Spot Micing Cymbals - Your Experiences

[dcb]

guys, i got more and more into david bendeths work especially paramores riot and underoaths lost in the sound of.
i really love the punch of the cymbals in bendeths work, and imalmost 100% sure its only possible because he spot mics every single cymbal.

heres a picture of the breaking benjamin session:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/atta...aking-benjamin-phobia-david-bendeth-drums.jpg

it seems he has no extra overheads to capture the whole kit, but it doesnt seem to be close micing either (to far away...)...
im curious if you guys have tried this out and know about this technique.
what about phasing issues ?

i will try this technique in the near future. i totally love the idea of capturing every single nuance a drummer plays on the cymbals...

so whats your experience on this ?

 

[gabriel g.]

I did a couple of times and I am not a big fan of it.
I love ab spot-ab, and will try some stuff with with 3 mics in the future.

I use a compressor with a short attack to give the cymbals the punch they need

 

[gabriel g.]

about the phase stuff:

not that problem because the mics are pointing on the clear source.
big minus for me is you loose the natural stereo image of the oh and the full drumkit.

 

[Morgan C]

It works well on rides and hats, but not on crashes/splashes IME.

 

[jangoux]

I position my OHs pointing at the smaller tom/right cymbal and the second mic pointing somewhat to the left crash cymbal, so they're kinda spot miking the crash cymbals and kinda getting the kit sound and keeping at least the snare at the center. Ride, china, hi hat, are all spot miked. This way, i get the best of both techniques, IMO. Might give this technique a try someday tho'

 

[dcb]

yeah, on rides and hats is pretty standard, i do that all the time. but bendeth seems to use every mic so he has total control over every single nuance of the drummers playing.
and again - i dont see any aditional overhead mics.

also listen to the mogg files of misery business - to me it sounds like the crash in the first riff is closed miked signal and wayy up front, while the rest of the kit (roommics) add a little little ambience.

i think with all the retirggering and removing the low end from the overheads up to 400 hz, we sepearate the drumkit a little too much nowadays, and i wanna work against that ;-)
if solo kick and snare, it sometimes seems the drummer is incredibly out of time - but then you add close miced cymbals and suddenly everything makes sense!
thats because youcan clearly hear what the drummers right hand is doing. with tradtional ab or xy, it might work for drummers with a small number of cymbals.
but for instance my drummer has like 15 cymbals (including little splashes, zilbels etc.) that i really need upfront in the mix without letting the snare come up.

gonna try this method.

 

[Ermz]

I've done the 3-OH technique for the last two drum sessions I've done. Seems to have come up well enough. Gives you more control over the spread of the cymbals and how wide you want everything to be. One of my main issues with spaced pairs is that you really lose the center image integrity, but the 3rd mic here can bring it back up.

Yes, the drawback is that you lose the natural panning of the kit, but for metal I guess that isn't so much a concern. For rock I would likely go back to AB, and possibly spot mic all the cymbals if I had the mics and channels for it.

 

[::XeS::]

Exodus kit recorded by Andy:

 

[nwright]

Andy has said in the past he likes to mic cymbal pairs, IIRC.

I've mixed a project before that had spot miked cymbals. For me, I feel like I got the best cymbal sound in any of the mixes I've ever done.

I wanted to do spot miking on our latest CD, but was talked out of it by the other engineer saying it would be too hard and have too much phase. I disagreed, but went along with his idea (it was his studio and I'm a noob). I wished I had given it a shot. We ended up doing spaced pair and then HH and ride.

 

[Machinated]

bear in mind that adam d tracked lost in the sound of seperation. that said he gets awesome cymbal definition anyway on his stuff.

I think if you can seperate them as much as possible (as close as you can to a mic each) and then ride them throughout the song, whilst dropping the ones you dont need, you'll get a way more defined sound.

 

[MetalJonesy]

i usually have two overheads (one over the left set of crashes that get used the most, and same with the right hand side) then ill always spot things like Zil bells, splashes, chinas, hats etc

 

[dcb]

bear in mind that adam d tracked lost in the sound of seperation. that said he gets awesome cymbal definition anyway on his stuff.

I think if you can seperate them as much as possible (as close as you can to a mic each) and then ride them throughout the song, whilst dropping the ones you dont need, you'll get a way more defined sound.

cool. didnt know that.
but what got me really excited about this technique is riot.
cymbals sound mono at times ((no room)) (listen to the first riff in misery business)

and yeah, automation is crucial to this. but i guess it gives you full control over everyhing, i love that !

 

[Paulie!]

IMO, close miking the cymbals and drums wouldn't seem to mess with the stereo image.. you could technically create whatever image you wanted to..

My thing about using only two over heads is that the right side of the mix begins to get very cymbal heavy since most drummers favor the right crash if they're riding it and they're rides/chinas are usually on the right aswell.

So usually you would end up with atleast three cymbals on the right side going most of the time and just the hats and an accent crash on the left (that's with MOST drummers I've worked with anyways) which is fine for the most part, but with only spots you could really play with the cymbal placement in the stereo image you know... hell you could even automate the pan on the hats and shit if you wanted to be reeeaally experimental (that's a cool idea actually, writing that down)

-P

 

[dcb]

IMO, close miking the cymbals and drums wouldn't seem to mess with the stereo image.. you could technically create whatever image you wanted to..

My thing about using only two over heads is that the right side of the mix begins to get very cymbal heavy since most drummers favor the right crash if they're riding it and they're rides/chinas are usually on the right aswell.

So usually you would end up with atleast three cymbals on the right side going most of the time and just the hats and an accent crash on the left (that's with MOST drummers I've worked with anyways) which is fine for the most part, but with only spots you could really play with the cymbal placement in the stereo image you know... hell you could even automate the pan on the hats and shit if you wanted to be reeeaally experimental (that's a cool idea actually, writing that down)

-P

yeah, i love the idea having a crash right up front in the center when the riff kicks in and the vocals are muted. great.