Hi,
I am going to try and track drums day after in my small recording room
(10x10 feet). fortunately, the band listens to me and is willing to
spend time and experiment (at least till the neighbours start
yelling!).

the drummer set up the kit today and we tried a few micing situations.

this is what I have :

1 Oktava MC012 matched stereo pair (hypercardiod)
1 SM57
1 Beta 57A
1 Beta 58A
1 NT1A

I am using the Beta57A inside the kik or lack of a better choice, ill
mostly hire out the Sure Beta52 on the day of the session, or ill go
for replacement surgery with the kik.

4 inputs into my recording interface, can muster 3 cheap and 4 very
cheap mic pres.

I tried the following :

Fletchers tutorial (almost i think) : Set up one 012 bout a foot and a
half above the snare, looking almost at the snare, slightly facing the
floor tom (this was cause i was getting too much hihat). One mic by the
drummers right shoulder, almost facing the toms, a little towards the
kik. Both mics equidistant from the kik.
One Beta 57A into the kik.

Kik and snare image in the center. (i did pan the two 012's, tried
withought panning also) I got a lovely snare and hihat sound, though
the hihat was not as focussed as i would like it to be. The Kik and the
toms were weak. Will need to bring in the kik mic, but toms still
remain too weak.

I really liked the way the cymbals and the snare sounded Will try this
again with a blues rock band im also recording.



Second method : The 012's in XY configuration bout a foot and a half
above the center of the two top toms, snare mic, kik mic.
Good snare sound, happy with the cymbals and hihats coming of the OV's.
good stereo image with the cymbals. snare gelling very well also. Bring
in the kik, replace it. Everything ok. But toms still to tiny.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the thing with metal drums is that the toms need to be solid and big.
And one ususally needs to EQ substantially. I dont think much EQ is a
good idea with the first method.


I am thinking bout using one overhead, and bringing in one mic between
the toms, not sure. Drummer dude willing to overdub tom rolls later
(not many in this song, pretty straight). Whats my best alternative ?


thanks a ton.

Sidhu

Sidhu wrote:
I am thinking bout using one overhead, and bringing in one mic
between
the toms, not sure. Drummer dude willing to overdub tom rolls later
(not many in this song, pretty straight). Whats my best alternative ?


My quick 3 mic setup is based on the mic over the drummer's right
shoulder aiming exactly into the center of the kit. It gets an equal
amount of toms and snare, and you need a drummer who doesn't overbash
the cymbals. I add in a snare and kick mic just to fill in, and for
mono it has always worked for me in a high ceiling room or outside.
If you have a 7 foot ceiling though, it might not work as well.

To do the same thing in stereo I would take a stereo pair and place
it in the same place as the over the shoulder mono mic. If I want more
HH I'd try to get it from the spot mic on the snare.

One advantage to using less mics is minimal phase cancellation
between mics, a more coherent thus punchier drum sound. That starts
with finding a spot where one mic sounds good. You might need to
reverse the polarity on your kick mic's input.

Will Miho
NY Music and TV Audio Guy
Staff Audio/Fox News Channel/M-AES
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

thanks will... do you manage to get enough toms with this method ?

Sidhu
]


WillStG wrote:
Sidhu wrote:
I am thinking bout using one overhead, and bringing in one mic
between
the toms, not sure. Drummer dude willing to overdub tom rolls later
(not many in this song, pretty straight). Whats my best alternative
?


My quick 3 mic setup is based on the mic over the drummer's right
shoulder aiming exactly into the center of the kit. It gets an equal
amount of toms and snare, and you need a drummer who doesn't overbash
the cymbals. I add in a snare and kick mic just to fill in, and for
mono it has always worked for me in a high ceiling room or outside.
If you have a 7 foot ceiling though, it might not work as well.

To do the same thing in stereo I would take a stereo pair and
place
it in the same place as the over the shoulder mono mic. If I want
more
HH I'd try to get it from the spot mic on the snare.

One advantage to using less mics is minimal phase cancellation
between mics, a more coherent thus punchier drum sound. That starts
with finding a spot where one mic sounds good. You might need to
reverse the polarity on your kick mic's input.

Will Miho
NY Music and TV Audio Guy
Staff Audio/Fox News Channel/M-AES
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

in article , Sidhu at
wrote on 3/27/05 9:47 PM:

The Kik and the
toms were weak. Will need to bring in the kik mic, but toms still
remain too weak.

With heavy music, that will be your problem; the toms need to be able to
punch through the crap, and that pretty much means close-miking them, IMHO.

I've done a fair amount of minimalist drum kit miking, and I love it, but
it's not really the way to go for heavy music, unles maybe, just maybe, you
have a killer room and a great drummer and can try different cymbals etc.
If he's a basher, on the cymbals especially, you are hosed with a minimal
mic setup.

One album i did, we used 3 mics on the kit and it sounded killer. That
drummer (Jason) is now the guy with Death Cab, and he was awesome; I could
tell him to hit the toms a little harder and lay off the cymbals a little
and it was like i was controlling him with faders. Plus he brought 4 snares
and 2 kick drums and 2 floor toms to the session, and huge case of cymbals.

-jeff

Sidhu wrote:
thanks will... do you manage to get enough toms with this method ?

Sidhu

Sure - if the drummer plays them. You can get a "heavy" sound
like Bonham or Keith Moon that way, AC/DC classic rock heavy tones if
that's what the drummer is putting out. It's not say, a Metallica type
of heavy though, that kind of sound is all close micing and sample
layering/replacing of drums.

But one good thing about using samples to replace close mics on a
drum kit, it's a good way to avoid phase cancellation between having
too many mics on a kit not well positioned relative to the drums and
each other. But it takes a long time, it's boring work, and how many
of your clients will appreciate it?

Will

Good stuff there... thanks for all the help!. Ill talk to the drummer
now....
Sidhu

Hi!

The problem with metal drums is that it is not a natural sound like
jazz drums or something like that.

Especially bassdrum and toms need much EQ to get the wanted sound with
lots of attack and less boomy 200-400Hz.
Snare and cymbals are relatively natural, even on metal drums.
That explains why you like these but not the toms. You have to live
with the tom sound or close mike them.
But nevertheless, they could be improved a lot if they were reasonably
tuned and played.

I totally agree... And thats why i look forward to using this micing
tech. with the blue band i might be recording soon. However, i got
through today with a reasonable sound. i had the kik and snare close
miced. I used one overhead bout 3.5 feet above the center of the two
toms to get the cymbals and add space. Sounded good here. I then used a
Beta 58A inbetween the two toms, almost at the corner of the small tom
looking a bit towards the larger one. OK sound. But workable after some
post. The thing that i failed to capture was the floor tom. Since this
was not put to much use during todays session we got by.

I also swear i earlier read a post in this thread about putting on mic
just by the floor tom... i tried that but dint help (got a great floor
tom though, not i know where to mic it from)... funny cant find that
anywhere....

it was a fun day after all.


Sidhu

Sidhu wrote:
I totally agree... And thats why i look forward to using this micing
tech. with the blue band i might be recording soon. However, i got
through today with a reasonable sound. i had the kik and snare close
miced. I used one overhead bout 3.5 feet above the center of the two
toms to get the cymbals and add space. Sounded good here. I then used
a
Beta 58A inbetween the two toms, almost at the corner of the small
tom
looking a bit towards the larger one. OK sound. But workable after
some
post. The thing that i failed to capture was the floor tom. Since
this
was not put to much use during todays session we got by.

I also swear i earlier read a post in this thread about putting on
mic
just by the floor tom... i tried that but dint help (got a great
floor
tom though, not i know where to mic it from)... funny cant find that
anywhere....

it was a fun day after all.


Sidhu

I must add that a wekll tuned kit, or a drummer with good control
remain a rarity this side of the world. While i can do nothing abut the
latter, I plan to take up tuning duties myself. Links anyone ?

sidhu

Thomas Thiele wrote:
Hi!

The problem with metal drums is that it is not a natural sound like
jazz drums or something like that.

Especially bassdrum and toms need much EQ to get the wanted sound
with
lots of attack and less boomy 200-400Hz.
Snare and cymbals are relatively natural, even on metal drums.
That explains why you like these but not the toms. You have to live
with the tom sound or close mike them.
But nevertheless, they could be improved a lot if they were
reasonably
tuned and played.

When I was a studio assistant we did a remote jazz recording with
among others Steve Gadd, Man when Gadd hits tom toms it doesn't matter
how you mic them they have tremendous authority - jazz or no - and the
funny thing is he played all these powerful complicated tom fills with
*one arm* only. Really incredible power with independent control of his
extremities, truly a Master in that regard.

Also had Corrosion of Conformity as a musical guest when I was a
Music Mixing at FX Network back when they were all live programming,
and I measured their drummer at something better than 120db 20 feet
out, unamplified, in the big Ballroom with 25 foot ceilings. The man
was extremely LOUD.

My point of course is that a lot of the matter is the drummer and
the kit. And a micpre with bis ass transformers in it, like the German
Haufe's or American Jensen's or something like that can add a lot of
meat to the sound, even with mics that are not placed so very close.

Will Miho
NY Music and TV Audio Guy
Staff Audio/ Fox News / M-AES
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

"Sidhu" wrote in message
oups.com...
I must add that a wekll tuned kit, or a drummer with good control
remain a rarity this side of the world. While i can do nothing abut the
latter, I plan to take up tuning duties myself. Links anyone ?

sidhu


Just do a Google search on 'drum tuning' and you'll get a ton of links.
Below I listed a few. While the concept is fairly straight forward, there
are differences in technique and opinions so I recommend reading several
different sites and building up a set of skills that work for you. IMHO,
the ones listed below pretty much all have things that are missing or I
don't necessarily agree with, but they are generally good.

http://www.acousticdrums.com/ad_frames/tuning_free.html

http://www.drummingweb.com/tuning.htm

http://www.ludwig-drums.com/content/education/snare.php

Best of luck.
--
John L Rice

People talk about using the overheads as an overall picture of the kit
and then adding in spot mics. To me the overhead position is a cymbal
micing position. If I were to use just two mics on a kit, they'd be
lower and infront. Same for one mic - a ribbon 3 feet off the ground
aimed between the kick and the snare and run the a Level Loc is a ver
cool sound.

Hard rock drummer love to bash the cymbals. I'd lower your stereo pair
and put thme in front and play with them until you get a tom sound that
you like. You might want some compression too. I'd be surprised if you
could get enough cymbals from this postion with a few minor adjustments
to anlge, EQ and compression.

Also, check phase to get big toms or all drums for that matter.

I do my next drum session monday. I called the drummer over today to
set up and try some micing positions. Last time i went mono, with a mic
on the kik, snare, one between (almost) the two rack toms and a
overhead... got a passable recording.

I wanted to try something different, using stereo overhead's (which
would then have me junk the tom mic, only 4 inputs) and spot the snare
and kik.

I started with the Overheads low, just above the cymbal height, one
over the first tom slightly towards the snare, the other over the outer
edge (towards the floor tom) of the second tom. I started by asking the
drummer to play tom rolls.

With a little adjustment of the mics, i got this big, tight tom sound
(needed a bit of EQ to pronounce the attack and the low end). Very
nice.

Next, with the mics in the same position i asked the drummer to play
tom fills with cymbals. Again very nice, though he needed to control
cymbal hits a bit more.

Bring in the hihat and it gets messy, I had the hihat giving a skewed
picture. Starting from the right and a follow towards the left. So i
get to mic adjustment again, Set mics vertical distance so that they
are equidistant from the hihat. The hihat is much better now, but it
still is not as centric as i would like it to be. snare is sounding
nice and jazz, but i have a mic on the snare. But the toms have been
given a bit of a compromise.

Also note that my initial tom tone was brought by adding a little high
mid boost (4-6K). this boost while ideal for toms makes the cymbals
sound edgy.

suggestions welcome.

Thank you
Sidhu

thank you. I'll study them now.

Sidhu