Acoustic Drums for Metal: A Guide

prowlergrig said:
..can you answer my question please?
Click to expand...
Yes I can....

...Is your room big enough for drums? Hell yeah! I recorded drums for 5 years in my old studio in a room smaller than that, with a 7 foot ceiling, and a support beam running along it as well. It was always fun to watch drummers crack their heads on it. It wasn't nearly as much fun as when I did it.:yell:

Hell, the room I'm working in now isn't that big either. I'm working out of a 20X24 foot garage, so we had to make some tough choices. My drum room is *roughly* 12X20, with a ten foot ceiling. There's some oddball angles in there, and things get a little tight with 3 musicians in the room, but it works great.

As long as you take the time to treat the room to combat standing waves, etc, you should do fine. Best of luck to you & I'll try to answer any further questions more quickly.


BTW, I loved that your original measurements were in Metric. Here in Canada we supposedly switched to metric back in 1977.... but it still hasn't really caught on. Everyone buys gas in Liters, measures driving distance in Kilometers, but measures wood & construction in Imperial! How's that for messed up!


-0z-
 
sweet, that 3:1 rule sounds good for overheads but... What about double micing the snare (top and bottom), will this rule still work say if the top mic is 3 inches from the snare should the bottom one be 9 inches from the bottom of the snare even though its pointing right up at it or should it point a different directions and still be 9 inches away? Thanks!

Jordan
 
deathtotaliban said:
sweet, that 3:1 rule sounds good for overheads but... What about double micing the snare (top and bottom), will this rule still work say if the top mic is 3 inches from the snare should the bottom one be 9 inches from the bottom of the snare even though its pointing right up at it or should it point a different directions and still be 9 inches away? Thanks!

Jordan
Click to expand...


Since the double snare mic thing would be mixed to mono, it's not relevant. Just make sure your top & bottom snare mics are in phase!
 
deathtotaliban said:
sweet, that 3:1 rule sounds good for overheads but... What about double micing the snare (top and bottom), will this rule still work say if the top mic is 3 inches from the snare should the bottom one be 9 inches from the bottom of the snare even though its pointing right up at it or should it point a different directions and still be 9 inches away? Thanks!

Jordan[/QUOT
put the bottom mic where it sounds good and flip the phase if need be.
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The 3:1 rule says that for each measure the mics are away from the source, the mics need to be 3 measures away from each other, Right? But when recording OH, the mics aren´t pointing at the same source, but rather at two diferent groups of cymbals. Does this mean you keep the mics at the same distance from their respective group of cymbals and apply the 3:1 rule according to that distance? A bit of a messy question, I know...

Thanx!
 
unsilpauly said:
deathtotaliban said:
sweet, that 3:1 rule sounds good for overheads but... What about double micing the snare (top and bottom), will this rule still work say if the top mic is 3 inches from the snare should the bottom one be 9 inches from the bottom of the snare even though its pointing right up at it or should it point a different directions and still be 9 inches away? Thanks!

Jordan[/QUOT
put the bottom mic where it sounds good and flip the phase if need be.
Click to expand...

Yea thats what I've been doing, put it where it sounds good then invert the phase, I was just wondering if the same rule (3:1) applies even if the mics are pointing at each other.
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Lord Lurion said:
The 3:1 rule says that for each measure the mics are away from the source, the mics need to be 3 measures away from each other, Right? But when recording OH, the mics aren´t pointing at the same source, but rather at two diferent groups of cymbals. Does this mean you keep the mics at the same distance from their respective group of cymbals and apply the 3:1 rule according to that distance? A bit of a messy question, I know...

Thanx!
Click to expand...

The 3:1 thing: is that more a separation thing, or a phase thing?

Cuz by that rule, all X/Y micing is wrong.
 
XY is fine

The 3:1 rule is for phase and seperation, it states that 2 microphones recording the same source must be equal distance from the source or one mic must be 3 times the distance of the other. Otherwise the sound will hit both mics at different times resulting in phase cancellations.
 
Both phase and separation.
The thing with XY is that there's no phase issue because the sound hits the mics at the same time.
 
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?
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Yeah, tried it a few weeks ago with a punk band. Sounds nice and clear and solid but I prefer the left/right stereo imaging of spaced pairs for overheads where you can hear the spread of the kit/cymbals ect, especially for metal where the drummer might have 500 cymbals (Dream Theatre!!!) :loco:
 
deathtotaliban said:
sweet, that 3:1 rule sounds good for overheads but... What about double micing the snare (top and bottom), will this rule still work say if the top mic is 3 inches from the snare should the bottom one be 9 inches from the bottom of the snare even though its pointing right up at it or should it point a different directions and still be 9 inches away? Thanks!

Jordan
Click to expand...

You are effectively micing two different sources in this scenario. I would put them at the same distance and flip the polarity on the bottom mic since the head is moving the opposite direction from the batter head. The 3:1 rule would apply if both mics were recieving a signal from the same source from basically the same direction.
 
Ok, here's some direct comparisons for XY vs Spaced Pair.

This is the same drummer, same kit, cymbals, but a different snare in the XY setup.... he was drumming on a Cure meets the Stooges thing.....

The spaced pair samples are me & him jamming out a Sabbath type riff... I was going for a 'proof of concept' as opposed to a tight performance, so it's sloppy!
All are quick & dirty mixes, so don't laugh too hard.

XY
www.spectresound.ca/drum article/xy.mp3

Spaced pair, as in the pictures:www.spectresound.ca/drum article/quickjam1.mp3

Spaced pair, full mix
http://www.spectresound.ca/drum%20article/quickjam2.mp3

Enjoy, post your comments....

-0z-
 
OzNimbus said:
Yes I can....
[...]
BTW, I loved that your original measurements were in Metric. Here in Canada we supposedly switched to metric back in 1977.... but it still hasn't really caught on. Everyone buys gas in Liters, measures driving distance in Kilometers, but measures wood & construction in Imperial! How's that for messed up!


-0z-
Click to expand...
thanks for answering man - i'm not in a hurry so it's no biggie :)
yep that's messed up - everyone should convert to metric, things are a lot simpler this way :D
 
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