question about article

[aramism]

http://www.recordingeq.com/EQ/req0902/drumimp.htm



this is a pretty neat article. i had a question however. the whole IMPACT thing sounded intresting to me. if i am putting the drums in the mix i am going to think ok "this" is how i want them to sound on this album lets say and this is the perspective i want. this is a little more useful i guess formore dynamic music not so much for crazy metal but for stuff like tool or deftones things of that nature.


my question is this, if my MAIN perspective is my overheads placed over the drummers head at like 5 or 6 feet above the drumset (median) and i have all the other parts of the kit miced then maybe i should follow the 1 ft = 1 ms rule that the article suggests and delay all the seperatly mic'd elements such as the hi hat, kick, snare, etc. to add more attack and "bigness" to the drum sound. is there anyone who could comment on this. basically to wrap it up, using one "focal point" for a mix and then delaying all other individual elements in accordance to their distance from that focal.



ps - maybe im a dummy and an experienced engineer would be like "yea no shit your supposed to do this" but ive never heard of the delay thing so im intrested to hear more seasoned guys chime in.

 

[tarnationsauce2]

I would not use the 1ft = 1ms estimate. I would view the waveforms once they are recorded, and then manually align them. A time delay would only be an approximation, and that's just not good enough.

Yes it is a good idea to have a "focal point".... use the overheads. Always align relative to the overheads, do not move the overhead tracks.

Here is a post I made on another forum, I may as well spread the love here.
========================

Time, distance, and sound pressure… all very well defined variables, but also very hard to control variables. Luckily we have a DAW to correct some things that would take hours upon hours of mic placement in the old days. And make the impossible possible, like making the snare mic coincident with an OH mic 6feet away.

In this example I used:
Kick - AKG D112
Snare – SM57
Under snare – CAD M179 set to cardioid pad engaged
Over Heads - Spaced pair 2x Stellar CM-1 set to cardioid (Apex 460 variant)
Toms - CAD M177 pad engaged

The audio is completely dry, no compression, no mixing, no panning, no EQ. Completely stock.

The ONLY differences between the audio files are time alignment, and phase alignment. This should help demonstrate how these variables affect frequency response, power, and imaging.

Here are some pictures of what an un-aligned vs. aligned waves look like. Phase, well that’s just a button on my DAW so it doesn’t show it graphically. But I’m sure you already know what it looks like when you invert phase.

Go ahead and load the files in your audio editing software to “see” the level difference if you can’t hear it. But I bet you’ll hear it.

The stock, untouched mix:
stock.mp3
The mix with only time alignment on all tracks, even toms:
time_align_phase_normal.MP3
The mix with time alignment, as well as phase inverted on under snare and kick:
time_align_phase_corrected.MP3

The picture below is split into 4 sections. I didn’t post pics of the toms, but it’s the same deal.
Section 1 Shows the stock time alignment.
Section 2 Shows the snare / bottom snare aligned to the overheads the overheads always should not be moved. Notice the under snare is inverted?
Section 3 Shows stock kick alignment. There is a lot less kick power in the overheads, that’s why it is so small. But alignment still helps. You can also see that the phase is pretty close to inverted here too.
Section 4 Shows the kick aligned to the overheads. Again, do not move the overheads, only move the kick track.

You'll also notice the overheads themselves have the snare a bit sooner on one side than the other, that can even be corrected. In this case it's a bout an 7 sample shift. Probably not even worth moving. This is best to align by better mic placement in relation to the snare.

 

[aramism]

excellent post. now i understand and idid just that and it really helped.


you live you learn. its great when you first start out recoding bands there is just so much leanring and taking in... i feel like a sponge

 

[theBlackLOBSTERmurder]

why don`t you align to the snare or bassdrum? because their mics are much closer than the OHs, you have less latency at the end. or do you shift the whole drumtracks a few ms forward when finished with alignment and phase flipping? (I don`t know if I`m right, but if you don`t do this, your guitars etc. will not be in time with the drums)

 

[tarnationsauce2]

why don`t you align to the snare or bassdrum? because their mics are much closer than the OHs, you have less latency at the end. or do you shift the whole drumtracks a few ms forward when finished with alignment and phase flipping? (I don`t know if I`m right, but if you don`t do this, your guitars etc. will not be in time with the drums)

The amount of delay should be negligible in contrast to the guitars. But if you are concerned with it, I would still align everything to their respective spot on the overheads, then shift everything back to where the kick or snare originally was.