster]

I keep forgetting that nobody records real drums these days LOL.Alan.

With the advancement of electronic kits and the way audio is consumed in 2017, it seems that this may be the way of the future. One kit that has a good simulation of 20 combined sets, each head having its own input, no wonder. I know that many Churches are going this way so they can control the volume for the mains.

 

[Symph]

I understand, well back to the original question with sampled drums,

If the overheads are causing a lack of punch try not putting as much overhead in the mix, still try what I suggested with the low mid low cut. Get the drum mix happening without the overheads then bring them in so that you can hear the cymbals. When you have done this mute the close mics and see what the kit sounds like with the overheads only. Then bring in the kick, snare and toms one at a time and see what changes. How are the overheads panned? Maybe try narrowing the stereo so that the overheads are not fully paned left and right? Or try widening the pan if this is not working, also check the panning of the other drums in relation to the overheads, remember if there is a spaced pair the ride overhead will be above the floor tom so the pan should be similar. Same goes with the snare /hi hat / crash cymbal side. Picture the kit from above.

I think like this with a real drum kit so I imagine that the kits you are working with have been recorded in a similar fashion.

So how that goes.

Alan.

I totally understood all of that and can't wait for my wife to go to bed so I can try it hahahaha It's literally the final piece to this mix I've been on the verge of finishing, thanks guys I'm really surprised at how quick and helpful this site has been already!

 

[cavedog101]

I keep forgetting that nobody records real drums these days LOL.

Alan.

Now now, some do.....That doesn't mean they aren't "enhanced" eventually.