[iarwain]

Does anyone still use mono drums? I have a three mic set that I have
been using to get a stereo spread, but I have been unhappy with the
balance of all the different drums and cymbals. It's one kick mic and
two overheads, just so you know. It would be nice to have a mic on
each tom and all, but I'd rather not go to the extra expense.

I was thinking it might be simpler to put one mic on the snare to beef
that up, and one mic further back to catch the rest of the kit, and
mix it all down to mono. How much of a sin is it to use mono drums
these days? It didn't seem to hurt all those old classic recordings.

This brings up another question. Has anyone ever heard of panning a
mono drum source depending on what the drums are doing? I mean like
panning slightly left for the hi hat part, slight right for the ride,
and maybe a full pan left to right for an around the kit fill? Just
curious.

[Scott Dorsey]

iarwain wrote:
Does anyone still use mono drums? I have a three mic set that I have
been using to get a stereo spread, but I have been unhappy with the
balance of all the different drums and cymbals. It's one kick mic and
two overheads, just so you know. It would be nice to have a mic on
each tom and all, but I'd rather not go to the extra expense.

What aren't you happy about with the balance? Have you tried moving the
overheads until you get a good balance? What is the room like?

I was thinking it might be simpler to put one mic on the snare to beef
that up, and one mic further back to catch the rest of the kit, and
mix it all down to mono. How much of a sin is it to use mono drums
these days? It didn't seem to hurt all those old classic recordings.

Mono is fine, but remember those old classic recordings were mostly made
in very good-sounding rooms. You COULD pull back and find a good place
for the kit balance in them.

If you spot the snare, it will sound totally different. It's not just
a matter of the balances changing, but the tone of the snare also changes.
Whether this is good or bad is up to you.

This brings up another question. Has anyone ever heard of panning a
mono drum source depending on what the drums are doing? I mean like
panning slightly left for the hi hat part, slight right for the ride,
and maybe a full pan left to right for an around the kit fill? Just
curious.

Not really, because there is usually so much leakage that it will affect
everything else as well.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[iarwain]

What aren't you happy about with the balance?

I knew someone would ask this, but it's a legitimate question.
Basically the ride and toms are too loud, the hi hat sounds about
right, and there's not enough snare. The room is just a living room
so naturally it sounds like crap. I've moved the mics around trying
to find the sweet spots but apparently I haven't found them yet.
Maybe the solution is to point the left overhead more toward the
snare, and lower it, and raise the right mic way up away from the ride
and toms.

I'm glad you asked me about this, maybe even turning the volume down
on the right channel, or the trim to right mic, would help a lot.
Maybe it's worth another try or two. I'm still not getting enough
snare, I know I could add a fourth mic but I hate to bother with it.
Maybe moving the left overhead into the snare would be enough.

The whole thing is frustrating to me because when I was younger I used
to get a drum sound I was quite happy with just hanging one mic from
the ceiling. That was a differnet room though.

[Mike Rivers]

On Mar 1, 10:19 am, "iarwain" wrote:

Basically the ride and toms are too loud, the hi hat sounds about
right, and there's not enough snare. The room is just a living room
so naturally it sounds like crap.

That sounds like a drummer problem rather than a mic placement
problem. Is that you? Are you (or the drummer) listening to the sound
as it's being recorded? A good drummer would hit the toms softer and
the snare harder.

But to answer your initial question, in general there's nothing wrong
with mono drums, but like all musical questions, it's a trick. It
depends on what the drums are doing in the musical context. A good way
to find out is to forget the concept of "overheads" and move one mic
out front to a place where the drums sound balanced. Record a song
like that and see if not being able to spread the drums all over
creation bothers your musical sense. You may still be getting lots of
tonal crap from the room, but you may be able to help that along by
putting some absorbers around the room (you don't need a lot, blankets
or quilts will help) or with judicious use of EQ.

The whole thing is frustrating to me because when I was younger I used
to get a drum sound I was quite happy with just hanging one mic from
the ceiling. That was a differnet room though.

When you were younger (assuming you're talking 30 years younger, not 2
years younger) you weren't influenced by music where drums are the
central point of focus, often (sadly) overtaking the vocals. And
drummers didn't have so many toys to play with. So it was easier to
get a balanced sound than it is today with multiple mics and so many
people who say they play drums, so they do.

[Andy Eng]

On Mar 1, 8:13 am, "iarwain" wrote:

This brings up another question. Has anyone ever heard of panning a
mono drum source depending on what the drums are doing? I mean like
panning slightly left for the hi hat part, slight right for the ride,
and maybe a full pan left to right for an around the kit fill? Just
curious.

All the time...

Though I did listen to a DVD of a live concert once with headphones
and the post production audio guy got the panning all wrong with the
visual image. Sounded good by itself but with the video, vertigo
started setting in...

Andy

[Geoff]

iarwain wrote:
Does anyone still use mono drums? I have a three mic set that I have
been using to get a stereo spread, but I have been unhappy with the
balance of all the different drums and cymbals. It's one kick mic and
two overheads, just so you know. It would be nice to have a mic on
each tom and all, but I'd rather not go to the extra expense.

I was thinking it might be simpler to put one mic on the snare to beef
that up, and one mic further back to catch the rest of the kit, and
mix it all down to mono. How much of a sin is it to use mono drums
these days? It didn't seem to hurt all those old classic recordings.

This brings up another question. Has anyone ever heard of panning a
mono drum source depending on what the drums are doing? I mean like
panning slightly left for the hi hat part, slight right for the ride,
and maybe a full pan left to right for an around the kit fill? Just
curious.

Yep. But unfortunately ripped my desk in half when the drummer hit the
hi-hat and floor tom at the same instant....

geoff

[HKC]

I mainly record rock/pop so I mic up all the drums but I always place a mono
mic in a sweet spot where the drums sound balanced and nice. My room is
pretty dry so later on I add a good small convolution reverb to this track
and maybe some pseudo stereo to give the track some width. After that I turn
up the overheads and then fade the rest of the drums in until I get a tight
drumsound based around that original mono track.
I´m pretty sure that I could get a nice sound just using the monotrack and
the kick and snare mic all placed in the middle which would be like mono.
One problem with recording that mono track is that it often takes a pretty
good mic. I did however discover at some point that the ridiculously cheap
Behringer ECM8000 (I think that´s the name, it´s actually a mic meant for
measuring sound) does a surprisingly good job. I am by no means a fan of
Behringer products as such but this one is an exception.

Just for the record, I have a set of DPA 4003, a set of AT 4051 and a set of
Gefell UMT70s (among many others). The Behringer discovery happened because
a client of mine insisted that I tried it out and what do you know....It
does sound pretty good even if it only costs 50 dollars.

[[email protected]]

MIke Rivers wrote:
The whole thing is frustrating to me because when I was younger I
used to get a drum sound I was quite happy with just hanging one
mic from the ceiling. That was a differnet room though.
When you were younger (assuming you're talking 30 years younger,
not 2 years younger) you weren't influenced by music where drums
are the central point of focus, often (sadly) overtaking the vocals.
And drummers didn't have so many toys to play with. So it was
easier to get a balanced sound than it is today with multiple mics
and so many people who say they play drums, so they do.
true enough. dO a google on "three mic technique" combine
it with the name FLetcher.
That will give you some starting points.
Ain't a darned thing wrong with mono drums. lEt the
acoustics of your room and the skill of the drummer at
tuning and playing the kit guide you.



Richard webb,
Electric Spider Productions
Replace anything before the @ symbol with elspider for real
email address.



Great audio is never heard by the average person, but bad
audio is heard by everyone.

[Les Cargill]

iarwain wrote:

Does anyone still use mono drums? I have a three mic set that I have
been using to get a stereo spread, but I have been unhappy with the
balance of all the different drums and cymbals. It's one kick mic and
two overheads, just so you know. It would be nice to have a mic on
each tom and all, but I'd rather not go to the extra expense.

I was thinking it might be simpler to put one mic on the snare to beef
that up, and one mic further back to catch the rest of the kit, and
mix it all down to mono. How much of a sin is it to use mono drums
these days?

I like 'em. I do use X/Y overheads, though. That's the only actual
stereo element in the setup.

It didn't seem to hurt all those old classic recordings.

This brings up another question. Has anyone ever heard of panning a
mono drum source depending on what the drums are doing? I mean like
panning slightly left for the hi hat part, slight right for the ride,
and maybe a full pan left to right for an around the kit fill? Just
curious.


I would think that would work fine, although the cost of an SM57 for
snare seems minimal if you want stereo.

--
Les Cargiill

[Les Cargill]

Soundhaspriority wrote:

"iarwain" wrote in message
ups.com...
snip
Many people praise very small diaphragm omnis for this purpose, such as the
Earthworks (and I certainly like the sound of my Behringer cheapie), but if
two omnis are placed as overheads, might the comb effects destroy the
purity?

Not so much that but spaced omnis require a lot of patience.

Perhaps one omni is best, with compromised localization, in
preference to two omnis, with compromised tonality?

And, who feels very small diaphragm omnis provide magic in this application,
enough to forgo the typical cardioid XY overhead pair?


I keep coming back to X/Y. ORTF was not bad, but I like
X/Y better.

Bob Morein
Dresher, PA
(215) 646-4894





--
Les Cargill

[hank alrich]

iarwain wrote:

What aren't you happy about with the balance?

I knew someone would ask this, but it's a legitimate question.
Basically the ride and toms are too loud, the hi hat sounds about
right, and there's not enough snare. The room is just a living room
so naturally it sounds like crap. I've moved the mics around trying
to find the sweet spots but apparently I haven't found them yet.
Maybe the solution is to point the left overhead more toward the
snare, and lower it, and raise the right mic way up away from the ride
and toms.

I'm glad you asked me about this, maybe even turning the volume down
on the right channel, or the trim to right mic, would help a lot.
Maybe it's worth another try or two. I'm still not getting enough
snare, I know I could add a fourth mic but I hate to bother with it.
Maybe moving the left overhead into the snare would be enough.

The whole thing is frustrating to me because when I was younger I used
to get a drum sound I was quite happy with just hanging one mic from
the ceiling. That was a differnet room though.

And that one mic saw the whole kit as a whole kit instead of as parts to
be reassembled in mixing.

Try using your overheads in ORTF or XY and aiming them such that the
snare is centered in the stereo image.

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[iarwain]

That sounds like a drummer problem rather than a mic placement
problem. Is that you?

Guilty. I considered this but then why was the balance fine when I
just used one overhead mic (20 years ago). I'm no great drummer but I
think my playing has improved since then, not deteriorated. I think
it's a case of the right overhead volume being too high for whatever
reason. The toms and ride are also facing the wall and maybe I'm
getting nasty reflections off of there increasing their volume.

As for adjusting hitting the toms and cymbals softer, I try to play
evenly all around the kit, although a lot of the time I will hit the
snare harder. I have a difficult time adjusting by the monitor mix
just because the drums themselves are so damn loud.

[Scott Dorsey]

iarwain wrote:
That sounds like a drummer problem rather than a mic placement
problem. Is that you?

Guilty. I considered this but then why was the balance fine when I
just used one overhead mic (20 years ago). I'm no great drummer but I
think my playing has improved since then, not deteriorated. I think
it's a case of the right overhead volume being too high for whatever
reason. The toms and ride are also facing the wall and maybe I'm
getting nasty reflections off of there increasing their volume.

Almost certainly it's a room issue. In a small room, you just can't pull
the mike back far enough to get good balances, sometimes. If that's the
case, sometimes you have to spot things and the're just no way around it.

As for adjusting hitting the toms and cymbals softer, I try to play
evenly all around the kit, although a lot of the time I will hit the
snare harder. I have a difficult time adjusting by the monitor mix
just because the drums themselves are so damn loud.

You _might_ consider in-ear monitors, with hearing protectors over top
for even better isolation. Some folks swear by them, other folks find
them totally disorienting.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."