Omni room mics, live tracking, and natural sounds on metal/hardcore.

[tk7261]

Im learning that I really like the sound of natural recordings, but I feel like this is a no no on metal/heavy records. Since close mic and tight sounds are the norm do you think fans or the general public would dislike more roomy natural sounds on a record (maybe even subconsciously)?

And on that note does anyone use Omnis for room mics? I feel like the low end on an onmi would work well for big sounding heavy songs. I feel like generally people like cardioids better for this type of thing.

Lastly do you ever use the same room mics on guitar as you did on drums to help it feel more natural. I think I remember hearing Kurt Ballou does this sometimes.

 

[Studdy]

Obviously none of this applies if the room isn't stellar.

 

[MartijnPaauwe]

Obviously none of this applies if the room isn't stellar.

Quoted for truth.

Unless you're recording drums in a large, very well treated room I think a room mic pretty useless really.
If that's the case, you are a fortunate man.
In my case and probably many others around here it is not, however, you can blend in the room sample from SSD4 for example and use that to make your drumsound bigger, that's what I do most of the time and it definitely helps

 

[Studdy]

Im not against a mono room mic in an "okay" room. But i wouldnt use surgical/clean microphone. I would probably use a dynamic and crush the hell out of it with compression and saturation. Lightly blended in for taste. I also really like creating a faux space with artificial reverb. To be honest i really like having 1 standard (room, hall, whatever) reverb on an aux and gently sending tracks to it to give the impression the mix is all in 1 space. Example would be sending a decent amount of snare and toms, a bit of overheads, little to no kick drum and then barely send a bit of guitar etc just enough to hear it and back off, it helps everything sit nice together. cheers

 

[~BURNY~]

But if you are recording drums in a crappy room, it affects close mics and overheads too. A lot. It's a bit like trying to paint Mona Lisa with dog feces. I mean If you have no choice, I guess that's ok.
Room mics are unbelievably overlooked. They are the life of real acoustic drums.
Sure you can rely on samples (masking all the dog shit with Paintshop)...
And yes, omni are used pretty often, fig 8 too because ribbon mics are awesome at picking ambiance.

 

[Jordon]

But if you are recording drums in a crappy room, it affects close mics and overheads too. A lot. It's a bit like trying to paint Mona Lisa with dog feces. I mean If you have no choice, I guess that's ok.
Room mics are unbelievably overlooked. They are the life of real acoustic drums.
Sure you can rely on samples (masking all the dog shit with Paintshop)...
And yes, omni are used pretty often, fig 8 too because ribbon mics are awesome at picking ambiance.

Pretty much all of this.

 

[Heabow]

I will once again talk about Tue Madsen but he always uses a lot of room mics as an important part of his drum sounds even if the room is not treated and/or small. Ok I'm talking about Mr Madsen but I guess it's possible to get decent results with some tricks, isn't it?

Edit: this is actually a question not an objection to what has been said above.

 

[~BURNY~]

I think Madsen knows what he's doing. He might be using untreated rooms, but certainly not bad sounding rooms. You can get away with an untreated room if it sounds right. There are treated rooms that don't sound good either. A lot of them actually.

 

[tk7261]

Yea I feel like the room sound is so so important on drums. I havent had the chance to work in manny different rooms, but i feel like someties you can get lucky in an untreated room and it can sound passible for some weird reason. Dont know if my room is passable. I have messed around with IRs and stuff like that, but it just never feels the same as a real room mic.

 

[Pursuance]

Room mics are a huge part of good drums sound weather its metal or shoe gaze.

Will Putney who produces a majority of modern metal uses a shit ton of rooms in his set up. Also OMNI mics are incredibly useful for capturing the beef of a kick. The best way to go about this in my experience is to place the omni in the center the kit right above the bass drum.

 

[ze kink]

I think Madsen knows what he's doing. He might be using untreated rooms, but certainly not bad sounding rooms. You can get away with an untreated room if it sounds right. There are treated rooms that don't sound good either. A lot of them actually.

I agree. I've recorded in "good" rooms and ended up with boring tones that just don't have any vibe. I've also recorded drums in an untreated garage that had wild flutter echoes all over the place, and people liked the results. You really do have to play around with the placement of things and work with the room instead of against it though. Grab a floor tom or something and walk around the room and find a place that sounds good, then after setting up the kit rotate it around to find how it sounds the best.

A dead room may be fun if you're into the Eric Valentine thing, but otherwise they're pretty lame. I've recorded drums in a dead vocal booth as a test a couple of times, and you can get fun QOTSA type sounds from it, but it's kind of a one trick pony.

I record drums often at our practice space, and it's somewhat treated but not entirely. Even so, I find room mics in there aren't very useful - they don't really have much character. Last time I got some okay results with diffusing them, but otherwise I tend to do something else with the inputs instead.