Why bother micing toms ?

R

ripingitar

New member
I recently began recording my bands cd .. Micd all the drums plus 2 overheads .. now that im mixing im finding on ALL of my tracks toms are plenty loud enough in overheads ... so im wondering whyd I take all this time micing toms ?? but i guess its easy to take em out if ya dont need them then try and put em in after ? but next time I think im going with 4 mics ..instead of 7 .. any of you experience this ?
 
Yeah, I usually get the toms thru my OH's pretty well but anymore I mic em and then mix in just a touch of each tom for a little extra definition.

Or maybe I just hit em like a sissy. :D
 
I usually do it if I would need the toms to punch through a dense mix, but it all depends on the music, the drummer, the sound of the drums (tuning, head selection, etc) the room, etc.
 
Just learning about the "recorderman" way of setting up overheads really negated any thoughts of micing toms. I have not in years anyway.
I had a big drum sound before now they sound huge. :D :D :D
 
I'm discovering I can get useable tracks with kick drum and OHs. My latest mp3 upload was done with one kick and one OH. But maybe YOU can tell ME if it's good enough. See my recent MP3 Clinic post about live band in a bar.
 
Depends what you want to do, as well. Listen to FZ's Joe's Garage. The toms are panned in ridiculous ways, for effect. Not gonna happen with just OH mics.
 
boingoman said:
Depends what you want to do, as well. Listen to FZ's Joe's Garage. The toms are panned in ridiculous ways, for effect. Not gonna happen with just OH mics.
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Yah true. I should have added that I'm recording bands live at gigs and my goal is to make it clear to the listener that it's a live recording.
 
EddieRay said:
Yah true. I should have added that I'm recording bands live at gigs and my goal is to make it clear to the listener that it's a live recording.
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Yeah, I tend to fake the sound of stereo OHs with panning, even when I close-mic. Just sounds more natural.
 
I think most would agree most of a recorded drum sound is captured in the overheads (except the kick). Close mic'ing simply allows you to dial in a little more attack if needed.

However, for live recording, the norm is to close mic (for seperation) and not use overheads (the front line vocal mic's tend to pick up the cymbals fine.
 
Does anyone else just want the overheads to pick up the cymbals and hats etc?? i tend to have my o/h's pretty close to the center of my cymbals each side of me and then have the mics pointing 60 degrees off axis so it doesnt capture too much of the sounds of the drums?
 
It depends on the Drum set to some Degree and Mic placement... some drummers have there Cymbols very High above there Toms so the Mics have to be very high which makes it so you don"t pick up the Toms as much....

I just want my overheads to pick up the Cymbols and my snare picks up the Hi-Hat, and it is good to have the Toms miced especially if you like to pan your toms as I find it harder to get a Good Tome pan with just overheads as both Overheads seem to pick up both toms allmost equally which doesn"t work well for Panning....

Also if your Overheads have a Cardoid setting useing it might make it so you pick up more cymbols than toms because of the Proximity effect (Cymbols are closer to the mic than the Toms).....


Cheers
 
mics on toms.

sometimes you want the low end that overs can't get, sometimes you are going to sample replace them and need them on individual tracks, sometimes you just need more volume/tonal control.
sometimes it's just not necessary.

left hand blue.
 
It allows you to have more control and you can get a better sound out of the toms. It allows you to alter the toms without the cymbals being affected. In my opinion if you have a lot of mics you shlould mic everything seperately.
 
Rico 52 said:
Just learning about the "recorderman" way of setting up overheads really negated any thoughts of micing toms. I have not in years anyway.
I had a big drum sound before now they sound huge. :D :D :D
Click to expand...



hmm??? linky?
 
giraffe said:
sometimes you want the low end that overs can't get, sometimes you are going to sample replace them and need them on individual tracks, sometimes you just need more volume/tonal control.
sometimes it's just not necessary.

left hand blue.
Click to expand...

Exact-a-mundo!!!!!
 
ripingitar said:
I recently began recording my bands cd .. Micd all the drums plus 2 overheads .. now that im mixing im finding on ALL of my tracks toms are plenty loud enough in overheads ... so im wondering whyd I take all this time micing toms ?? but i guess its easy to take em out if ya dont need them then try and put em in after ? but next time I think im going with 4 mics ..instead of 7 .. any of you experience this ?
Click to expand...
why have tom mics?

because i like to buy mics! the more mics the better!
 
I always mic each drum individually, and have at least one overhead (if not two).

FWIW, I do 24 track live recording exclusively. I saw that a previous poster mentioned not using overheads because the front line vox get the cymbals - this is only true some of the time. There have been instances when I have not needed an overhead because the drummer slams the cymbals like a maniac (Craig Krampf!) but I always try to have one handy just in case. A lot of times in mixdown my overhead channel is pretty low, relative to the rest of the kit. It's definitely nice to have though - you never know when you'll need it!
 
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