Drum Recording Dissertation - Overheads And Phase Coherency

[endorka]

I found the attached photo on the Dave Hause facebook page. The drum ambience in "Bury Me In Philly" would certainly be consistent with the natural ambience of such a space.

Cheers,
Jennifer

[weedywet]

Interesting. But you CANNOT see where the 4038s are in that shot.
But the two Gefell are pretty clear.

[endorka]

Aye, I was wondering where they were!

[Rev. Juda$ Sleaze]

Wow, super punchy yet spacious.

Did you mix this? Was there any additional reverb on the drums besides the room mic's?

I mixed it, thanks. I'll be honest that I don't 100% remember, but i very much doubt there's any added reverb on the drums. it's rare for me.

here's an even 'bigger' sound (which certainly has some reverb) from that same record:

Love how unashamedly midrangey those drums are, without the hats and cymbals getting harsh.

That "Bury Me In Philly" drum part reminded me how I am still falling into the trap of trying to shape transients with compression to bring out punch, even though that ends up with much smaller sounding drums compared to letting them breathe more.

I really must stop falling into the same traps over and over when it comes to mixing!

[weedywet]

It’s also that using all condenser mics on the drums gives you that more complete faster transient to begin with.

[nobby]

And ribbon mics? You seem to use the Coles a lot.

[weedywet]

for room mics; I like the smoothness.

where I'm really looking for ambience, not definition

Relish was the exception, where the vast majority of the sound was the 'distant' 4038s... but the idea there was to really 'hear the house' as much as possible.
I also had some closer Gefells that I sometimes used (although mostly not).

[Rev. Juda$ Sleaze]

It’s also that using all condenser mics on the drums gives you that more complete faster transient to begin with.

Good point.

[endorka]

Here's a test recording with overheads as described by weedywet. Just the two overheads panned hard left and right, with close mics on the kick and snare.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NAj2PBSvaw[/youtube]

I love the way it sounds. A far better balance between the toms and cymbals than XY or ORTF overheads. The cymbals sounds clearer and the toms fuller too. As weedywet says, getting the kick and snare more or less centred wasn't too bad either. Initially I positioned the mics so all the toms will represented similarly, and the kick was in the centre. The snare was way off, but it was easy to find a good kick & snare central compromise by ear when moving the floor tom OH mic.

I'll be using this again for sure, cheers weedywet!

Cheers,
Jennifer

[weedywet]

remember, i don't really use 'overheads"

you can see in the Hause photo that the gefells are in front or on the side.

[endorka]

Right enough, they are not certainly not overhead. How would you describe these mics in your setup?

I've attached a photo of the test setup here, I think the mics are closer to the toms than your Dave Hause setup, but in roughly the same position.

Edit: the phone camera perspective is doing strange things to the photos, so I added a couple more for clarity.

Cheers,
Jennifer

[weedywet]

yes, I just call them Drums Left and Right.
(because that's where they usually end up)

your setup looks similar, as long as the polar pattern of those little mics is fairly wide.

you seem more aimed at the snare, whereas I have them looking in at the toms and sort of through the toms at the snare. but it's a subtle difference.
My only concern would be that the polar pattern of the mics doesn't make the toms themselves read slightly off-axis.
And of course being in closer makes them read even more as 'tom mics' and less like overall kit pickup.

hope this helps!

[weedywet]

here's another session where you can see the distance a bit better.
Although this sort of thing varies, of course, with the room and the drums and the desired outcome.
in this rare instance I'm actually using a high hat mic... crazy!

[weedywet]

...

[endorka]

That is incredibly helpful, thank you. I'll be using this approach for a real session soon, and these extra pictures are most useful. I can see what you mean about the mics pointing through the toms at the snare.

Having mine closer did indeed give them an aspect of tom mics. My own fault entirely - I was seduced the the dark side of the proximity effect and the fullness it gave to the toms :-)

Something that amazed me was how unchanging the snare and kick sounded when moving the mics relatively large distances along their "line of sight". So much that I had to cup the mic to convince myself I wasn't monitoring the wrong mic. Nice to know that it is possible to adjust the tom / cymbal balance without having a big effect on the kick and snare.

The mics are Oktava MK-012 with cardioid capsules. Their polar pattern at 90 degrees throughout the frequency range is similar to Gefell MT 71 S.

I've attached an mp3 of the L and R mics. There's a fair bit of resonance from the rack toms in the R mic, getting more distance between the mics and the toms would have helped there. I see a good amount of tom damping going on in some of your photos too, interesting!

Thanks again for your help with this.

Cheers,
Jennifer

[Bob Olhsson]

That's exactly how I recorded the drums on Rare Earth's "I Just Want to Celebrate" except for a 57 on the snare.

[eatsleepdrums]

Great to see this thread still alive and well, and thank you for the kind words Jennifer.

I love the modified Glyn Johns technique that Weedy advocates, but there is one thing about it that upsets me slightly.
Because of the positioning of the microphone over the floor tom, it will inevitably pick up much more of the beater attack of the kick drum than the 'overhead' microphone in front of the rack tom. This pulls the kick off to one side no matter how much care you take in positioning the microphones.
For ages it really bothered me, particularly when I was trying to build my drum mix using only these two microphones predominantly.
With the addition of the close kick mic the problem is negated somewhat and the difference in kick transient levels between the two 'overheads' actually makes for a wider image within the overall picture. It took me some time to accept this, but I've finally got there haha.

Cheers,
Mark.

[endorka]

Thanks Mark, I'm reading your dissertation at the moment.

I think it is interesting to view the technique Weedy advocates from different perspectives. Personally, I find it compelling. I really like the way it presents the kit, and I want to listen again, and again, and again.

If one is after a precise centre image for engineering reasons, it may well seem off. I don't think many people listen this way though, I didn't find it offputting when listening to recordings done by Weedy "as a listener" before I was aware of this technique. Indeed, I know plenty of people who don't even notice when the entire kit is panned entirely to one side of stereo image, so I reckon we're on safe ground :-)

Cheers,
Jennifer

[Bob Olhsson]

I'm not sure it's that modified. I saw it that way in a picture, tried it out and really liked it. When I did Jeff Beck, Micky Most asked for me to "duck the cymbals." The only way I could think of was to switch both mikes to figure-8. I liked that even better and have done it that way ever since.

[weedywet]

I hate when people call it “Glyn Johns” because with some variations it’s pretty much how EVERYONE was doing it.
Glyn’s thing, such as it is, started (as did we all) with a single overhead straight up over the centre of the kit and looking down. Then at one point he added a mic on the low Tom side and sometimes panned them apart. Eventually I think he also added a mic on the snare side also sideways looking across. He famously doesn’t like a close snare mic looking at the head as opposed to the side of the drum.

I don’t personally prefer that overhead view and tend to look at those left and right mics more like cameras looking at the kit from in front.

[Bob Olhsson]

The first guy I assisted always miked the snare from the side and only added a bass drum mike. The other guy at that studio used a very high overhead and a bass drum mike. Motown used a forehead height U67 and a 666 or 77 on the bass drum. All of these used bass drums filled mostly with newspaper strips. By the time I got out of the mastering closet in 1969, we had switched to all km-86s on OH, kick, snare, hat and floor tom. I quickly realized I preferred the side approach to the snare. The front heads of the bass drums were gone. I moved the OH toward the rack tom because I liked the sound of it being close but wanted it out of the way of the drummer. The idea I got from the picture was placing the floor tom mike facing across the drum and panning the OH and floor left/right with the snare in the middle. This was recorded on two tracks with the bass drum on a third. We had never done stereo drums previously.

[weedywet]

Originally everyone had a single overhead (and probably a bass drum mic)

What differed was what was added next as inputs (and maybe tracks) became more available and rock music dictated closer more immediate sounds.
Some people added a snare mic to those two, and some people (me included) only added one UNDER a the snare.
by the time I decided I wanted a mic on the low Tom side, I moved the overhead to in front for that symmetrical look at the kit. (As did Bob it seems).
Without that single overhead making the majority of the snare sound, I moved the snare mic to over and close.

As things became more isolated and studios deader, and more tracks meant more things intentionally separated or overdubbed, there was less leakage between instruments and room mics started to appear.
It’s an evolution.

[upstairs]

When I first started recording I didn't know what anyone else was doing. I naturally settled on a "forehead-height" mic above snare & bass drum mic. Just seems like the right thing to do. That was after sticking various cheap microphones in mayonaise jars to keep them from distorting.

[John Eppstein]

When I first started recording I didn't know what anyone else was doing. I naturally settled on a "forehead-height" mic above snare & bass drum mic. Just seems like the right thing to do. That was after sticking various cheap microphones in mayonaise jars to keep them from distorting.

Mayonnaise jars, eh?

[weedywet]

Only the Belgians put mayonnaise on frites and drums.

[nobby]

What kind of pancake batter are you using on the batter heads?

[ivmike]

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.

There are some great ideas that I am going to try; thanks, Bob! I'm working with a local musician (he's got a gold record or two) that HATES cymbals .... I'm going to try the nul idea that you've mentioned here.

Also: you tracked Cozy! I think that he was such a great drummer - how was he in the studio?

[dint10]

This is a very interesting and informative thread.

Looking at all the photos with the 'front of kit' mic one thing strikes me.

There is almost always only one or two cymbals - and they are, relatively, out of the way of the 'front of kit' mic.

What if, as I usually find, the drummer has three, four crashes as well as ride/china?

Quite often I see drummers with their ride cymbal practically on top of 2nd front hanging tom.

[weedywet]

People are always looking for reasons why it “won’t work”

It works

You adjust what you need to adjust; including asking the player to play appropriately and sometimes to slightly move some items if it doesn’t throw her off.

They could record Keith Moon with 3 mics.
You can do it too.

[Rev. Juda$ Sleaze]

They could record Keith Moon with 3 mics.
You can do it too.

Ha!

Words to live and die by.