Best overhead micing technique for lots of cymbals

[SkybluestudiosBEN]

Here's a 3 OH setup for a ridiculously stupid big kit. Frank Fillipetti engineered. He told me that all three OH mics are the same distance from the snare, and then they are the same distance from each other.

O man this session looks stressful!!!!!!

 

[vespiz]

That djembe.. wtf? Would be interesting to hear the result!

 

[Matthias King]

pretty simple...when he mic'd danny carey's kit for 10,000 days, he put a spaced pair out pretty wide, with a 3rd OH directly above the middle of the kit. mic in the middle stays down the center, spaced pair gets panned out wide...

This is exactly how I mic'd my old drummer, as he had a rather wide kit with a wide assortment of cymbals, which I didn't think a spaced pair would quite manage. It worked out pretty well and I had no noticable phase issues. Maybe I was just lucky.

 

[colonel kurtz]

honestly i don't even worry too awfully much about phase problems with drums anymore - no matter what you do there's going to be some sort of phase cancellation along some frequency. i just try to keep the OH's equidistant from the snare, and make sure that nothing sound noticeably fucked up!