Adding room ambiance to drum recordings

[Cirrus]

I'm thinking of pumping some drum recordings I've got out into a brighter, livelier space to create a stereo room track.

Those of you who have done this, what have you found works? Do you send all the mics into the room? Just overheads? Just close mics? I've only ever worked with a mono room mic in the past, what are your thoughts about that vs. stereo?

[Tim Halligan]

You could get really cute funny and fresh by sending each drum down one at a time!

Allegedy the Power Station record from the 80's was done that way...each drum fired into the stairwell and recorded.

I've done it by doing 2 passes - all the close mics, then the overheads. It worked well enough given the circumstances.

I would have preferred capturing a room mono and pair at the time of the initial recordings, but alas...

HTH

Cheers,
Tim

[Bob Olhsson]

Aim the mike(s) away from the speaker(s.)

[Cirrus]

Aim the mike(s) away from the speaker(s.)

Shall do!

The space I've got my eyes (ears?) on is a two story high big brick-walled foyer where there's a balcony area covering about half the floor area, so I was thinking I'd set up downstairs under the balcony and run the mics up to the 1st floor balcony to minimize direct sound.

[Cirrus]

I would have preferred capturing a room mono and pair at the time of the initial recordings, but alas...

Thanks Tim.

And yes, I'll always try to capture it in the room if it's there to begin with!

[meloco_go]

I did that, sending separately kick, snare, and toms. I ignored cymbals.

[Cirrus]

Just to follow up on this, I spent this afternoon pumping drums out of a PA into the afforementioned foyer.

Worked fantastically, way better than I'd have imagined. Leaned heavily on the overheads, as that's what I had that was most like a whole kit, but did sneak the close mics in for some extra focus, and I found I had to EQ the whole lot brighter for the PA speakers I was using.

Mics were up on the first floor with no direct line of sight to the speakers, I walked around for a while to find the best sounding bit and used two AT4050s in cardioid and almost ORTF (about 20 cm apart and about 90 degrees to each other)

The result is a nice spread when hard panned, but each track also works as a single mono room. Did 27 tracks, it got a bit boring, and I was in constant fear that one of the accountants that works in the downstairs office would appear.

[nobby]

A next door neighbor, a retired recording engineer who had worked locally (Long Island, Greater NY area) on a few hit records back in the 1980s worked with a guy who worked on Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water.

He said they used an elevator shaft to enhance a drum (that would be feathered in with drums that were going through an echo chamber) that you can first hear at 3:48. Lowered a speaker into the bottom of the shaft and miked it from an upper floor.

Or it was just a rumor.

Point is, what is the difference between re-miking and using an echo chamber that contains a speaker and a mic? Except that an accountant doesn't work in the echo chamber and nobody has to use the stairs.

[weedywet]

Roy Hallee told that story in print so I'm suspicious of someone who claims it's first hand knowledge, but leaving that aside, I believe it was The Boxer that used the Columbia elevator shaft, not Bridge.

[nobby]

If that's the case it had to be gated.

2 gates: A noise gate and another gate to keep people from falling down the shaft

[Cirrus]

Point is, what is the difference between re-miking and using an echo chamber that contains a speaker and a mic? Except that an accountant doesn't work in the echo chamber and nobody has to use the stairs.

The difference is that I had access to a foyer and not a dedicated echo chamber, mostly.