Acoustic Drums for Metal: A Guide

Totaly agree with James on the overhead post! If you want that wide drum sound overheads shoud be on the far sides of the kit.
Also another thing that works good is to do stereo room mics.(one on either side of the room)And blend to taste. Mmmmmmmmm!
 
Glenn i cannot thank u enough for ur article


i followed about half the tips and suggestions u provided and recorded my best sounding natural kit , it's good enough that the band are happy for me to not trigger any toms or kicks

the toms sound awesome , i 'll try to get a sample soon

but thank u so much !!
 
i really can't wait to record some drums again!

we've got an audix d6 on the way! currently plan on using a shure pg series kick mic on the floor tom, and pg series tom mic on hour highest rack tom (can't wait to get rid of those two!) an audix i5 or rack tom 2, and a senny 609 on rack tom 3, with two mxl 603s overheads, and a good ole 57 on the snare

hopefully we can bring out the killer room sounds of this gretsch catalina set nicely, where we've always fallen short in the past
 
Ok, time for me to humble myself....


I've been playing around with James' suggestion for spaced pair of overheads, and yeah, it's totally fucking cool. I'm noticing a much cleaner sound, more attack on the ride, 'swishier' (is that a word?) hi-hat, & generally a more pleasant experience. Not to mention a stereo field as wide as the Grand Canyon. And, this was while recording the dirtiest cymbal player I could find.

Observations: This has much to do with the OH mics being downward firing as opposed to being angled at 45-60 degrees with an XY setup. I'm getting most primary reflections from the plywood floor with the spaced pair vs. primaries from the floor & my front wall with XY, which I'm guessing could have been causing some really nasty canellations.

Setup is a little trickier, you can easily put the snare over to one side of the field if you're not careful (Yes, I do like massive amounts of snare in my overheads, I'm not one for replacing the snare) so I've got my mics spaced equidistant from the snare. It looks kinda goofy in the pics, but it works great. I'll post some examples in part 4, which, hopefully, is going up this week... finally!



Crap.... I just moved servers, and I'm not completely setup yet. I'll post some pics later tonight.

-0z-
 
Ok, 2 pics of the spaced pair....
spaced2.jpg



spaced%201.jpg


As you can see, the right side mic looks waaay out of place, but this drops the snare dead center into the stereo field. If I had a double kick setup, things would look much more symmetrical. Hopefully, one day, when my wife graduates University, I'll be able to afford one :)
 
Oznimbus, could u please put pictures of the following :

1: The Platform for the drums to be put on
2: Pictures of ur entire room
3: how and where to put plywood blocks on the opposite side of ends of the room to solve the standing way issue u highlighted in part 2

much appreicated if u could do it
 
A Toolish Circle said:
Oznimbus, could u please put pictures of the following :

1: The Platform for the drums to be put on
2: Pictures of ur entire room
3: how and where to put plywood blocks on the opposite side of ends of the room to solve the standing way issue u highlighted in part 2

much appreicated if u could do it
Click to expand...


Ok, I'll try to answer as best I can:

1) There's a pic of the plywood platform earlier on in this article. It's not raised or anything, but it works great.
2) I'll try.... I might have to take pics from outside my drum room window. It's an oddball shape, on purpose. I've got 3 'live' walls & 1 'dead' wall.
3) The plywood sheets don't go on opposite walls, but adjacent
walls...
 
Has anyone here ever tried this method for overheads? Seems like a variation of the old Glyn Johns method. You place the first overhead mic ("left") directly over the center of the snare about 2 drum sticks end-to-end from the center of the snare...straight up, to the capsule of the mic.

Then, you take the drum sticks (end-to-end) from the center of the snare over to above your (drummer's) right shoulder and place your second (right) overhead mic here. Measure the distance from the center of the kick to each of these mics to make sure it's the same, as well make sure that it's also equally distant from the kick and snare. Listen with headphones and have the drummer lightly hit his kick drum to adjust the "right" mic's angle until the kick is in the middle of your image.

In theory, it's supposed to place the snare & the kick in the center when you pan these mics hard left and right and place the overheads in a position which is in-phase with the kick, snare and overheads. It also supposedly makes your snare and toms louder in relation to the cymbals letting you bring them up more in the mix.

Never tried it, but I'm curious to get thoughts on this method if anyone has?
 
Brett - K A L I S I A said:
You must have some slight phase issues with this placement, don't you ?
Click to expand...

Yeah, are those mics the same height or is it just the picture?

I'm generally really picky about making sure spaced pair are equal heights because of phase...
 
silverwulf said:
Has anyone here ever tried this method for overheads? Seems like a variation of the old Glyn Johns method. You place the first overhead mic ("left") directly over the center of the snare about 2 drum sticks end-to-end from the center of the snare...straight up, to the capsule of the mic.

Then, you take the drum sticks (end-to-end) from the center of the snare over to above your (drummer's) right shoulder and place your second (right) overhead mic here. Measure the distance from the center of the kick to each of these mics to make sure it's the same, as well make sure that it's also equally distant from the kick and snare. Listen with headphones and have the drummer lightly hit his kick drum to adjust the "right" mic's angle until the kick is in the middle of your image.

In theory, it's supposed to place the snare & the kick in the center when you pan these mics hard left and right and place the overheads in a position which is in-phase with the kick, snare and overheads. It also supposedly makes your snare and toms louder in relation to the cymbals letting you bring them up more in the mix.

Never tried it, but I'm curious to get thoughts on this method if anyone has?
Click to expand...

I already heard about it. Seems really interesting. Maybe not for metal but still interesting.
 
Brett - K A L I S I A said:
You must have some slight phase issues with this placement, don't you ? Unless this is the angle of the picture, you don't seem to have respected the 3:1 rule...
Click to expand...
Actually, I thought it sounded pretty good. No big phase problems, I just phase aligned the snare & checked the phase switch on the toms. Mono compatibility was also surprisingly good.

By the 3-1 rule I've heard mentioned time & time again, I'm guessing it's "For every foot up, you need to go out 3 feet" sort of thing? Believe it or not, I've never actually read it! Please clarify!

-0z-
 
SPLASTiK said:
Yeah, are those mics the same height or is it just the picture?

I'm generally really picky about making sure spaced pair are equal heights because of phase...
Click to expand...
Yes, they're the same height. Unfortunatley, my digital camera sucks, & isn't very sensitive to lighting for indoor shots.... hence a quick tripod setup so I can be sure to be focused.... however, I didn't level the tripod. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

C
Recording drums after guitar?
Replies
3
Views
2K
F.O.H.
B36arin
B
F
sound design of drums
Replies
4
Views
927
F.O.H.
findingthesound
F
davethangjam
Live Drums Sampling
Replies
2
Views
450
F.O.H.
greyskull
G
Seth Munson
Tuning Drums
Replies
24
Views
2K
F.O.H.
Trevoire520
T
The Unavoidable
Improving as a mixer: Drums
Replies
13
Views
1K
F.O.H.
ElektricEyez
E
Top Bottom
Back