Oh's mics placement (Jens Bogren video)

[axeman720]

I am most definitely worried more about the sound of each cymbal than i am with the snare in the overheads. I mic at different distances depending on the style of music as well. If there is a serious phase issue, which there rarely, if ever is, I'll catch while we are getting tones or i can just slide the track itself in pro tools. Never really have to do that though...

Also, i filter pretty differently on overheads from mix to mix. And i do sometimes get a good amount of drum tone from the overheads. Sometimes not. If your drums sounds good in the room they are gonna sound good in the overheads. Then its just your decision how much you wanna take from the overheads.

A good drum in a good room should never produce problematic overheads. Unless you really fuck up.

 

[::XeS::]

Wow...it's becoming a great thread with authoritative posts.
Thanks Mark

 

[AdamWathan]

So am I right when I say Andy isn't actually putting any real "overhead" mics at all? Just micing cymbal groups and panning them appropriately, totally ignoring the whole OH L/OH R 100L/100R we usually roll with?

 

[axeman720]

Its safe to say there is quite a few of us that approach it that way.

There is times though, depending on the drummers setup (the more symmetrical the better) where more liberties can be taken with mic placement and experimentation. Hope that makes sense.

 

[gabriel g.]

oh micing =/=Stereo micing

You can mic you OH with a stereo-technic (but only worth it if you want some drumsound from the OH-channels) if you are only interested in the cymbals itself you can mic them as close and dont have problems with the placement ....

I´m a big fan of small AB or normal AB for OH, but I always use a lot of drum-information out of the OH takes.
IMO snare and toms dont realy need much reverb if you have them in the OH-tracks.
Also you can get a away easier with hard triggering (for example with only one sample for the kick) because you have some real-life-playing in the OH....

 

[MetalSound]

pretty interesting videos from the band. it´s quite funny see jens walking around all the time.
seems he doesn´t have a quite comfortable chair...

 

[B36arin]

Has anyone here tried used the "2 cymbal group" approach and then nudged one of the OH tracks to get the snare back into the middle? I'm curious to know how that'd work.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

Thanks Andy. You confirmed what I thought.... that pro's don't brother too much about the snare placement with the oh's mics

Seriously. This is just one opinion. You need to make your own decision about what works best.

Record drums. Put the mics in ANY position you can think of and record the results. XY, Spaced pair, under cymbals, behind the drummer, on the floor etc.
Don't ignore everyone else because Andy said he doesn't do it that way.

 

[::XeS::]

Obviously. I only said he confirmed what I thought...that usually pro's (the ones I follow) don't bother too much about the snare with the oh's placement.
It depends on rooms, drummers, setups, etc...

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Special thanks to Andy, Mark and Adam for all this great answer about OH/cymbal micing

 

[Melb_shredder]

Well from my own experience, as little as it may be during recording drums, the technique I use is always dependant on the drummers kit.

If the cymbals are spaced well, then I try to get just the 2 oh L/R and use the kick/ snare centre image and get as uniform as possible with the snare in the centre.

If, you're like my brother and a group of cymbals sit in FRONT of you as your Left cymbal group, then I just group the cymbals and filter up high like Ermin mentioned. it works fine cause any panning on the OH snare just gets destroyed by the Close mic snare track anyways!

So just do what works for you and take each recording as it comes. There's no rule to any of this, but there is choices for any situation you find yourself!

But I do indeed hate the XY way of recording overheads, I've never gotten a good result that way, always a spaced pair over XY :S

 

[Seth Munson]

There's no rule to any of this, but there is choices for any situation you find yourself!

+1

I hate it when people say there is a right and wrong way to create art.