micing cymbals from below...

[KeithRT99]

lately i've been thinking about the benefits of micing your cymbals, or at least crashes and cymbals above the snare/kick, from below. I've seen a few videos of the drummer from mastodon micing his 2 crashes from below.

Anyone tried it? does it sound bad? Phase issues? would it help isolate your cymbals better if you're going to trigger the majority of your kit?

chime in.

 

[devouredremains]

I read something somewhere about micing rides from the bottom for the same reason so I don't see why not. I have never personally done it so I can't tell you if it sounds as good as conventional overhead mic positioning.

 

[LSD-Studio]

Hm, I think the overhead-sound is important for the overall-drumsound, even if you replace all the drums you should try to keep a natural overhead-sound with the natural stereo-feel.
sometimes I mic additional cymbals (ride) from below, but the main stereo-overhead-pair should remain a stereo-overhead pair.
If you really wanna replace everything and fear bleed just use mesh-heads

 

[KeithRT99]

what if you use room mics to get the extra kit sound, but mic the cymbals from under?

 

[QV]

I've seen this done live in Europe a few times, apparently it phase cancels the ambient stage noise (bass etc) while not affecting the miced sources...
The weirdest thing I saw was miking the hihat up from the from the floor, at a 45degree angle and about 3 feet away from the drum. It was at the Rockhouse in Salsburg and the sound guy was the InFlames sound guy.
One of the best sounding shows on the tour.

 

[Gnash]

Yeah, I saw Mastodon about a month ago. I bar hopped with 'em after the show and shit. A pretty wild night, full of hilarity! Anyway, I noticed the crashes being miced from the bottom. I want to say the cymbals sounded like a bad mp3. It wasn't the soundman, and it wasn't the house pa. Other band's cymbals were normal. I'm not saying anything bad about Mastodon here. They were fucking REAL fucking tight live, changing tunings without swapping gits, between nearly every song. Great fucking show! Those crashes were noticibly horrible sounding, though.

 

[johnjm22]

Andy has mentioned that he mikes the ride from underneath.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I tried micing the ride from under, it sounded bad to me. But I am sure it was just because I was using the wrong mic or something

 

[kaomao]

Lately I'm micing the ride and the hihat from below and they sound good, really good.
Oh's always from the top, never tried the opposite because I'd need more mics, I think one per cymbal and closed miced, you'd capture too much strong toms hits if you put a mic per pair I think.

 

[PhilR]

I've tried miking the ride from below but it never sounded particularly good.

 

[LSD-Studio]

I usually mic the ride from below, don't really like my akg c414xl for that purpose, but recently tried the beyer m160 ribbon...my new favorite ride mic !!

for hats i recently switched from c451 to sm7...what an awesome hat-mic!!
from all the mics i tried for hats i really like the sm7 the best, it has this aggressive middy bite that i like on heavy hats.

 

[greyskull]

i use beta 57 below ride, workds great

 

[unsilpauly]

i also mic the ride from below, sounds great to me with a small diaphram condenser a few inches from the bell of the ride under the cymbal. the next time i have the kit miced im going to try crashes from below and see what it sounds like. im curious to hear the difference.