Tutorial request: room mics

[professorlamp]

I see lots of people raving on about these and I'm starting to understand the concept but still have a few questions

Q1: what is there use in music?

Q2: when I've heard about them they always tend to be smashed by compressors within an inch of their life...why?

Q3: do room mics have a use other than on drums?

Q4: some good mics (generally) for room mics?

Q5: what kind of room sound do you guys look for?

Sorry if they've been asked but I'd like to have a fuck around with this the next time i get a drummer in and I'd like a marginal idea of what im actually doing

 

[pipaguapique]

Q1: it makes things sound "roomier" (duh!) or bigger some times. more open. (of course it depends on the room)
Q2: if you ever listen to a room mic you will know why. it just makes it even punchier.
Q3: Yes, they can be used on a lot of things. to create an effect type of thing on guitars, accordion, shouts, etc.
Q4: Ribbon mics are mostly used, or large condensers. r121, coles, m250, etc.
Q5: A big ass room! sometimes wood, sometimes adobe, it depends dude...it just has to sound like a room.

 

[professorlamp]

any good examples of a room mic in isolation in a song or something? maybe asking too much?

 

[pipaguapique]

imagine hitting your snare in a dead quiet room.

now hit that same snare in a warehouse. hear the decay?? it's long huh??

ok now. take those two samples and mix them together. you'll probably wont need reverb in your mix for that snare.

did that explained anything??

 

[professorlamp]

that hit home quite well

 

[Morgan C]

One major thing is to put the mica up high, IMO.. I heard a lot of pro engineers putting them a couple inches from the ground, for lots of lowend, but everything sounds really weird there: the snare is really worry, you get mostly the sound of the bottom heads.. Which is usually pretty bad, especially if they're as old as mine.

clip of room placed low: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/324723/RoomRaw.mp3
Clip of room placed high: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/324723/rawRoom (2).mp3
high room mic in a full drum mix (2 oh, kick, replaced snare): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/324723/realDrums28March.mp3

note, I used diff mica for those 2. The low room was done with a shitty kmicro, the high ones done with a 57 (really good freq for room mica, responds well to compressing). Also I prefer mono room mic to stereo.. Too hard to get a consistent stereo image, and mono simply makes the snare sound phat while stereo makes it really stereoscopically confused. Verb and ohs for width, room mica for depth and hugeness.

 

[professorlamp]

any particular polar pattern? I'm assuming omni if you want to pick up room

 

[HatchetDrummer]

Cardioid pattern is what I would always use.

You want the mic pointed towards the source, but far enough away from the source that you get a time delay, but not soo close to walls to any strange artifacts. But then again it will have a large part on how good the room is in the first place.

I know for a fact that the room sound you hear in Garage and reload was multiple c414's 18' in the air at the top of The Plant's SSL tracking room. AKA room A. Its also the nicest sounding drum room I've ever been in, the mic's hang in fixed locations on the celling of the room, about 8" away from the actual surface, it goes against the grain, but as the studio owner told me as I was doing the walk through, it doesn't matter what all the books say, it only matters what sounds good. Then again I was told that the SSL tracking room was build because of the money that Metallica spent when working on Load. The Neve Room was the A room until Load was cut, the budget for the record was close to 7 digits. : 0

In the end it all will depend on the room, and the only way your going to know if its going to work or not, is when the mics are up, and you listen back after the first take of the session. Its always better to have too many mics then not enough.

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

I usually use two ribbons in a blumlein crossed figure 8 position, approx at the same height as the tomtoms are.
Works fine for me

 

[vespiz]

+1.

If your room is small-ish, try pointing the room mics away from the kit towars the walls to get more reflection vs. the direct sound. Use cardioids for this.

 

[Jaymz]

Theres a video online of the later Hanger drum sessions with 2 stacked AT3035's in front of the kit. Sounds pretty killer aswell!

 

[mva801]

+1.

If your room is small-ish, try pointing the room mics away from the kit towars the walls to get more reflection vs. the direct sound. Use cardioids for this.

This. I usually use two 4038's in a blumlein setup, about 10' from the kit, or a couple u67's in ORTF high up in the room. Depending on the drummer and the way the cymbals sound. If the dude mashes his cymbals and barely hits the drums, like a lot of inexperienced guys, I'll nix the 67's because they're pretty bright, and the room sound will be all cymbal wash. That's where the darker ribbons come in.