Cymbal micing question

[tylerrr]

So I'm going to begin recording, mixing and mastering my band's new EP in a few weeks and I was thinking about taking a different approach to recording cymbals/overheads. Generally, I just place one overhead mic on each side of the kit and try to achieve the best stereo image I can. I just use my overhead mics to capture cymbals and I really don't use them to give the kit depth or to capture that "overhead" image of the kit. Since my drummer uses a very simple cymbal set up (hi hats, one ride and one crash), I was thinking of close(r) micing each cymbal in order to eliminate that much more bleed and also in order to have more control over each cymbal's volume and where it sits in a stereo image. I'm basically just asking if this is a method that some of you/some engineers use and whether it's a decent approach or not? Any help would be great! Thanks!

 

[derekmoffat]

Yup. Go for it. Watch for phase issues though. You'll have to play around with each mic to make sure they are (or mostly) in phase.

 

[nch3966]

once i placed mics too close and got a really strange like uneven thing where the complete drum set on that mic sounded like some one put a ceileing fan next to it!which wasnt good soo watch out for that
and try micing under the ride! can sound really great!



kinda sounds like this

 

[SharkGTS]

Sound is delayed a few mS (milliseconds) every 6 feet or so. Doesn't seem like much but it is of course a flanger, or phaser effect right there. So if you mix the two or three tracks straight-up from spaced mics you have a problem. What I did was really zoom all the way in on each track, pick an event like clicking in the song with the sticks or a snare hit and line up the tracks so that the the waveforms are working with each other to minimize any phasing issues. The result was a cleaner, crisper more powerful and natural sounding ambient.

Stereo image - that is not created mic'ing these days that's all done with tracking and/or phase delays between L&R. So I would think the goal is to get the coverage you need. Like a solid ride, china, hats/crash sound. We used a Front left, front right and one overhead combo, like a triangle. I like that because I got the coverage we needed and it sounds all cool. What we recorded sounds pretty much how the drummer played it all. But that was our first crack at new school recording using our RME FF800 etc.

So what you are saying there makes good sense.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Ever hold a mic REALLY close to a ringing cymbal? Shit sounds god awful!!

 

[SharkGTS]

How close and what kind of mic?? I think a foot or two from the cymbal should be alright but I haven't gotten that close. I do use an SPL meter just a cheap thing, gives an idea of volume - I selected our mics looking at the distortion and SPL rating. I used 5 MXL condensors, and dynamics for the snare, & tom heads.

Happened to look at this video today and you can see some condensors placed to grab specific cymbals, basically what I' referring too.

To give you an idea of the triangle mic placement.....This a 44 MB wav file of one of our drum tracks recorded a couple of weeks ago. First recordings with the FF800. There are no sample replacements like xxx drums this is the real deal. Jordan the 17 year old drummer recorded 5 songs all in one take, in succession - just straight-up played on his own. He doesn't own a kit! Just has an electronic setup with no double kick either. I like his drumming I am pretty impressed at his accuracy of rate (from day to day, week to week) and his style.

http://www.jagersport.com/LongNightsdrums.wav

 

[greyskull]

I tend to try to capture mostly cymbal and glue the kit with roo
Mics. However that being said, I prefer to give the overheads a bit of distance otherwise you get this horrible washy phasey sound on the low end of the cymbals. Hate that! Do like micing ride from underneath though.

 

[SharkGTS]

How does glue and roo work? I googled that and got adhesive! Thanks

 

[greyskull]

Sorry! Room mics

 

[Uros]

^^

 

[if6was9]

Last few projects I've done I've close miced all the cymbals and used the room mic to tie the kit together and make it a bit more natural sounding.
I find if you use the 3:1 rule the phase issues aren't a problem. I've only done this with guys who use a few cymbals, I an imagine it being tricky with someone with lots of bells, splashes and such.

I've never been that happy with the regular overhead micing techniques, I never get the clarity out of all the cymbals that I think they need. It's nice being able to bring up a crash hit here and there where you think it needs it.

 

[SharkGTS]

Just some more thoughts. This is my first recording project on our a kit with a DAW/Reaper so I thought about it and started a "datum" or point of reference - that being the snare (drummer's focus). From that point I worked outward placing 3 mics on an X-Y and Z direction about 5 feet from the snare. This is the triangle. Now the triangle represents the (Z) drummer's head and listener's (one standing right X and one left Y) vantage points. That is where I got the triangle configuration from. I then used the snare head track as the "master clock" to align the 3 ambient XYZ tracks. All other tracks for that matter were aligned back to the snare master point of reference. Even with gating there is bleed so I wanted make sure all the signals pulled or pushed at the same time. Produced a pretty powerful sound in the end, I'm very happy with. Hope that wasn't too complicated, because it's a simple idea.

I think the reason for say the traditional crossed overheads (the X-Y) was you get two tracks or two sound sources but they will be aligned with one another, then by using very directional mics for the drums the phase interference was minimized. Or if you had two mics space them out enough so that they would not pickup substaintially the other's signal.

But with digital you can really do what you want for placement, it's amazing.

We just cracked a cymbal a couple of days ago, and it's sound changed - I could hear it immediately. I think due to its diameter and how it generates sound resonating with multiple frequencies - therefore needs some distance to fully develop it's tone. the bigger the cymbal the further you must be I suppose.