so we mic'd up a drumset with a marshall cab last night at the studio...

[Executioner213]

I'm interested to try this with my Peavey stereo cab and see what that yeilds for a whole kit if placed in the center.

Does having multiple speakers hooked up to a single output/input (like a 4x12 or 2x12 cab) mean it will essentially have more "diaphragms" picking up the sound?

 

[Executioner213]

...and why does Yamaha wire the speaker in reverse, yet doing so on a cab is not neccessary?

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

the cardigans recorded drums through 4*12 cabs on the superextragravity album

 

[mazzy maz]

From a recent interview with Mille from Kreator:

I understand you changed your recording process a bit for this album.
Yes. The basic tracks were all recorded in a live situation. We had the whole band in one room recording drums, both guitars and bass at the same time. We didn’t do overdubs to fix things afterwards. We left it like it was and tried to play as close to perfect as possible with the energy of a live show. For us this time it was more about the vibe and the emotion than perfection. It gives the listener a clue to what the band sounds like live, rather than a perfect polished studio production.

Link: http://heavymetal.about.com/od/interviews/a/kreator.htm

I watched the making of DVD that came with the new album and it shows them all playing together in a room with the producer sitting on the floor in the middle of the room and apparently being recorded (drums only I think) by a surround sound speaker system.

Here's the video, fast forward to 8:10 to see what I'm talking about:

 

[if6was9]

Cool!
You can see him measuring stuff up thought o get the phase right. ALso it looks like a large 2.1 system not so mucha surround system

 

[nwright]

...and why does Yamaha wire the speaker in reverse, yet doing so on a cab is not neccessary?

What do you mean by "in reverse", + to -, or something else?

 

[if6was9]

Think about it- wiring it in reverse will just invert the signal phase, you don't need to change + to -, all you need to do is hook the speakers terminals up to your mic pre, pick one wire as groung, the other as the signal. Thats it!

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Dumb question, but wouldn't you need a shit ton of gain to get what the speakers are creating? I just have a hard time believing that everything is moving them that much.

I suppose it would depend on how broken in the speakers are?

Oh and +1 on the wireing backwards, I don't get that either you shouldn't have to do anything for this.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

with a DIY subkick you usually have to pad the output.

I wrote about subkicks a couple times on AGZ

http://www.audiogeekzine.com/?p=214
http://www.audiogeekzine.com/?p=254

 

[DaveBlack]

yeah, we did it again last night. Its as easy as hooking it up as if its a regular microphone and turning the gain up a little more than usual.

 

[if6was9]

Think I'm gonna do this with a band I'm recording next, even if I don't end up using it they're the kinda guys that will go totally apeshit over the fact the cab is a mic!

 

[iekobrid]

If you use a 4x12 guitar cabinet to record the sound of a 4x12 guitar cabinet, do they cancel each other out and leave you with a DI sound? :Spin:

 

[dani]

sounds interesting.

microphones and speakers are almost essentially the same thing. i wouldn't of thought you'd need to use any more gain than a mic. perhaps even less, given the size of the cone of a speaker. also, you wouldn't need to reverse the wiring on any speakers, given that both speakers and microphones don't have a particular direction in which current flows.

i'd try it if i wasn't at uni! (and had 2 cabs)

 

[Executioner213]

From Sweetwater.com (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SubKick)

"The idea behind the SubKick is ingeniously simple. Yamaha took a 6.5" speaker, mounted it in a 10" drum shell and reverse-wired it to an XLR jack to convert the speaker diaphragm into a microphone diaphragm. This huge diaphragm allows the SubKick to pick up the low end that a normal microphone can't. And as a dynamic microphone it can handle extremely high SPLs."

 

[AudioGeekZine]

I wonder if an Omni measurement mic in the same position would achieve a similar result after some high filtering. They're pretty much flat down to 10Hz.
Larger diaphragms for lower frequencies is a myth anyway.

 

[everybody's x]

I have a sub-mic I made years ago and believe me it doesn't need any mic gain, I have to pad the shit out of it. A speaker is just a giant dynamic microphone when you wire it into an input as opposed to an output.

 

[if6was9]

Miced a bands kit with a cab today- 2 X 12 on its side in front of the kick- brilliant, tons of punchy low end. Adds serious weight to the kick sound which I miced with a D6. Definately busting this out more often.

Simple to do, and it has a hot output- my gain was only up about a fifth or so the way and i was getting a nice healthy signal.

 

[sirscratch01]

clips??

 

[if6was9]

Not yet from me anyways- I just finsihed tracking yesterday so I'm taking a day off before going at the mix, I don't think the band would be happy with me posting anything of theirs until they've got it themselves.

I'd say to just try it out next time you're tracking drums. Pretty much everyone here's got a cab lying around somewhere and most people mave plenty of inputs- doesn't even need a mic lead, a simple guitar cable is all thats needed.

 

[ahjteam]

Pics? I'm having a studio session next week and thought I should give this a go...