Drums too loud in OHs (need to fix before recording Paramore)

[Morgan C]

Hey

Comparing my OHs to Ryans and Lasse's and shit.

Apart from the lack of detail cos its a garage (will try and fix this), the drums are REALLY loud compared to the cymbals.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/OHL.mp3
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/OHR.mp3
Sorry for them being split

Anyway, I do hit my drums fairly hard and my cymbals not so loud (but they really don't go any louder if I hit them harder. Only REALLY loud thing is the ride bell which I have dampened cos it was just SO much louder than everything else).

I have the OHs pointing pretty much straight down (don't want more reflections than I need).


I will be hanging rugs n shit up around the drums to stop the garaginess and reflections next week, then I'll be able to angle em a bit more. Any more tips for getting the drums out of the OHs?

 

[Nebulous]

Use less distance (hieght), angle slightly towards the cymbals or just generally place the mics so that the cymbals block the line of sight to the drums.

 

[lolzgreg]

Usually you want them to be! The overhead is a huge part of the drum sound, a huge drum sound that is. Your playing is good if you give the drums nice impact vs. the cymbals. Just use a brickwall limiter and bring down the out gain.

 

[brianhood]

you tried putting a limiter on the overheads? knock it down so it kills the snare and tom transients, but doesnt mess with the cymbals.

 

[Morgan C]

you tried putting a limiter on the overheads? knock it down so it kills the snare and tom transients, but doesnt mess with the cymbals.

Yes but its not lowering their volume, just killing the attack.

Here's a clip of mine vs Ryan's OHs. More clearly demonstrates what I mean. I think my drums have more detail but his cymbals have way more detail and are WAY louder.
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/OH comparison.mp3
I think I may just hit my cymbals soft. I have a ridiculously low cymbal bleed in my close mics:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Snare.mp3 (terribly tuned 5 month old head but you get the idea).

I will try hitting them a touch harder and try your suggestions Nebulous.

@lolzgreg
Yeah, I agree. But this is just way too loud, by the time the cymbals are loud enough you can barely fit the close-mics in.

 

[brianhood]

Yes but its not lowering their volume, just killing the attack.

Here's a clip of mine vs Ryan's OHs. More clearly demonstrates what I mean. I think my drums have more detail but his cymbals have way more detail and are WAY louder.
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/OH comparison.mp3
I think I may just hit my cymbals soft. I have a ridiculously low cymbal bleed in my close mics:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Snare.mp3 (terribly tuned 5 month old head but you get the idea).

I will try hitting them a touch harder and try your suggestions Nebulous.

@lolzgreg
Yeah, I agree. But this is just way too loud, by the time the cymbals are loud enough you can barely fit the close-mics in.

hmmm just sounds like he's just hitting harder. Maybe he mics closer than you. I usually have the cymbals placed between the mic and the other drums so there isn't so much of the other drums in the OH's

 

[006]

One thing that helps to get a little less bleed into OH mics, I use pencils and they are ~3' or more above and aimed towards the outer edge of the cymbals. I dunno what you are using (LDC or SDC) or where you have them positioned really so that may be useless to you.

 

[ForefrontStudio]

dunno if you've tried this or not, but I recorded a band and had the problem of too much snare in the overheads. the drummer hit really hard and the snare was a really loud dual ported snare. it was messing with my mix. a lot. I'd bring up the overhead to get more cymbals and the snare would have way too much attack and be too loud. when I would bring the snare mic up to a decent level, it was way WAY too loud. to solve the problem I just duped the snare track and set up a sidechain compressor on the overheads. you have to be REAL careful how you set it though or it will make the cymbals "swell" after the snare is hit. hopefully that helps... probably not. haha. at least I tried, right?

 

[ForefrontStudio]

I should also mention that I used a high pass filter as well, to help isolate the cymbals from the rest of the kit, that's why most of the snare bleed was just the attack. you can hear the song I'm talking about here.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=971290&songID=7810279

in all honesty, now that I listen to it again, I may have tuned too much of the attack out. it sounds a bit dry.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Live with it, dude. You can still get a really good sound out of it.

 

[ahjteam]

I usually like it the "drums louder, cymbals quieter" way, but do you have any pics of your micing technique?

 

[KeithRT99]

if only i had this problem. Having the drums louder in the overheads would make life so much easier.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

In my experience, its good for the OHs to capture the whole kit, the OHs are a huge part of the entire drum sound. If you listen to pro mixes the cymbals aren't that loud, they are fine as long as the cymbals can be heard in the mix without the rest of the kit bleed being so loud that it overpowers the closed mics just so you can hear the cymbals. If you can clearly hear the closed mics, and the cymbals can be loud enough without having to much OH bleed, you will get a great pop rock tone, which is what you should be going after if you are trying to emulate the paramore drum sound.

If the cymbals aren't loud enough in the OH, have the drummer hit the cymbals harder. Most non signed band's drummer don't hit the cymbals hard enough and that results in the cymbals not being loud enough without having adverse effects to the overall kit tone.

Speaking of which you should also use room mics id you don't normally do so, that would help with the huge rock sound.

Still if the OH bleed is too much, use a high pass, you can go as heavy as you want with that until it starts effecting the body of the cymbals. But before you do that you should really lower the height of the OH and angle them away from the drummer (towards the front of the kit), and use a gate with light settings to bring down the volume of the lower volume parts (which should be bleed)

 

[Morgan C]

Ok, I tried moving the OHs closer to the cymbals and further back (less over the middle kit ie. hats/floot tom, rather over the crashes), which helped a lot with the crashes (REALLY wide and defined and loud, although some weird low-frequencies on the one on the right, maybe too close), but not so much with the hats and ride, they're still kinda soft and really undefined in the stereo field.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/oh sept24.mp3

I might use cheapish condensors (my $5 ones ) as pretend hat and ride mics, mixed in really low. Having heard CLA's OHs, mine seem to be well-balanced for rock, but I'd still like the option of less drums for metal. For this, however, I'm thinking once I get a new snare head I can just use the close-mics for a really tight pop sound. Hopefully I'll be able to improve my OH sound a bit too, its kinda shitty (garage) and dull at the same time. Fixing that up should hopefully tighten the stereo image.



edit: what kinda cymbal sizes are you guys mostly working with? My hats and ride are quite loud (hats are dark crisp and z something, both very thick and 'very loud' by the brands' site's, ride is a Megabell which says it all), but come in soft cos they're far from the mics. Crashes are 16" on the right and 14" on the left (too small ><), but are loud enough if the mics are nice n close.