Real snare tracks - mic'ing/processing

[Morgan C]

I know there's not many of you here.. but for those of you working with real snare drum tracks, how do you get it working in the mix?

I get a really good sound, with little bleed, but it always seems distant and I can never get enough punch in the mix. I know the sounds are good because if I replace it with samples of the same sound, it sounds really good instantly. And there's really little bleed compared to most snare tracks I hear.

Yet I can never get it sounding as upfront as I want. The more compression I use brings all the bleed up and makes the snare sound really distant.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Decode, Snare, Rec (1139).mp3

is a sample from the Paramore tracks I did.

Would a bottom mic help a LOT?

 

[Demonstealer]

I've been told by more than 1 engineer that a bottom mic is essential and a must have. I also watched a video interview of a producer who said he uses the BBC technique of the center overhead mic along with the pair and that catches the whole kit and he gets some part of the snare sound from that mic.

I haven't done much live snare recording myself with bleed but you could just have 2 snare tracks. the live one on top and the sampled below it to give it that juice.

 

[gabriel g.]

Yeah snare bottom is very important....also it could be possible you miced the snare too close!!!!

Bleed is never that big problem if you use a good gate. You could also sidechain the gate with the toms....

I always mic the snare top and bottom (mostly audix i5 on the top/sm57 on the bottom)

Then I´m turning the phase of the bottom mic and sending both channels into one group.

The group effects:

Waves SSL channel (for the gate, and little eq)
Waves Api 2500 (for the smack ->slow attack and fast release with a ratio of 4:1)
Waves api or V EQ
and Waves rVerb (with 30% wet 70% dry)

But alot of the sound is comming from the OH´s and the room mic.

I use a small A/B for the OH and micing the China/ride/hats seperatly

For the room I´m using my rode NT2a with high and low cut and extrem compression (fast ratio fast release with a ratio of 10:1)


I think the best way to get a great real drumsound is to:

Use a small A/B on the Room
X/Y on the OH
and close micing the rest

But you have to move the close mics in the sequenzer to the right (for some ms) because of the rule of the first waves front

(Vielleicht kann mir da jemand aus deutschland helfen:
Was ist der englische begriff für erste Wellenfront???)

 

[KeithTidd]

try some form of transient designer plug in on it, perhaps.

 

[Morgan C]

Yeah snare bottom is very important....also it could be possible you miced the snare too close!!!!

Explain? Its not REALLY close, but its hovering over the rim. How does moving it further away get a more upfront effect? :S

But you have to move the close mics in the sequenzer to the right (for some ms) because of the rule of the first waves front

One thing I'm really not good on at all is phase relationships, everyone says to 'check phase' but I'm not really sure what to be checking. Everythings going to be out of phase with everything else because the distance is different between each mic. I understand inverting phase for top/bot though.


But none of that really answered my question :S

Because my stuff instantly sounds good when I replace it with a sample of the same drum. Sure the sample is hitting a bit harder than I do all the time, but still...

I also know this isn't something that's only me.. I listened to the Underoath multitracks (for some reason the snare wasn't replaced), and their snare sounded really distant too. But obviously there must be some way to fix it.

Ryan showed me one of his snare tracks, and apart from it having LOTS of bleed, tons more than mine, it was still way more upfront in the mix. Which doesn't make sense, the only thing I can think of making it seem distant is the bleed :S Or maybe I'm not messing enough with phase, cos I don't know enough about it.

 

[gabriel g.]

1. dont panic about phase....you always have some phasing but as long as your mics point to the ground and to the roof (with the phase reversed) you are fine!!!!

2. To hit very hart is extrem important. Last month I recorded a drummer who sounded great when I was standing in front of the kit, but on my monitors he sounded like he is doing rolls all the time

3.The sound of each instrument have a sonic radius. If you mic things too close this will change the sound. Think about a miced amp->If you are micing it too close it sounds nasal and have no bass.

Same goes for snare and toms and kick. I got the best real snare sound when I put the mic like 10cm away of the snare. With an angle of 45°.
I put it between the high-hat and the high-rack-tom.

So I got the punch.

But you should always listen to the snare clos mics and the OH and maybe the room mics too.
A good real snare sound goes hand in hand with all this mics....

hope this helps

 

[gabriel g.]

So here we go:

I made some clips for you (taken from one of FL productions of this fall)
Of course real drums!!!

Drums with room:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1425397/Drums and snare/drums + room.mp3

drums with room (-7dB):
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1425397/Drums and snare/drums + room(-7dB).mp3

drums without the room mic:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1425397/Drums and snare/drums without room.mp3

drums wihtout the room and the oh mics:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1425397/Drums and snare/drums without room and oh.mp3

only snare (top and bottom):
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1425397/Drums and snare/only snare (top and bottom).mp3

only snare top:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1425397/Drums and snare/only snare top.mp3

only snare but with full processing:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1425397/Drums and snare/only snare processed.mp3

 

[Morgan C]

So here we go:

I made some clips for you (taken from one of FL productions of this fall)
Of course real drums!!!

//

Thanks for that

Your snares seem to have a lot more low-end than mine, adding to the punch. Got any pics on mic'ing?

Don't have time (or bandwidth) to download them all now, just listened to a couple, but I'll get the rest tomorrow. Thanks again


edit: also, do you have MSN or something? Would be nice to chat and glean some more info from you, but its always kinda awkward over a forum.

 

[phatnoise]

You need to gate the snare drum!
First it will get rid of the bleed and the snare overtone (if there any, and if you want to get rid of it)
Second playing with the attack on the gate will give you some sort of punch to the snare (combined with the compressor).
Then you can play with the snare's gain more easily in the mix.

With the sampled Snare drum you have more control, mainly cuz you don't have bleed problem so you can crank it up as much as you want, without having the bleed masking everything....

 

[gabriel g.]

Nope dont have MSN sorry.

Here is a very short movie of the drum recording process:


sorry dont have any pics ATM

 

[BLUElightCory]

It's important to get a good snare tone and to make sure you have as little bleed as possible. I sometimes use foam baffles and work with the null in the mic's polar pattern to minimize bleed. If you don't have much bleed you can get away with using more EQ and compression if you need to. Don't be afraid to twist some knobs to get the sound you need! There is more extreme EQ going on in modern music than many engineers think.

Using a gate/expander DOES NOT get rid of bleed or overtones in the snare sound. It only alleviates these problems when the snare isn't being played. If there is bleed or any overtones they will still be apparent when the snare is played, so take the extra time to get the snare sounding good in the room before you worry about micing it.

A bottom snare mic is always a good idea; it can help add some snap and high end that might be missing from your top mic. You can always mute it if you don't need it. You can also use well placed overheads and/or room mics to add to the overall snare sound (this is where a lot of the depth in drum sounds comes from).

Lastly, phase IS very important in achieving great drum sounds, but because it's sometimes hard to hear its effects it can be hard to work out. If the tracks are already recorded, put any plug with a polarity-reverse switch (The circle with the slash through it) on each drum track, and go through the tracks one-by-one and reverse the polarity using the switch. If you hear an increase in low end when you reverse the polarity, you've improved the phase relationship. If the sound gets thinner, you've worsened it. Playing with the phase relationships of the drums can dramatically affect the overall sound and size of the kit.

Just keep working on it and you should be fine.

 

[gabriel g.]

your phase switch do only change the phase about 180°....so if you realy wanna fix it you should use a delay on each track to get the amplitude right....

For me the most important thing is how do the OH mics work with the close mics!!!!

Everything have to work hand in hand thats why I posted all that clips to show this to you

 

[Machinated]

Phase =/= polarity.

some people almost throw those words around interchangably (not directed at anyone in particular!)

 

[gabriel g.]

Phase =/= polarity.

some people almost throw those words around interchangably (not directed at anyone in particular!)

+1

With using a not linear eq you do nothing else then changing the phase of something....just as an example

So dont be too afraid of having too "phasy" drums or guitars.
But it is always good to check with the "phase-switch" if something sounds strange

 

[Machinated]

yeah - i prefer calling it a polarity switch rather than phase though. flipping the polarity is literally changing the -ve's to a +ve, and the +ve's to -ve's. the phase is to do with the sumation of 2 or more waves picked up from different distances from a source - therefore to me a "phase switch" would imply something to do with the difference between the waves is changing.

 

[gabriel g.]

yeah but making a + -> - is a change of 180° (just thinking about a sine wave)

But maybe I remember wrong...the course is one year in the past

 

[Machinated]

if its a constant sinewave then yes.......but this is getting a bit OT haha

 

[gabriel g.]

Hahaha you maybe right, but in the end it is all sine-waves
Thanks to Mr. Fourier

 

[BLUElightCory]

your phase switch do only change the phase about 180°....so if you realy wanna fix it you should use a delay on each track to get the amplitude right....

Using a delay or nudging a track might change the phase relationship between two tracks for the better, but it won't fix phase problems. This is because phase is both time AND frequency dependent. Flipping the polarity generally won't FIX a phase problem, but it can improve the phase relationship between two (or more) tracks.

The original poster is trying to understand ways to improve his natural drum tones, and I think that a fundamental understanding of how phasing works is crucial to achieving good tones in situations where multiple mics are involved. Think about it - if the tracks are not phase coherent you're going to be getting unpredictable frequency cancellations in your tracks, which can make your recordings sound unnatural and thin.

Machinated is correct in referring to the circle-slash switch as a polarity switch rather than a phase switch, as it is simply reversing the polarity of the sound wave by 180 degrees. This change in polarity also affects the way the soundwave sums and/or cancels with other soundwaves, which changes the phase relationship between the two sounds.

In this particular situation, experimenting with flipping the polarity on some of his drum tracks could greatly improve his drum mix with minimal effort -

Say, for example, the top snare mic and the snare in the OH mics are cancelling with each other when the tracks are combined and resulting in the thinner snare sound - flipping the polarity of the overhead mics would change the phase relationship between the snare and OH tracks and cause the snare sound to become fuller, which could go a long way towards improving the drum sounds in his mix.

 

[Morgan C]

///

Can you elaborate on how to get phase right when recording, instead of trying to fix it afterwards?

Cos I constantly hear this mentioned but I really have no idea what they mean.