Room mic mixing advie???

[xmortumx]

So i tracked a new band the other day and i decided to use my audio technica at3035 as a room mic(just one) So i placed it about 2 feet or so in the middle of the kit, and i was just wondering what techniques(mixing wise) you guys suggest or like doing when mixing with room mic? Just compression??

Ima post the raw drum track so you guys get an idea of how its sounding.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/728056/Drums_Raw.mp3

 

[ahjteam]

Can't listen to your mix because I'm on a satellite connection that doesn't allow any mp3 files to be downloaded... But I usually place mono rooms so that they are in line with both kick and snare, so slightly "off center" to the left from audience perspective, that way it won't skew the stereoimage. Otherwise it usually renders the mic pretty useless (unless you want to use it as an effect)

 

[xmortumx]

So me placing it right in the middle of the kit wasn't necessarily a good idea?

 

[greyskull]

use the nastiest compressor you have set it to stun and time the attack and release so you got the body/spread of the snare through. and try to get it pumping with the tempo of the track maybe.

 

[ahjteam]

So me placing it right in the middle of the kit wasn't necessarily a good idea?

never say never, try it out. but yeah, slightly coloring/distorting compressor and maybe low end and highend boost with eq as processing.

 

[xmortumx]

Yea dude to tell u the truth Im digging how the room mic track is adding to the drum sound(i know i havent done any processing to it) but i can tell a difference when i mute the track.

 

[ahjteam]

you mean like "it makes everything bigger and louder"?

 

[jangoux]

I always use mono room mics and set it loud enough so i can hear it adding body to the mix

 

[xmortumx]

Yea gives it a "fuller" sound

 

[Trevoire520]

There's a whole bunch of things you can do with room mic's.

Use a gate sidechained from the snare to add room sound to your snare track.

Keep the processing fairly light and use it to add some room ambience and depth to the kit.

Smash the shit out of it with a compressor/limiter and mix it underneath the rest of the kit (you'll probably have to low pass it when doing this as you'll end up with tons of cymbals)

There's been a couple of decent threads about room mic's I think. Search and see what you can find.

 

[amarshism]

I love slamming the shit out of em and running em through amp sims

 

[xmortumx]

Running them through amp sim???

 

[P-E]

Yeah, for distortion and "character".

I've never tried it, but I heard many people pushed theirs through a Sansamp. IIRC there's a Sansamp channel in one of the Superior 2 products, either Allaire or Hit Factory.

edit : it's allaire

 

[morpheusmultimedia]

I am usually doing 2 set of rooms. one is mono room set up around 1meter pointing at the centr of the kickdrum with the mic just around 20-30 cm above the floor. I compress it really hard with a distressor and roll of the highend all the way down anywhere near 3-5 khz where it will loose the high end rumble from the extreme compression (20:1 or nuke, fast attack fast realease).

the second is a stereo pair that I usually don't compress on the way in.

 

[jeid]

I used the Sansamp PSA plug in on my last drum mix. I hi/lo passed it to cut the mud/harshness of the cymbals and it worked out great. Added a nice body to the drum sound.

 

[botus99]

I love slamming the shit out of em and running em through amp sims

I had awesome results on the album I'm mixing now by doing that! LePou's LeGion brought some really nice aggression to the track, then I squeezed a little more dirtiness with UAD's 1176.

If you don't record your drums in a good sounding room, a little reverb can make the room mic sound a little more open, splatty, etc (depending on how you mix it in).

Room mics are always one of my favorite tracks to mix in a song. Sometimes I'll start my mix with them, just to set the vibe of things from the get go, then build the drums and, consequently, the rest of the mix around them

 

[amarshism]

Yeh me too. I think you can have a lot of fun with them. They're really great for drum and bass or drum and vocal sections of songs either drenched in verb, with lots of reversed hits or saturated with a sansamp or other source of distortion. I do alot of automation on my rooms because I like the fullness it brings when ridden up high during slower sections or choruses, but sometimes you need the drums to sound more direct. Normally have a stereo pair of leftover sdc's, a ldc for a mono room in line about 5-feet out in front, and then a shitty 58 that's hidden behind a baffle, covered with a blanket and has the gain cranked. Sounds pretty shit but sometimes that's what you want.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Agreed, room mics are the shit. I rarely use reverb anymore on drums, my mixes as off late are literally like 90% room, 10% reverb, IF that much (reverb)

 

[if6was9]

Really looking forward to trying some cool room mic stuff on an album I'm doing this week- No guitar, just drums, bass and vocals so I'm gonna go all out with the drums.
I've not had much luck with room mics so far- I've only really used a room mic on one of my mixes but I've never really given them much time during tracking either.