Drum Recording Dissertation - Overheads And Phase Coherency

[eatsleepdrums]

Hi everyone,

It's great to be here. I was an old member on the sadly defunct womb forums (valjean24601) and I learned so much there, particularly about drum recording! I'm forever grateful to all involved.

I have been in touch with Bob and John about a dissertation than I'm working on in my final year at university here in Ireland. Both have kindly agreed to answer a few questions. I've contacted William also, but have not heard back from him yet ( EDIT * William replied and is cool with it too) but Bob suggested that I post here also to get more people involved and I'm very grateful to him for that.

The paper is investigating phase coherency in relation to drum kit recording mainly in the rock/pop realm (but looking specifically at stereo overhead techniques). There are a myriad of variables when it comes to investigating an issue like this and a large part of my paper actually focuses on how difficult it is to actually ascertain and measure the effects of phase cancellation and present data on it in a way that appeases the demands of academia. While it can be easy to hear phase cancellation to a trained ear, it can often be difficult to isolate it and represent it in hard data form.

Amidst all the scientific babble there is a practical element to my work and I am hoping to get some insight into the preferences and thought processes behind what professionals regard as their favourite stereo overhead configurations and what the impact of their choices mean for phase coherency and how they view the pros/cons of their choices.

I have shortlisted 8 questions and i'd be extremely grateful if anyone wishes to discuss their views on any of them (hopefully all of them). The questions are quite broad but that is the intention here as I'm hoping to get to the core of the techniques and thought processes of those people implementing them and to allow them to expand on their views.

In my paper I have already discussed and presented data on some of the variables that will impact the practical exploration of these techniques in my own studio (acoustics of my live room, room sweeps, preamp/microphone plots and colouration etc) and again that's why I focus these questions in a broad manner because each person will have a totally different set of circumstances.

I thank you all for your time and I'll be hoping to get involved with some in depth discussion with you all on this. Thanks again to Bob and John for the heads up about this forum!

Mark.


1) What is your preferred, or most widely used, stereo overhead technique when recording the drum kit, particularly in the rock/pop genre?


2) What is the main motivation behind this choice and what do you feel gives it an advantage over other overhead techniques?


3) Are there any disadvantages associated with this choice in your experience?


4) Does your overhead choice choice tend to pull either the snare or the kick drum off to one side of the stereo image. If so does this pose any problems for you?


5) With your overhead technique are you attempting to capture an aggregate picture of the drum kit, or are you concerned primarily with cymbal capture?


6) With your selected overhead technique, how concerned specifically are you with phase coherency? If it is a concern, what measures do you take to ensure phase coherency in the capture?


7) Would you class stereo width / a more spacious image as more important than a more phase coherent capture?


8) When you start introducing close microphones into the equation do you find that there's any particular overhead setup that works more effectively in tandem with the close microphones from a phase coherency perspective, or do you encounter the same issues regardless of what overhead technique you employ?

[Bob Olhsson]

Hi and welcome back!

1. I've played with stereo overheads using two figure-8s but decided it didn't sound as good as one mono overhead.

Around ten years ago I was speaking at a Tape Op convention in New Orleans. I checked out Russ Hogarth's drum workshop and saw him set up a front-of-kit mike in addition to stereo overheads. I added one on my next session and was pleasantly surprised by how much better it sounded than my mono overhead. It also didn't require flipping the phase on the bass drum. I later learned this method had been used in Muscle Shoals.

2. When I was recording Jeff Beck, Mickey Most asked me to duck Cozy Powell's cymbals. The only way I could think of ducking the cymbals was to switch the KM-86 overhead to figure-8 and set the null edge-on to the cymbals. I loved the improvement in overall sound and continued doing that with my U-67s after I left Motown. I also use a figure-8 for front-of-kit

3. I like these methods better than the alternatives. The only time it doesn't work is with really bad drummers who need multiple close mikes.

4. I'm not going for a stereo image.

5. I'm trying to pick up the entire kit and just using kick and snare mikes for fill.

6. I have to check phase of the fill mikes.

7. Pop music drums are all about "balls." The stereo image is pretty meaningless but phase coherency is very important.

8. Front of kit solves bass drum phase issues.

[John Eppstein]

Hi everyone,

It's great to be here. I was an old member on the sadly defunct womb forums (valjean24601) and I learned so much there, particularly about drum recording! I'm forever grateful to all involved.

I have been in touch with Bob and John about a dissertation than I'm working on in my final year at university here in Ireland. Both have kindly agreed to answer a few questions. I've contacted William also, but have not heard back from him yet ( EDIT * William replied and is cool with it too) but Bob suggested that I post here also to get more people involved and I'm very grateful to him for that.

The paper is investigating phase coherency in relation to drum kit recording mainly in the rock/pop realm (but looking specifically at stereo overhead techniques). There are a myriad of variables when it comes to investigating an issue like this and a large part of my paper actually focuses on how difficult it is to actually ascertain and measure the effects of phase cancellation and present data on it in a way that appeases the demands of academia. While it can be easy to hear phase cancellation to a trained ear, it can often be difficult to isolate it and represent it in hard data form.

Amidst all the scientific babble there is a practical element to my work and I am hoping to get some insight into the preferences and thought processes behind what professionals regard as their favourite stereo overhead configurations and what the impact of their choices mean for phase coherency and how they view the pros/cons of their choices.

I have shortlisted 8 questions and i'd be extremely grateful if anyone wishes to discuss their views on any of them (hopefully all of them). The questions are quite broad but that is the intention here as I'm hoping to get to the core of the techniques and thought processes of those people implementing them and to allow them to expand on their views.

In my paper I have already discussed and presented data on some of the variables that will impact the practical exploration of these techniques in my own studio (acoustics of my live room, room sweeps, preamp/microphone plots and colouration etc) and again that's why I focus these questions in a broad manner because each person will have a totally different set of circumstances.

I thank you all for your time and I'll be hoping to get involved with some in depth discussion with you all on this. Thanks again to Bob and John for the heads up about this forum!

Mark.

1) What is your preferred, or most widely used, stereo overhead technique when recording the drum kit, particularly in the rock/pop genre?

None. I used to use a conventional spaced pair with close mics on all the drums but could never get anything I was satisfied with. Tried checking phase on everything but with all those mics it's impossible the get everything right. The best I could do was can the close mics on the toms andf just use overheads, kick, and snare which was better but the cymbals still sounded like ass.

The I saw one of Weedy's posts about his technique with no overheads and instead a front of kit and side of kit mic and it was a revelation. I also noted what Weedy was saying about the horrible off-axis response of various commonly used mics and retired those to my mic box for live punk shows. That got me most of the way there. I got a second TM-1 so I could have the same mics on front and side and got a KM-84 for snare. So I'm just using 4 mics for the whole kit, plus a mono room mic which may or may not get used. I don't have a proper pair for stereo room so i have not tried that yet.


2) What is the main motivation behind this choice and what do you feel gives it an advantage over other overhead techniques?

Overheads suck. They're sensitive to phasey sounds caused by cymbal movement and it's harder to get a good balance between cymbals and toms - and there's usually phase problems with the kick and snare. Getting the mics away from right over the snare and the back of the kick gets rid of that.

3) Are there any disadvantages associated with this choice in your experience? None, but I haven't tried it on any "heavy" bands. I suspect it would probably work a lot better than most people think it would but can't say for certain.


4) Does your overhead choice choice tend to pull either the snare or the kick drum off to one side of the stereo image. If so does this pose any problems for you?

Stereo image? What stereo image? A drum kit is ONE INSTRUMENT that just happens to be made up of individual parts. I personally tend to find it distracting to have the kit spread all over the place. I pan LCR and put the drums right up the middle, which is where the kit sits with most bands. Plus I can dodge all those silly arguments about "Drummer's perspective vs audience perspective" with the added bonus that air drummers won't get confused by lefties. If I had stereo room mics I'd probably pan the L=-R for ambience.Maybe.


5) With your overhead technique are you attempting to capture an aggregate picture of the drum kit, or are you concerned primarily with cymbal capture?

A kit is ONE INSTRUMENT. I want it to sound like the kit in the room.
If I find myself concerned with cymbal capture it's usually about trying to get the drummer to not bash them so hard or to swap out cymbals for better balance with the kit.


6) With your selected overhead technique, how concerned specifically are you with phase coherency? If it is a concern, what measures do you take to ensure phase coherency in the capture?
I do a quick phase check with the snare but there's seldom a problem.

Incidentally, I have a somewhat offbeat micing technique on snare - I mic the drum from the side, 2-3 inches from the shell and offset a bit from the vent hole. IO can get a good balance between top and bottom by adjusting mic position and that eliminates phase problems caused by top and bottom mics - and with the KM84 I can get just the right amount of hat with the off-axis pickup which gives me one less mic to worry about.


7) Would you class stereo width / a more spacious image as more important than a more phase coherent capture?

Again, what stereo width? I get stereo width by placement of instruments, not by spreading individual mics all over the field like sloppily buttered toast.That might sound "real kool and groovy, man" if you're taking lots of psychedelics drugs, but I gave that up decades ago.


8) When you start introducing close microphones into the equation do you find that there's any particular overhead setup that works more effectively in tandem with the close microphones from a phase coherency perspective, or do you encounter the same issues regardless of what overhead technique you employ?

Yeah. I find leaving the extra mics in the box usually works a treat. The closer they are to the box (cabinet, drawer) the better they sound.

And as Bob said, using a front of kit instead of an overhead and spot mics solves the problems of phase with the kick.

It's conceivable that I MIGHT encounter a situation where I might feel the need for an extra mic or two, but I've found that with the addition of each extra mic the problems increase exponentially.

Don't forget that Mr. Johns got the classic Bonham sound with one kick mic and a pair of 160s. That tells me that you really don't need a zillion mics for a heavy sound, if that's what you're after.

Most of what I'm doing these days is country, with some classic rock and blues, and this setup works fine for all that.

Of course this does assume that the kit sounds the way you want it to for the particular music at hand.

Of course if I was doing an album of drum, solos I might want to get a bit more creative and elaborate with the setup, who knows?

[nobby]

I have limited experience, so take the following with a grain of salt:

The I saw one of Weedy's posts about his technique with no overheads and instead a front of kit and side of kit mic and it was a revelation.

Floor tom side, specifically, just in case someone reading doesn't automatically assume that.

Stereo image? What stereo image? A drum kit is ONE INSTRUMENT that just happens to be made up of individual parts.

opinion/ semantics

I personally tend to find it distracting to have the kit spread all over the place. I pan LCR and put the drums right up the middle, which is where the kit sits with most bands. Plus I can dodge all those silly arguments about "Drummer's perspective vs audience perspective" with the added bonus that air drummers won't get confused by lefties. If I had stereo room mics I'd probably pan the L=-R for ambience.Maybe.

Glad it makes life easy for you, but not everyone wants mono drums all the time.

6) With your selected overhead technique, how concerned specifically are you with phase coherency? If it is a concern, what measures do you take to ensure phase coherency in the capture?
xy overheads give you a great stereo picture with phase coherency, but the phase coherency goes out the window when other mics are used. I'll be avoiding that in the future.

7) Would you class stereo width / a more spacious image as more important than a more phase coherent capture?
No. Learned that the hard way.

8) When you start introducing close microphones into the equation do you find that there's any particular overhead setup that works more effectively in tandem with the close microphones from a phase coherency perspective, or do you encounter the same issues regardless of what overhead technique you employ?

Yeah. I find leaving the extra mics in the box usually works a treat. The closer they are to the box (cabinet, drawer) the better they sound.

John is 2000 miles away from me. Putting the spot mikes in his cabinet would be overkill. The mute button works just as well. The only thing I've used spot mics for is triggering samples, and that wouldn't be necessary if I'd gotten a good capture of the drums in the first place.

And as Bob said, using a front of kit instead of an overhead and spot mics solves the problems of phase with the kick.

Depending on the size of the room, the room and FOK mike may be one and the same. Just sayin'.

Don't forget that Mr. Johns got the classic Bonham sound with one kick mic and a pair of 160s. That tells me that you really don't need a zillion mics for a heavy sound, if that's what you're after.

I thought there was one in the stairwell also?

[eatsleepdrums]

Thanks so much for the comments thus far guys, I'm very grateful to you all!

Bob and John, would you say your reluctance to use stereo overheads stems more from the fact that the phase coherency issues that result when using them are too detrimental to the overall picture particularly when close microphones are required as reinforcement, or is it just a case that you prefer a more mono/general kit capture and stereo overheads don't give you that balance you're looking for?

Cheers,
Mark.

[weedywet]

1) What is your preferred, or most widely used, stereo overhead technique when recording the drum kit, particularly in the rock/pop genre?

I rarely use ANYTHING "overhead" in the literal sense, but when I do I tend to use one mono centered mic; usually a ribbon (which means it's also a figure-of-eight mc), pointed straight down at the center of the kit.

But it needs to be said that most often, instead of actual "overheads" I place mics in front of the kit looking at it like camera positions, one looking in at the hanger toms, and one looking round the side at the floor tom(s).

then there are usually room mics (again usually ribbons)
sometimes one mono in front
sometimes spread wide and looking in at about 90 degrees to each other.

2) What is the main motivation behind this choice and what do you feel gives it an advantage over other overhead techniques?

it gives me the most photo realistic look at the kit, and it's safe to assume that the drums were made to be heard from an audience position in front of them, not hanging from the ceiling overhead.

3) Are there any disadvantages associated with this choice in your experience?

nah
but this is an overall look at the kit... if what you're really after, when you say "overheads" is dedicated CYMBAL only mics, then you're better off close mic'ing cymbals.
personally, I rarely find the need for that, other than the extremely occasional need to put a close spot mic on a ride cymbal.

4) Does your overhead choice choice tend to pull either the snare or the kick drum off to one side of the stereo image. If so does this pose any problems for you?

depending on the size of the kit it's possible that the snare won't be perfectly centered in the left-right pickup, but the addition of the close snare mic, which is usually mixed in fairly loudly, tends to centre that image.
if it's not perfectly centered, I don't care.

5) With your overhead technique are you attempting to capture an aggregate picture of the drum kit, or are you concerned primarily with cymbal capture?

as mentioned already, it's more of an overall picture... but it's also not "overhead"

6) With your selected overhead technique, how concerned specifically are you with phase coherency? If it is a concern, what measures do you take to ensure phase coherency in the capture?

Unless i hear something bothering me, I don't worry about it.
The fewer mics you use, and the more careful you are about placement, the less "phase" is an issue.

My left and right mics are at about 90 degrees to each other (although spread).

7) Would you class stereo width / a more spacious image as more important than a more phase coherent capture?

again, unless phase is clearly annoying, it's not an issue. It's worth thinking about as you place mics, and it's worth flipping polarity and checking once in a while.. but it's not worth obsessing about the way armchair internets recordists like to.

8) When you start introducing close microphones into the equation do you find that there's any particular overhead setup that works more effectively in tandem with the close microphones from a phase coherency perspective, or do you encounter the same issues regardless of what overhead technique you employ?

the fewer mics the better.
but I find that a reasonably placed stereo pickup takes the addition of center placed snare and bass drum miss just fine.
And I rarely do anything more than that, except for a mono or some 90 degree spaced room mics.
the bass drum close mic sometimes has to be phase (or polarity) reversed but that's an easy quick check to see which way sounds fuller/better.

hope this is clear, and helpful!

[weedywet]

not the very best photo, but this sort of shows my general positioning.

[Bob Olhsson]

Interesting, that's closer than I was thinking. It looks more like how I used to place what I called my "overhead." I put a floor tom mike in the same place too for stereo. I did that on "I Just Want to Celebrate" shortly after I bought my 67s.

[nobby]

I think a cell phone camera tends to exaggerate how close things are to each other sometimes.

[eatsleepdrums]

not the very best photo, but this sort of shows my general positioning.

Thanks so much William, I'm extremely grateful to you for contributing. Since reading about this technique on the womb forums it has been my go to setup as well. There is a small problem I wrestle with still and that's the difference in the sound of the kick drum between the two microphones. The microphone over the floor tom gives me a very bright, top heavy kick drum sound compared to the microphone in front of the rack tom and it can be a tiny bit distracting even when the close kick drum microphone is added in.
However this small issue aside I absolutely love the overall capture of the kit when mic'ed this way.

Thanks so much,
Mark.

[John Eppstein]

Thanks so much for the comments thus far guys, I'm very grateful to you all!

Bob and John, would you say your reluctance to use stereo overheads stems more from the fact that the phase coherency issues that result when using them are too detrimental to the overall picture particularly when close microphones are required as reinforcement, or is it just a case that you prefer a more mono/general kit capture and stereo overheads don't give you that balance you're looking for?

Cheers,
Mark.

I used to use stereo overheads, but they always gave trouble, especially with the snare. (although they often sounded better by themselves than close mics.) The thing is, whenever you have two mics on one source you're going to have some sort of interference. In the case of conventional "that's the way it's done, no that's how I do it" micing you also have another mic on the snare, so that's 3-way interference. I'n a fan of looking at old studio photos and videos for clues and one thing I noticed is that probably the most famous and successful single OH recordings early Neatles, etc.) were single OH and kick, no snare or toms. When you get stereo mics at conventional distances there's gonna be interference. It should be noted that the famous LZ recordings had the two Beyer 160 OHs at a considerable distance from the kit relative to the way people usually do it now. And yes, nobby, the whole thing was set up at the bottom of a stone stairwell in an old castle.

An anecdote that might have some bearing on the greater subject of drum micing - a good deal of my original real studio experience was when I was working for Sandy Pearlman as a studio guitar tech and general small rodent known to be destructive of lawns. The largest project I was involved in with him was a band he managed who were cutting their second album for CBS. Sandy had given the drummer BOC's old stainless steel double kick Ludwig kit, augmented with some extra toms and rototoms, zillions of cymbals, etc. Sandy, being one of the original over the top technical producers, had mics everywhere, far more drums and cymbals than had been used in any of the previous sessions I'd worked for him on, which were largely New Wave/Pop-Punk bands doing indie releases for Howie Klein's 415 records and for demos Sandy for bands Sandy was shopping to CBS. I don't remember for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't have THREE overheads. Needless to say, on this monster kit he had mics EVERYWHERE, which I, being relatively young and green, found extremely impressive. The problems came when come mix time, Sandy just couldn't get a drum sound. He'd spent literally DAYS phase checking mic relationships and had things resolved as well as humanly possible for tracking, but come mix time he just couldn't get a satisfactory drum sound. he worked on it for a week or two and still, no dice. finally he took a break to deal with some business out of town and came back in a few days. Deadlines were looming and he had to deliver something to CBS. Finally he gave up and just ran the drum buss through either a pair of 1176s or Compexes (I don't remember) and squashed the holy hell out of it until the drum sound turned into a wall of really solid pumping compressors. This is after weeks of tearing his hair in frustration. He never was happy about it.

In recent times I've looked back on it with my current perspective and have come to the conclusion that if only he'd recorded with a lot fewer mics at somewhat greater distances (the sessions were at The Automatt, which had a lovely, huge, main room that was designed for orchestras when it was CBS studios in the '50s) he could have saved himself a whole lot of grief, time, and probably hair follicles.

I learned a lot working for Sandy. Over time I've realized that some of the things I learned were things NOT to do.

[John Eppstein]

I think a cell phone camera tends to exaggerate how close things are to each other sometimes.

I hate cell phone cameras. I recently went as far as purchasing a little cheap Sony point-and-shoot because my cell camera sucks so bad.

[John Eppstein]

Weedy, when you pan the kit stereo, do you still adhere to LCR panning or do you fudge a bit?

[weedywet]

those mics shown strictly left or right or centre.

If I use close tom mics I might pan them into apparent position, but I VERY rarely do that.


the high side mic probably isn't as close sit looks in that photo, but also that's at Royal, a VERY dead room.
In a more live room I might be more inclined to back away a bit.

[weedywet]

here are some others from a different room:

[nobby]

Is that a ball link chain on the ride in the last photo?

[weedywet]

yep
George Recile.
he's crazy!

[weedywet]

another session.

this one has (a mostly unused) mono overhead and a HiHat mic as well.


and stereo 'room' or front of kit mics.

it's for a country record so a roomy sound is not the goal.

on some song, all I used was the close bass drum and snare and those spread 4038s.

[eatsleepdrums]

Amazing William thank you so much for posting these. I can see from the photos that your floor tom side microphone is much lower than I've had mine. That might explain why I've been getting so much top end attack from the bass drum, resulting in a distracting capture. I'll try setting it lower to see if that eases it a bit.

Thank you again,

Mark.

[Jesse DeCarlo]

I've been using variations on the "WW Drum Technique" for a couple of years, and it has been serving me well. When recording a great drummer who has good kit balance and well-tuned drums, I'm actually not sure that this mic setup can be improved upon if you're going for stereo. Every once in a while I'll go back and try the stereo overhead + close mics on toms approach, and although it might allow more "flexibility" in some sense, it never sounds as good to me.

Regarding the panning of the left and right mics: I'm an LCR believer in general, but I'll stick my neck out and suggest that it is reasonable to decide, sometimes, that a particular song is not best served by having full-width drums. I stopped feeling guilty about occasionally half-panning those drum mics when I read in Glyn Johns's autobiography that he does it that way, and of course you can hear that on his records. On the other hand sometimes HUGE DRUMS are the most exciting thing ever, and sometimes straight-up mono is the way to go.


(P.S.: Hey, look at this place!)

[nobby]

Hey, Jesse...


Welcome to the Pit

[weedywet]

I might add that sometimes a way to go is with the high tom side mic assigned to the centre, and the floor tom side assigned left.
that's in some respects a more realistic look and certainly narrower.
it depends on how spread an image you're going for.

[meloco_go]

Weedy, when you receive other people's records to mix, how do you treat OHs? Do you try to EQ in such a way so as to get more of the "kit" from them, if possible?
Also, with your setup do you tend to compress the kit as a group? Or would you compress the kit "image" mics separately? (I remember, you said that you don't like to compress individual drums)

[weedywet]

I almost never (near to actually never) compress drum close mics.
I will sometimes compress the room miss, and I will sometimes compress the overall drum sub group. But I am compressing the stereo mix bus and sometimes that's enough.

Other people's drums are a question of their intent and how much thy realised that intent.
It's a balancing act (no pun) sometimes of trying to figure out if what they give you to mix is what they WANT or whether they really had something else in their heads and that's why they came to you to mix it.

hmmmm, I think I'm going to name my home studio Balancing Act™

[weedywet]

these have no compression on the drums directly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gx1Pv02w3Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKLNyZjIQyY

this has compression on the sub group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-FPFJ-pIxg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWbRtpIRuFw

this has the room miss compressed, but not the group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv1MTT4NofE

it can be subtle

[meloco_go]

these have no compression on the drums directly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gx1Pv02w3Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKLNyZjIQyY

this has compression on the sub group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-FPFJ-pIxg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWbRtpIRuFw

this has the room miss compressed, but not the group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv1MTT4NofE

it can be subtle

Wow, all the tracks have this cool "pumping" on the drums!
So that's partly your overall mix compression and mostly the way the drums were played?
Also, were all these drums recorded using your "kit image" method?

[weedywet]

all of those were one version of a simple approach or another.
Joan's record has two 4038s out in front of the kit, wide and a bass drum and snare mic.

Dave's record has an approach like in the pictures with UM71s in front and on the side and two room mics spread wide.

Patty's has the left right kit mics closer in, but stereo room mics fairly far back in a live room.

[Cirrus]

not the very best photo, but this sort of shows my general positioning.

The microphone over the floor tom gives me a very bright, top heavy kick drum sound compared to the microphone in front of the rack tom and it can be a tiny bit distracting even when the close kick drum microphone is added in.

I have had this as well sometimes with harder beaters - I guess the drum's body masks some of the click of a wooden or plastic beater hitting the skin, so more of that high end reaches the mic that has more or less, direct line of sight?



Re; phase coherency... for a long time I didn't really understand it but I remember something someone said, I think it was on the Womb (rip)... a single mic on a single speaker cone isn't phase coherent, because the speaker cone isn't a point source, neither's the mic diaphragm - different frequencies come from different parts of the cone, the same frequency can be put off by different parts of the cone at different distances from the mic... when you're dealing with wavelengths measured in centimeters, the little things matter.

So what did I take away from that? Phase coherency is, basically, a clusterf*ck. You can *never* get it perfect, the closest you can get is a single mic far enough from the source that you get a decent overall picture of what it's doing. But if you want stereo, control, multiple versions of the same performance from different perspectives like a multi-miked drum kit... then you're in the world of compromise.

There's no phase coherent stereo "overhead" (with apologies for those who's overheads are kit or underhead mics!) scheme, because even if you get the capsules as close together as you can, the capsules will still be, say 3cm apart which is the wavelength of 11k, and the result will be a typical comb filter pattern, albeit with only a couple of peaks and troughs in the audible spectrum. With more than one mic, the result is always a comb filter pattern of some shape or another. As an engineer, part of your job is to position the mics to give you a comb filter pattern that accentuates the good and minimises the bad components of the sound of what you're capturing. AKA, move the mics until it sounds good.

[weedywet]

Here’s another one of my setups someone posted today

[eatsleepdrums]

D93C1B32-62D7-4857-9F44-24228E396EF7.jpegHere’s another one of my setups someone posted today

Brilliant William, thank you. I wish I worked with drummers whose setup only consisted of one crash and one ride cymbal. A man can dream....

Also, is there any particular reason why you suspend the microphones upside down or is it merely because of the stand/mounting mechanisms?

Cheers, Mark.