Stereo Mic Drum Overhead

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witzendoz

witzendoz

Senior Member
A few weeks back I bought a MXL V67Q stereo mic, it was on special at a price I could not resist and being a gear junkie I had to buy it. I have been waiting for a drum session so I could try it out as a stereo overhead. Well this week I recorded and mixed a project with drums and I used the MXL, there results have been very good, the mic has a 90 deg XY pattern so that phase problems are reduced, and I am usually a spaced pair person so it was interesting using thsi mic.

I think that this Mic would be a solution to a lot of newbies that are trying to get a drum sound and are having trouble with overheads and phase issues.

Alan.
 
I'm a huge fan of X-Y overheads, but you've got to get it low enough or the image gets pretty narrow. Some drummers swing their sticks too high to let me get the mic where I like it. I rotate it a bit on the vertical axis to put the snare in the center of the image.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I'm a huge fan of X-Y overheads, but you've got to get it low enough or the image gets pretty narrow. Some drummers swing their sticks too high to let me get the mic where I like it. I rotate it a bit on the vertical axis to put the snare in the center of the image.
Click to expand...

I placed it off centre a little towards the snare not in the centre of the kick, this seemed to work, I had the mic about 3' above the top of the kick maybe 6' off the floor from memory as I did not measure it, I tried to make it so that the 90 deg covered the outer cymbals and it seemed to work in this case.

Alan.
 
Being a gear junkie, do you also happen to have a regular V67? Just wondered how the sound compared between the two.
 
notCardio said:
Being a gear junkie, do you also happen to have a regular V67? Just wondered how the sound compared between the two.
Click to expand...

I do have a V67G, but to be honest I have not compared the sound between the two. I would treat these mics as very different animals. I did try the Stereo mic on guitar and it sounded pretty good, but I would for example not use it on vocals as I would never want stereo vocals.

There is a difference in the diaphragm size, the regular 67 has a 1.26' size the 67Q has 2 x .87" diaphragms. So the Q is more of a medium diaphragm mic x2. Therefore if you used the Q as a mono mic I would expect it to sound different.

Alan
 
I like getting my main drum sound from a stereo mic. Usually an AKG C426b or Royer SF12. But I don't use them "overhead"; closer to front-of-kit. Set about shoulder high pointing across the kick with the snare centered about 4' away from the kit. In a good room, all I might need to supplement is a kick mic (RE20 inside or FET47 out). Depending on the song/style/player you may need to add more individual mics for the type of music you're producing, but for most styles if you can't get a really good drum sound with the basic set-up, then you've got bigger problems than the mics.
 
I have the MXL V63M stereo mic. I tried using it for over heads and didn't get very good results. I probably had the mic up very high, above the snare.

I've also tried the mic on toms, no good, don't bother.

I get decent results on acoustic guitar, pointed halfway between bridge and sound hole. Or I've done over the shoulder with it, and one of the samson's pointed at the 12 fret and akg 414 at the bridge.

I find this very interesting, because I've been using Samson Co 2's in recorder-man set up, and it doesn't sound very good. I've followed the instructions to a "T". Might be the drums themselves (PDP's & cheap Zildian ZBT cymbals.) Each time the drummer adjusts the heads, (Evans on snare and toms, Remo Pin stripe on kik)

So if I were to try the V63m again, where would be a good starting point?
 
Here's what I do:

drums-xy-angle.webp

The angle and the small kit make the mics look higher than they are:

Waldhoff kit left.webp
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Here's what I do:

The angle and the small kit make the mics look higher than they are:
Click to expand...

Thats about the height I had the V67Q, I noticed that you have the XY axis turned, good idea, I will give that a try with the V67Q next time I have a kit in the studio as I usually do this with the spaced pairs. I problem I always have is that the clients are always in a hurry to get going and I don't get much time to set the kit up sound wise, I will try to get a mate over to play my studio kit and do some experimenting if I can get some time free (unlikely at the moment). Spent most of the last session trying to get the actual drummers kit to sound good before i placed a mic on it. Why do drummers turn up at a studio with worn out skins and the drums tuned up tight to within an inch of their lives? However as I said before the V67Q did a good job in this case.


Alan.
 
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