Snare in overheads

[ecktronic]

That's friendly for Greg.

Yeah I suppose it is.
There is nothing wrong with being straight up, but you tend to word things a bit too harsh in my opinion.

G

 

[Greg_L]

Yeah I suppose it is.
There is nothing wrong with being straight up, but you tend to word things a bit too harsh in my opinion.

G

You tend to give impractical and/or bad advice in my opinion.

 

[loveofjazz]

Dude, everything with recording drums is simple concepts coupled with difficult execution. There are no magic tricks, settings, or techniques. Every player, drum, and room is different. Focus on the fundamentals: room, performance, tuning, and mic placement, and the rest takes care of itself. If your toms sound bad when recorded, you gotta start at the source. Are they being played well? Struck properly? Do the toms sound good? Good heads? Good tuning? Are the close mics in a good spot to capture attack and body without drowning in bleed? Are the overheads set up properly with care and attention to detail? Does the room sound like boxy and reflective shit? If all of that is good, then you're like 95% there. In the mix you can adjust levels, EQ, compress, gate, and massage as needed to get the sound you want. It's gotta start out good though.

THIS....This is applicable across the board for pretty much ANYthing you're doing.
A very useful reminder for any of us that get too wrapped up in the technology available.

 

[aaronmcoleman]

I was just reading some stuff about Wilco recording...They did their first couple albums (great sounds!) through a 24 track mackie board to ADAT, sm7b on vocals, sm57s on most everything else, and not a ton of outboard stuff. Sounds awesome. They didn't even compress the master buss very often and hardly used any EQ on Being There, Summerteeth, and YHF. Very impressive.

They also had some super top notch stuff for their last couple of albums, and I can't honestly hear an improvement in the sound.

Great recordings are not the product of great gear. Taking the time to get sounds right from the start is what great recordings are all about.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

THIS....This is applicable across the board for pretty much ANYthing you're doing.

Other than mixing tracks you didn't record and can't redo. Which is the subject of this thread.

 

[SlowerHand]

In response to the original question: would it help to duck either the problematic OH, or maybe both OHs, behind the snare track? That should get it centered, right?

 

[sixer2007]

In response to the original question: would it help to duck either the problematic OH, or maybe both OHs, behind the snare track? That should get it centered, right?

Hey, that seems like a pretty good thought! Nice and simple. I'll see how it works on there...

 

[grimtraveller]

I'm only sleeping !

Hey everyone, I have a bit of an issue and I'm not sure how to deal with it.
I have some tracks that I didn't actually record, so i'm just mixing them.

At the start, it seemed really urgent, like this was a project you were doing for someone and it ended up with some sniping and fighting, only for you to then admit that

I only downloaded those tracks to mix so I have not much of a clue how they were recorded in the first place,

:
You should be one of those guys that dreams up great headlines for the newspapers !
That said, a couple of interesting things came out of it all so I regard it as a good thread.

 

[FesteringVomit]

I guess someone has suggested this, but why not push the right OVH track more to the center?
Yes, the cymbals that are in that track will push to the middle and it unbalance the whole drum mix, but it could be cure

 

[rocksure]

I would narrow the panning of the overheads myself. I would also try adding an additional snare sample to the original snare and bring the level of the O/H's down a bit. May or may not work, but worth trying.

 

[allegro1650]

Time align the snare mic to the overheads and it might work better to pull the snare back to center.

Narrowing the image can also help. In real life the only one who hears it that wide is the drummer. It will still be stereo unless you pan both tracks center, just not such a wide image.

A gate will probably do exactly the opposite of what you want, open on snare hits and close for cymbals.

It may also help if you flip the phase on the close-miked snare, and use a gate to duck the overhead on snare hits; the snare's phase will cancel somewhat in the OH... keep in mind that it'll never be perfect. There will be too much room tone (even in a booth) to get an edgy clean snare sound.

For me, the appeal of a live drum recording is the very fact that a live musician is playing, rather than a drum sample or drum machine. Why not use it as an advantage? Use the OH's to establish the sound stage, pan the close mics to their respective positions, time-align them, get a good volume level, a little limiting for punch and leave 'em there. If the drums are tuned and EQ'ed well (assuming a competent drummer on the throne), the mix will be good.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

It may also help if you flip the phase on the close-miked snare

Polarity, not phase. Unless you're using an old mic that's pin3=hot or a mis-wired cable or micing from under the snare odds are polarity will be correct. But it is something you need to confirm if you're time aligning.