Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - What’s the deal with the mono drum room mic?

MixShmix · 7th December 2007, 10:53 PM

Will somebody explain this phenomenon to me please. As a mixer, I keep getting projects with a single, mono room/ambience track for the drums. There will be stereo piano, stereo Hammond/Leslie, stereo synthesizers, stereo backing vocals sometimes even stereo guitar, (yeah, that makes a lot of sense!) stereo drums, but then there’s that one, single, lonely drum room track! I’ve read comments on strings in this very forum from those of you who engage in this practice. Please explain!

Most records for the last 30 or 40 years have been released in stereo. TV is now stereo, and often 5.1 surround. There’s even stereo AM radio, although I’ve never personally experienced this curious technology. Humans tend to have two ears. When one is in a natural ambient environment, (like a room where drums are being played) each ear receives ambient sounds slightly differently, creating a stereo effect.

Now, I’m certainly not one to tell anyone how they should record or mix, but it seems to me that the engineer who recorded an album that I just mixed is actually insisting that I mix it his way, with his mono room track down the middle, or off to one side or, I don’t know... something! I really don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with it. No matter what I do, it just sounds ridiculous. And forget about getting a nice drum ambience in surround! I usually just turn it off and try to create it artificially.

Do ya think the guy just ran out of mics? I don’t know—it was a pretty big budget album recorded at a big LA studio, so that’s kinda hard to believe. Maybe he just didn’t think it was important enough to waste two mics on. Then why did he record it at all? It was recorded on a popular DAW system, so he couldn’t have been worried about running out of tracks.

Even though I’ve been doing this more years than I care to mention here, I’m the first to admit I don’t know anywhere near everything about recording. One of the reasons I’m still doing it is that I’m always learning new stuff, so please, someone tell me what this is all about!

Thank you very much.

7th December 2007, 10:53 PM	#1
MixShmix Gear Head Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Neptune Posts: 73	What’s the deal with the mono drum room mic? Will somebody explain this phenomenon to me please. As a mixer, I keep getting projects with a single, mono room/ambience track for the drums. There will be stereo piano, stereo Hammond/Leslie, stereo synthesizers, stereo backing vocals sometimes even stereo guitar, (yeah, that makes a lot of sense!) stereo drums, but then there’s that one, single, lonely drum room track! I’ve read comments on strings in this very forum from those of you who engage in this practice. Please explain! Most records for the last 30 or 40 years have been released in stereo. TV is now stereo, and often 5.1 surround. There’s even stereo AM radio, although I’ve never personally experienced this curious technology. Humans tend to have two ears. When one is in a natural ambient environment, (like a room where drums are being played) each ear receives ambient sounds slightly differently, creating a stereo effect. Now, I’m certainly not one to tell anyone how they should record or mix, but it seems to me that the engineer who recorded an album that I just mixed is actually insisting that I mix it his way, with his mono room track down the middle, or off to one side or, I don’t know... something! I really don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with it. No matter what I do, it just sounds ridiculous. And forget about getting a nice drum ambience in surround! I usually just turn it off and try to create it artificially. Do ya think the guy just ran out of mics? I don’t know—it was a pretty big budget album recorded at a big LA studio, so that’s kinda hard to believe. Maybe he just didn’t think it was important enough to waste two mics on. Then why did he record it at all? It was recorded on a popular DAW system, so he couldn’t have been worried about running out of tracks. Even though I’ve been doing this more years than I care to mention here, I’m the first to admit I don’t know anywhere near everything about recording. One of the reasons I’m still doing it is that I’m always learning new stuff, so please, someone tell me what this is all about! Thank you very much. __________________ What the hell is that noise?