How do room mics !? Or when, and how do rooms, for that matter

[darthjujuu]

To the bigger guys:

Do you need to be tracking drums in a room of a certain level of goodness before you even bother tracking room ambience? In a nutshell... if the room is shitty, do you not even bother??

For best results, do i want to try and deaden a room entirely, or do I want to maintain some "good" reflections (other than floor to ceiling) and try to capitalize on them?

my room is as follows:

semi-finished basement, probably about... 12 x 12?? two walls (right angle, not opposing) are solid painted smooth concrete, and the other two walls are drywall. makeshift drywall drop ceiling. floor is carpet, but i intend to construct a reflective/sturdy drum riser in the corner, and build a small wall in the corner behind the drummer to create a triangle trap to be stuffed with whatever (similar to joeys description of his old set up, iirc.)

apart from that, not entirely sure where to take it from there. some diffusers/absorbers on the parallel walls, ultimately, and then... i don't really know. then my curiosity is on to mic'ing:

Mono or stereo?? or condensers set to omni?? is the only real answer experiment extensively?? and if so, what am i looking for??

EQ'ing: what am i looking for here? do you guys generally just hi-pass/low-pass/squash?? or do you need to sweep around to fit them into the mix?? do you guys find yourselves trying to eq them "around" the guitars?

bussing: compress separately, almost always, right?

 

[Sloan]

If have the extra channels, i like to put up room mics anway, they just help make that shit sound bigger.

 

[HandsOfDespair]

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/534525-how-do-record-room-mics.html

 

[professorlamp]

This may seem like a noob question and indeed it is!
but room mics are not overheads are they?

 

[Josh M.]

This may seem like a noob question and indeed it is!
but room mics are not overheads are they?

No, room mics are just mics that are setup up at a distance from the kit to capture the ambience of a room, providing a much fuller sound. They can be either mono or multitracked (e.g. stereo). I'm not sure what height they are setup at though, perhaps...cymbal height or a bit higher?

You are correct. They are not overheads.

 

[professorlamp]

right ho, i had a feeling they werent but didn't really want to be left in the dark about it

 

[BLUElightCory]

I'm addicted to room mics - I can't standing mixing kits without a pair of room tracks in there.

I personally don't like tracking drums in super-dead rooms - My room has a lot of diffusers in it to break up reflections, mixed with absorptive treatment to keep the reflections from getting too out of hand.

I like putting a spaced stereo pair of room mics maybe 8-12 feet from the kit, it really helps glue the drum tracks together and adds lots of depth to the overall sound.

 

[Morgan C]

I prefer mono room mics. Its VERY hard to get the snare/kick centred in stereo room mics, much less get an even balance of the kit. And if you do, chances are even if both sides are equally balanced volume-wise they won't be sonically.. so I prefer a mono room with a bit of reverb. Use the OHs and reverb for stereo width. Although, I'm working in a SHITTY room, with something like S2.0 it may be different.

 

[ze kink]

I ALWAYS do room mics, though I'd imagine that if I had to record in a really bad room, I'd have to reconsider, but that hasn't happened yet. I also favor stereo room mics a lot, and actually I dig using more than just one room mic (or mics, as I prefer stereo room mics) too.

Setup wise, I ask the drummer to play and check out the room until I find the right spots for the mics.

 

[jval]

i wish room mics sounded good in my place. they suck. In a small room you have to get creative and go for something unique. Try putting them in corners facing the wall, or behind a door, anything to make them sound "cool".
I like stereo room mics better but it's cool to have a mono as well. Problem is, in a small room you end up with tons of cymbal up the middle.

 

[C_F_H_13]

my general setup for drums includes a ton of room mics. Here's my usual setup.

close room pair-generally 4038 ribbon mics. I make a triangle measurement between the 2 mics and the kick. Generally these are 8-12 feet away.

far room pair---generally either u87s, as far and high back in the room as I can get em.

mono crush mic-sm57....crushed to shit, generally put somewhere in front of the kit, but pointed at the snare.

mono room fx--- my secret trick. You take a shure green bullet mic, you lay it down on the ground under the snare pointed at the kick pedal. Run it through a sans amp pedal or tons of compression. Instant distorted room, or SUPER LOW ENDY ROOM.

The key with room mics is to check phase. If you flip phase on em and you don't notice any difference, MOVE THE MICS. It means that they are probably sitting in a low end node within the live room. For anything but metal, the room mics are where your get huge drums from!

 

[BLUElightCory]

I prefer mono room mics. Its VERY hard to get the snare/kick centred in stereo room mics, much less get an even balance of the kit. And if you do, chances are even if both sides are equally balanced volume-wise they won't be sonically.. so I prefer a mono room with a bit of reverb. Use the OHs and reverb for stereo width. Although, I'm working in a SHITTY room, with something like S2.0 it may be different.

Just bust out the measuring tape. I have both overheads equidistant from the snare, and the room mics are both the same distance from their respective overhead mic. This keeps the snare centered in the OH. I haven't noticed a problem with the kick being centered using this method, but if it became a problem you could position the OH mics to be equidistant from both the kick and snare.

 

[Dexter_prog]

how do you process the room mics and how loud are them in a mix?

 

[C_F_H_13]

how do you process the room mics and how loud are them in a mix?

Far Rooms- roll off everything below 100-200hz boost a bit of 10k, and mild compression.

Close Rooms- Roll off everything below 100hz and everything above 10k. Compress at 8-10:1 slow attack, fast release.

Mono Room-- Crushed to fuck, and sculpted for nothing but midrange.

FX room------ As I said above, it's already processed heavily.

As far as levels, its all tempo dependant for me. Slower the song, higher the rooms. Generally though the levels between the rooms doesn't change...

Mono room= -6db (relative to the overall drum mix)
FX room= -10 to -20db
Close room= -10db
Far Room= -15db

That's just me though.

 

[BLUElightCory]

how do you process the room mics and how loud are them in a mix?

I usually roll off below 50-100 Hz and above 10-12 kHz. I usually run them through Massey Tape Head too.

Mix-wise, I usually mix them pretty loud, oftentimes even louder than my overhead mics. The room mics provide more of the full kit sound, and the overhead mics fill in some of the cymbal detail and attack.

 

[P-E]

Mix-wise, I usually mix them pretty loud, oftentimes even louder than my overhead mics. The room mics provide more of the full kit sound, and the overhead mics fill in some of the cymbal detail and attack.

Amen. Especially in Superior Drummer.

 

[ze kink]

I usually roll off below 50-100 Hz and above 10-12 kHz. I usually run them through Massey Tape Head too.

Mix-wise, I usually mix them pretty loud, oftentimes even louder than my overhead mics. The room mics provide more of the full kit sound, and the overhead mics fill in some of the cymbal detail and attack.

+1, I might do some dipping too if there's something annoying me, but just HP and LP are generally it. I also like to use tape saturation and generally I compress the "boom" room mic too.

I might add some reverb too, but not that often and not much. Depends on how the room sounds.

 

[vespiz]

Slam the room mics with a compressor. I like Smack! for this.
+1 for tape saturation (Massey Tape Head!).

If there's room (heh), I try to place the room mics in such a way, that the center line is drawn from both snare and kick. This does skew the cymbals and toms slightly - especially in relation to what's going on in the overheads. But as I tend to like the room mics for "filling out" and general ambience, slamming them with a comp brings out a nice wash yet still keeps the kick and snare centered. I remember doing a mix where I discarded the overheads and went with only the room mics.

And pretty much whatevers already said. So, in short I give you the usual Gearslutz answer: it depends.

 

[jangoux]

Far Rooms- roll off everything below 100-200hz boost a bit of 10k, and mild compression.

Close Rooms- Roll off everything below 100hz and everything above 10k. Compress at 8-10:1 slow attack, fast release.

Mono Room-- Crushed to fuck, and sculpted for nothing but midrange.

FX room------ As I said above, it's already processed heavily.

As far as levels, its all tempo dependant for me. Slower the song, higher the rooms. Generally though the levels between the rooms doesn't change...

Mono room= -6db (relative to the overall drum mix)
FX room= -10 to -20db
Close room= -10db
Far Room= -15db

That's just me though.

cool tips, never get to have those many empty channels tho

One thing that worked greatly for me on my home studio was using my AT4047 OVER the rack with the interface/pres etc. For some reason, i get a very full kit image on it - something i never get with it on other places.

I didnt quite understand why you say to move the room mic if the sound doesnt change when flipping the phase. On the studio i work on, no matter what position i put the room mic, if i flip the phase, it NEVER changes the sound. WHy do you say that?

 

[vespiz]

You have to compare the room mics with the snare/kick/toms while flipping phase to hear any result. I think that's what he meant?