SDC or LDC for drum overheads?

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Chill

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Do you like small diaphragm condensers or large diaphragm condensers for drum overheads? -why? Or if you like both, what situations do you like them for and why? (and maybe you like dynamics for overheads...you guessed it: why?)
 
Drum overheads hafta pick up sound coming in from a lot of different places. The question is, do you want accuracy (SDC), or flattery(LDC)? While LDC's can be very flattering on axis, the off axis response can get weird. That means you have to be more careful in your selection and placement of LDC's for use as an overheads. SDC's are easier to use to get a somewhat accurate idea of what's going on.
 
What he said..... :)

I've always gone with X/Y SDCs for overheads, and spaced LDCs for room mics. In the mix I typically end up using only a little of the room mics, and a lot of the OHs.
 
For me it depends on how I mic the rest of the set. If the drums require precision, I give 'en all a mic and throw up a pair of large for OH. If it's only rock and roll (and I like it) or less clean stuff, I'll do kick ,snare(top and bottom) and use sdc's. Feel free to bash, or correct me....
 
The actual large size of the diaphragm creates acoustic shadows which block some of the signal coming in from off axis. The frequency response changes dramatically and can cause the sound to be either hollow, muffled, peaked, or all of the above.
 
i've done enough drum mic'ing now to safely say that i prefer SDC's, usually in a spaced pair

but that's just me
 
Harvey Gerst said:
The actual large size of the diaphragm creates acoustic shadows which block some of the signal coming in from off axis. The frequency response changes dramatically and can cause the sound to be either hollow, muffled, peaked, or all of the above.
Click to expand...

Harvey, would these effects be lessened if the mic's were higher up of of the kit? (making the entire kit "on axis")
 
To a small degree, yes, but when you move the mic further away from the kit, room reflections get louder and they're also coming in from off axis.
 
to echo Harvey's points in another way........the answer for me is "it depends on what kind of drum sound i'm going for". i use both (or either) all the time. sometimes i want the accuracy of the SDCs (which respond more quickly) and sometimes i want the flattery of the LDC.

with SDCs, though, i tend to go with omnis rather than cardiods.

with LDCs, instead of going up above the drummer's head and looking down, i tend to mic the kit from above and slightly in front, facing back towards the drummer. sometimes, though, i'll mic the kit from behind.

sometimes i'll do a spaced pair of SDCs (wide L and R) and a mono LDC in the middle.

the real meat of my drum sound, though, typically comes from the mono "front of kit" mic.......about 6ft in front of the kit, usually about 4ft high.

it's a lot like vocals--the same drum micing setup isn't going to work for every single song. some songs will need all the toms to be miked, some songs will require little more than a kick, snare and mono overhead.


cheers,
wade
 
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