Room Mics in Live Drum Tracking

[Ermz]

Just wondering what most of you guys do in terms of capturing the room sound when you're tracking kit? What sort of mics and positioning do you lean toward? Omni, Cardioid, Figure 8?

I'm doing some rock stuff quite soon and I want to get away from the 'metal' habit of just close-micing the hell out of everything and using a synthetic verb afterwards to attempt to glue everything together. Works great in metal.. not so great in other stuff. I'd like to stick solely to using room mics to add depth, but don't really know any great positioning techniques to make it worth the while.

Another question being how do you avoid phasing, or does it become a non-issue when you're dealing with mics that are largely capturing reflections anyway?

 

[C_F_H_13]

This is a pretty big question, but I'll let you know what I do maybe it'll help.

I always have 3 types of room mics going on any session. The first is something like a 57/58/salt shaker mic right in front the kick drum at about waist height, pointed at the drummer. This is uber compressed and adds alot of punch.

Then I add 2 pairs of room mics. The first pair is usually Ribbon mics with figure-8 pattern. I set them about 8 feet in front of the kit, head height and I make an equal triangle between each mic and the front of the kick. This is usually the right distance to get alot of room sound, without the "slap" effect of having the mics too far away. The second pair is usually some nice LD condensers set in cardiod. I get them pretty far away from the drumkit, enough to get that slap effect I was talking about in the previous pair. I usually stick these high up in corners or by walls....usually like 15 feet up if possible. I don't really compress either of these pairs although I do use alot of EQ. My biggest problem with roomics is it's really easy to make them all boomy and gross sounding.



Hope this helps a little.

 

[Ermz]

Thanks, that does help. I don't think I have the resources, nor the channels for that many room mics, but I will likely go down the route of 2 stereo rooms and one larger mono LDC to add beef to the snare.

I'm curious, what does that mic in front of the kick at waist height really add? You use something like a 58 or 57 for it? Is it pointing through the kick drum towards the drummer, or does it have a clear line of sight to the drummer?

 

[Gnash]

FOK (front of kick). I use an AT4050. I was recommended that trick, and it works pretty fucking good. That mic has omni, and bi, so it's pretty versatile. Michael Wagner used a laptop mic for a room mic, on the latest Skid Row session, so it's really a matter of what sounds good to you. I throw mics up EVERYWHERE, so I have a ton of options.