nub advice on overheads sound please!

[Thorax the Herdsman]

I could do with a bit of advice on my overheads set-up...The following recording was done using the overheads in our cheap 7-piece drum mic kit we got from ebay - nothing special, just something to get us up and running, although I've already replaced most of the mics already, just the overheads remain.

They were recorded straight into a firepod with no EQ or processing for this example. The room, whilst not acoustically fantastic, is dry lined with lots of insulation in the cavity and then there's 2 carpets on the outside and 2 carpets on the floor...not ideal but we're talking shoe string budget here

http://asoftoday.co.uk/upload/OHs.mp3

The mics sound like those off a cheap camcorder to me. Devoid of any kind of clarity I'd like to have.

Now I realise that I'm not in abbey road with an Apogee 800 interface but I'd really like to get a better basic tone out of the mothers...I'm considering getting a set of NT5s or Octava MK12s but with my budget I'd be happier if there's anyway I can make this sound a little better with some tweaking. I know that probably isn't the case and I'm going to have to splash out but could do with some advice first...thanks for any info!

 

[Nebulous]

No kidding

Firstly, did/ could you take a photo of the mic placement of the overheads? Otherwise, try to describe the placement- how high, what angle, towards which drum/ cymbal were each facing, spaced pair or x-y, etc....
It might be worth trying a different room and placement before disregarding the mics. They might not be great, but they could do you well for now.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I think the room sounds to dead .

 

[Ermz]

Well the best advice I can give is documentation from a drum session I did not too long ago. Here's a pick of the mic set-up:

And here I've got a clip of how the drums sound completely unmixed. So my apologies in advance for the levels being whacked out and such. The OHs are fairly low in the overall mix there.

http://users.tpg.com.au/afiteam//track1.mp3

The general rule, as far as my technique goes, is to capture a wide stereo image, but also try to localize all the drums accurately. So your snare for instance isn't hard right in the OHs. There was a tip Andy gave here to mic cymbals in pairs with OHs. So that's what I did this time around, and it came up great I think. No overall harshness in the overheads, and just a big splashy sound. So basically I just aimed for the edge of cymbals and tried to catch 2 at a time. Also tried to obscure the POV from the right OH to the hi-hat, in hopes of reducing its presence in the OH tracks.

Once again, sorry about the unmixed track above... I should have a full mix with the works in some weeks. As you can hear by the Soldano on the rhythms guitars and the insane overdubs on the chorus, it's going to sound pretty huge.

 

[Thorax the Herdsman]

Don't have any pics to hand, but can tell you I used a spaced pair, probably about as far apart as the picture above and pointing more or less directly down over the kit.

I guess really what I'm asking is whether buying a decent set of overheads in the MK012 price range is going to have a significant impact on the quality of sound or if I'm stuck with pretty shabby sound owing to the room - which alas is something we are stuck with, as it's our own rehearsal room and we have nowhere else to go, like orphans

Here's the mic kit we purchased:http://www.bandland.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=43_126&products_id=1450
Cheap and cheerful the only thing we'll end up using from this on the recording is the kick mic, if we replace the overheads that is...

 

[Nebulous]

Hard to tell without having experiance with the mics myself, but you'll either have to change the mics or the room to get a better sound. I'd say changing the room would make a greater difference though. If you get a better set of mics, all you're going to do is pick up the room's shitness in greaer detail.

 

[Aaron Smith]

What kind of mics did you use for that clip? Do the cymbals themselves just sound kind of dead? It sounds pretty dead and like you said, devoid of clarity...but in all the home sessions I've done, I've gotten some very usable overhead sounds in a 12x12 foot, low ceiling bedroom with all the closet doors flung wide open to help eliminate standing waves. Unless that room really has something terribly wrong acoustically, I would say that better mics would benefit you.
I have to be honest though, my experience with trying different mics on overheads is virtually nothing, so there's a chance that I don't know what I'm talking about. I own a couple of these condensers:

http://www.pacificproaudio.com/ld1_specs.asp

These things are my overhead mics as well as vocals, and I have never, even after a few years of getting my ears better acquainted with audio engineering, felt as though they couldn't do the job. I'm sure that if I had some expensive mics to work with I could hear a difference, but for $100 a pop with the mics I have, I've been completely satisfied. Listen to the recordings on my band's page if you want to hear those mics in action on overheads or clean vocals.

 

[Thorax the Herdsman]

Thanks for the replies guys...I went down the studio today and decided to A/B the current (shitty!) overhead with our vocal mic - a red5 condenser ( http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Red5-Audio-St...ryZ15198QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem ) which we haven't recorded with yet but has received very good reviews for a £50 microphone.

These are the samples I took:

Old Condenser
New Condenser

and I also recorded some hats and snare with the new condenser:

New Condenser w/hats

The options I'm considering now are whether to buy another red5 mic and use them in stereo (since to my ears they are a hell of a lot better than what I was using before) or, if I'm likely to get much better results still, to splash out on some MK012s. My wallet would obviously prefer the red5 option but I'll get the Oktavas if they're going to make a lot of difference?

Once again any advice is greatly appreciated

 

[AudioPhile777]

...(since to my eyes they are a hell of a lot better than what I was using before) ...

Don't you mean your ears?

If that wasn't what you meant, then... I would use the ugliest fucking mic on the planet if it achieved good results in the studio...

 

[Nebulous]

Hm, little bit better. I'd say to do a search of threads discussing OH's and see what you can do with what you have. I have a feeling you could get better results with better mic placement.

 

[Aaron Smith]

The second clip is definitely clearer, which, unless those mics were positioned better, tells me that the original mics aren't so great.

 

[Thorax the Herdsman]

Yeah we pretty quickly realised how poo the original ones were - the red5 and the original overhead were positioned right next to each other above the kit so position had pretty much nothing to do with the improved results.

I'm just left wondering now whether a set of NT5s or MK012s would give significantly better sound quality than 2 of the red5s. Enough to make their purchase worthwhile anyway. hmmm...

 

[Ermz]

Well you can hear how NT5s sound above.

It depends really. They have a natural high-end boost, so they get you half way there just with tracking. I find they tend to be a little swishy rather than crisp and articulate when mic'ing cymbals. If you dig that sound, they could work for you.