overheads? what do you do with them to get that sound

~BURNY~ said:
Good sounding room is the most important part. And yes good mics can help too... But no KM184's are going to save your ass if you are recording in a concrete basement with a low ceiling.
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I did a quick, on-location session recently for some junior metalheads I know. I was terrified when I saw the room -- it was a garage with concrete floors but it actually ended up sounding pretty good. Maybe I lucked out with the placement or something but I think it was the ceiling. The roof had one of those A frames with lots of beams everywhere. Somehow the room mic even sounded good. Beams = good (at least in barbarian concrete garages).
 
Tracked some drums today, and as the drummer didn't have many cymbals I concentrated on capturing a close mic'ed sound of them as opposed to the whole kit. I also used a spot mic on the ride. I think this could well be my best overhead sound yet - got a lovely wide stereo field with this one. We used some nice cymbals too today which helped.
 
I've read about this "Recorderman" technique people talk about over at Gearslutz (I know, I know...) where people are micing directly above the snare and then off to the right... I don't know if I'm missing something here, but doesn't that COMPLETELY fuck up the stereo image? Is there something about mic angles or something that I'm missing?

I've personally been doing the spaced pair thing, trying to angle the mics away from the snare where I can, and I've been placing them so that the kick and snare are centered as discussed in the tutorial sticky, where you sort of draw that "center line" through the snare and kick... It's been working out pretty well but I more or less put the mics up in a mathematical fashion and just hit record, never really tried moving them around to see what sounds better.

Sort of unrelated note, I don't have the files anymore, but I did an A/B test between my Audio Technica ATM450s and Studio Project C4s the other day and neither me nor anybody else with me could tell the difference between the two.
 
F0RBIDDEN said:
I've read about this "Recorderman" technique people talk about over at Gearslutz (I know, I know...) where people are micing directly above the snare and then off to the right... I don't know if I'm missing something here, but doesn't that COMPLETELY fuck up the stereo image? Is there something about mic angles or something that I'm missing?

I've personally been doing the spaced pair thing, trying to angle the mics away from the snare where I can, and I've been placing them so that the kick and snare are centered as discussed in the tutorial sticky, where you sort of draw that "center line" through the snare and kick... It's been working out pretty well but I more or less put the mics up in a mathematical fashion and just hit record, never really tried moving them around to see what sounds better.

Sort of unrelated note, I don't have the files anymore, but I did an A/B test between my Audio Technica ATM450s and Studio Project C4s the other day and neither me nor anybody else with me could tell the difference between the two.
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yea, i follow the sticky pretty closely too. after trying several different mic placements (include the awful X-Y), i've found the sticky is pretty dead on.

i'm the kind of knucklehead that needs to learn these things for himself...:loco: ... thus the aforementioned X-Y debacle.

anyway - although the OHs are suppose to pic up the "air" of the room - they are also suppose to pick up the cymbals (given you've chosen not to close mic them). you learn that when you get really nice "air", but no clear cymbals. So what i've found is pointing the mics away from the snare - toward the cymbals - yet still have the snare in the middle of the stereo field - produces the best sound (imo).
 
F0RBIDDEN said:
I've read about this "Recorderman" technique people talk about over at Gearslutz (I know, I know...) where people are micing directly above the snare and then off to the right... I don't know if I'm missing something here, but doesn't that COMPLETELY fuck up the stereo image? Is there something about mic angles or something that I'm missing?
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Nope, it actually gives a pretty decent image of the kit. It's not anything you'll want to heavily rely on for metal as it gives a nice overall sound to the kit, but the toms don't really cut through at all (unless you do some major parallel compression to compensate).

I use it a lot for my own demos, messing around, it's quick and easy to set up. As long as the spacing is right and the snare is centered, it actually gives a nice side to side image of the kit. I usually pan the OHs at 60%.
 
How is the snare centered though when the left mic is pointing down directly at it from straight above and the right mic is pointed away from it towards the cymbals on the right hand side? The snare should sound way off to the left when you pan your OHs....
 
i for the longest time did roll-off on the OHs below a reasonable spot (300-600) - but while messing around one afternoon with a mix - decided to roll-off at ~100 and dip in the middle. i was pleastantly surprised how much low-end came back into the mix, especially around the toms. i trigger/sample everything close mic'd on my kit, so i think that's a factor when making this decision. my room, and kit, unfortunately are less than stellar. after reading this post last night - i did take one tune that has notoriously been nasty in the low-end and rolled off again at 600. it did clean things up nicely, but almost too much imo. if left the samples sounding, well, like samples. maybe i'm just not use to a clean mix... totally possible..
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i've always found that 500-600 seems far to much to cut. 75% of the time, it makes the cymbals sound really really thin! i think i may have to look into compressing them a bit more. i tend to end up filtering quite abit around 350-450. but i dunno... i suppose it just depends on the mix


do you guys always pan your pair hard left and right? i've noticed Russtopher does it at 60%... and i know of another engineer that doesn't like panning then so drastically
 
only 60? I pan my overheads hard left and right every time (provided they're tracked right). If you don't do this you're basically robbing yourself of precious stereo image. If you want your cymbals clustered more towards the center, then use a stereo micing technique which accommodates that.
 
+1

And by cramming everything into the center you're getting a lot more struggle between instruments, also frequency buildups and so on
 
This is probably a bit of a big request, but I am getting into recording drum kits more and more, does anyone have some actual overhead shots of their overhead setups?

I'm really interested in how some of your have setup your spaced pairs on drum kits that are not entirely symmetrical. :)
 
Not an overhead view but this is all I've got....These are ATM450s so they are side address, so even though it looks like they are pointed towards the back of the room they are actually facing down towards the kit.

alexdrums2.jpg
 
Moonlapse said:
Includes the complementary drummer. This is from the track I posted in the 'rate my mix' section: http://www.ermin.com.au/storage/mymachine-rate3.mp3

The OHs in the track have their imaging smeared by all the parallel compression, straight compression and room mic influence, but you kind of get an idea.
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So, correct me if I'm wrong here, but you have the right hand OH mic positioned so it slightly aims away from the snare, and this is to pull the snare a little bit out of that mic to keep the same "spacing" in the sound between left and right?
 
I have it pointing outward because I wanted it to catch the edge of that crash, and also avoid the rest of the kit slightly. The reason I angled it, rather than simply moving the mic out there and keeping it pointed down is because the image would've been too wide. I discovered this early on that if you space your OHs too far apart there will be nothing in the center, and the center will be very ill-defined. That's the major drawback with spaced pair... you always have to watch your phase and see whether your center is intact.
 
F0RBIDDEN said:
Sounds pretty nice! The cymbals do sound a bit mono, but I think panning them out all the way instead of 60% might help that a lot... I think I'll give this a shot next time I have a chance.
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Thanks! I pan them out at 60% since I only have the 2 toms (1 rack, 1 floor) and if I go any wider, it starts to sound a little unnatural having this huge gap in the stereo field during fills, know what I mean?
 
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