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

[darthjujuu]

this thread (and the other one, sarrie) = gold. like i said, my room is small so i don't think symmetry for a stereo pair should be too hard.

so it seems to be a mixed bag of responses as far as you guys wanting or not wanting cymbals in there. the concensus is still "slam" it hard, but that just always massacres transients and i end up with just ugly mid-range cymbal room cluttering up the mix and the drums themselves don't get any help at all. so i guess it's more a game of positioning...hrm.

anyone ever try a transient designer on the rooms? i got it to get some real big slap out of the drums, post squashing.

 

[Sloan]

if you have too much mud on the room track, cut some of it out with eq. this is like an extra 'spice' track so don't be afraid to make it sound like shit if it makes your mix sound awesome.

 

[Erik Monsonis]

this thread (and the other one, sarrie) = gold.

+1000

Thanks guys!

C_H_F_13: That was detailed man, thanks so much!

 

[The StabbinCabin]

This might be an odd question- but I'm wondering if one mainly wanted to focus on the snare in the mix, if there is a way you could gate the room mic with a send only to open up on the snare hits sourced from the direct mics on the snare itself and then quantize that...? Has anyone done that or would that just be like attenuation of that snare sampled in drumagog through the mix? Hope that isn't too confusing or stupid

edit:
This is without terrible timing issues and proper dynamic playing throughout the song(s)

 

[amarshism]

I like to slam the shit out of the room mics so long as the rest of the kit has come up good. Esp for metal. 4:1, 20db gain reduction. Just pushes it back in the mix and makes it glue for me. Hp/lp at 100 and 8-12k

 

[greyskull]

This might be an odd question- but I'm wondering if one mainly wanted to focus on the snare in the mix, if there is a way you could gate the room mic with a send only to open up on the snare hits sourced from the direct mics on the snare itself and then quantize that...? Has anyone done that or would that just be like attenuation of that snare sampled in drumagog through the mix? Hope that isn't too confusing or stupid

edit:
This is without terrible timing issues and proper dynamic playing throughout the song(s)

ah! the sex pistols trick.
Not at PT now, but its something like this.

Put a gate on the room track.
Put a send on the snare or snare trigger track (trigger is cleaner and more reliable)
set the side chain input of the gate to the snare track.
VOILA gated room.
play with the attack and release times to see what works for you.

 

[plague_rider]

Room mics are great for a more natural verb if the rooms big enough...

a band I was working with had their drums tracked at their practice room with a couple of unmatched mad ambience/room mics

The first was great, hidden behind a baffle so it captured the room sound

the second would've been great IF he hadnt just put it all the way to the left of the kit, without a mic in the same place on the other side of the kit... so i ended up with an uneven room effect

ended up just adding PT's D-Verb

 

[The StabbinCabin]

ah! the sex pistols trick.
Not at PT now, but its something like this.

Put a gate on the room track.
Put a send on the snare or snare trigger track (trigger is cleaner and more reliable)
set the side chain input of the gate to the snare track.
VOILA gated room.
play with the attack and release times to see what works for you.

Thank you sir, I don't have the opportunity to work with a good room or good anything just yet, mostly questions- but I dig the room sound a lot... A band whose last two albums I really liked was mixed and produced was From A Second Story Window's last two albums, the drums sound awesome

Right now I'm only really using T-Racks and standard gates and compressors that come with Nuendo... When I get my new pc hopefully the Waves bundle I got will be a step up from that- I need to try this soon

Thanks again