I have always felt in the back of my mind that room mics will somewhat collapse my stereo image. Let say you have an xy setup 10 ft from a drum kit. Will this not make the toms more mono than you would like? I love the sound of room mics but it seems to make the drums sound more mono. Even with a spread out pair I find that once i get the snare sounding good/in phase through the spaced pair of overheads it makes my toms sound mono as well. I hope this question makes sense. I also see that a mono room mic is often used. How does this not make the drums sound mono? Thanks everyone.
Room Mics and Stereo Image
- Thread starter Studdy
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nialldoran
Member
I suppose a mono room mic would blur the image slightly, depends on what is loudest in the mic and how loud you have it in the drum mix,
i like to add layers of stereo pairs on a kit, so a blumlein pair of ribbons 3ft from the kick, trying to aim down the line that splits the kick and snare, these are my "kit mics"
then i throw a spaced pair in the next room, that get very little direct sound though and act as a cool reverb,
When i'm placing my kit mics i try my best to use the polar pattern to my advantage, so my left kit mic will be pointing at the rack tom/hi hat side of the kit, and ill try my best to get the floor/ ride in the null point of the mic, and then the opposite for my right kit mic, it can be hard when using blumlein technique though as the mics have to stay +/-90 degrees, but the maximum null point on a figure 8 mic is +/-90 degrees off axis is probably the most useful in terms of rejection, but rear reflections may again smear your image, but in all my time using this method i've never had trouble with my tom image smearing due to these pairs
i like to add layers of stereo pairs on a kit, so a blumlein pair of ribbons 3ft from the kick, trying to aim down the line that splits the kick and snare, these are my "kit mics"
then i throw a spaced pair in the next room, that get very little direct sound though and act as a cool reverb,
When i'm placing my kit mics i try my best to use the polar pattern to my advantage, so my left kit mic will be pointing at the rack tom/hi hat side of the kit, and ill try my best to get the floor/ ride in the null point of the mic, and then the opposite for my right kit mic, it can be hard when using blumlein technique though as the mics have to stay +/-90 degrees, but the maximum null point on a figure 8 mic is +/-90 degrees off axis is probably the most useful in terms of rejection, but rear reflections may again smear your image, but in all my time using this method i've never had trouble with my tom image smearing due to these pairs
I do the same, but no matter what at a certain distance the toms will be significantly picked up in both mics. So example my right side room mic will pick up a ton of floor tom and a ton of the first rack tom and so will the left mic. Just over analyzing it but when I compress the hell out of the room mics I feel like I lose the stereo image a little. Say my floor tom is panned 50 percent right, my left room mic has the floor tom coming through a lot. I'm not saying I don't like the sound, I just almost feel that sometimes sending the shells to a reverb gives me a better stereo image because the panning between the reverb and the close mics are identical. Hope this rant makes sense.
nialldoran
Member
yeah i hear you, maybe try something different next time, i engineered some stuff for a producer once and he used a close pair for kit mics like what i do but instead used a spaced pair, he called them "armpit mics" as they were on either side of the kit , quite low to the ground, pointing slightly up toward the drummers arm pits, i personally didn't like the sound and phase issues involved with them, but he seemed to love them, i thought the best use for them was as trash mics for distorting and blending in at low levels,
for me when though, as i said i've never noticed a problem, most drummers i record use one rack tom and one floor, when this is the case my close mics go hard left and right, maybe it doesn't affect me much as tend to have the kits rather low in the drum mix and compress them to get sustain not attack,
for me when though, as i said i've never noticed a problem, most drummers i record use one rack tom and one floor, when this is the case my close mics go hard left and right, maybe it doesn't affect me much as tend to have the kits rather low in the drum mix and compress them to get sustain not attack,
