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Tips & Techniques:Drums - Room mics facing walls away from kit

This tip works best in fairly large drum rooms and less well in small ones.

Try facing 2 condenser mic's facing AWAY from the kit pointing about 6 inches from any hard surfaces to the far left and far right of the kit (like a concrete or brick wall) it helps if the mic's are set to cardioid pattern with their rejection side facing the drum kit and the pick up pattern facing the wall.

Perhaps filter out low frequencies if they add uglyness to the drum tone.. Pan these wide, compress and blend in with the close mic's and use them to add 'zing' or high frequency ambience or "depth" to the snare and cymbals.

This has elements of the boundary effect as used by PZM mic's. You can read more about it here.. Pressure Zone Microphones - History and other information

Photos below shows a Royer SF12 over kit, usual suspect Sennheiser MD421's on toms, Manley mic on ride, AKG 451 with 20db pad on hihat and Neumann M149 mic's pointing into far corners facing away from drum kit

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Contributors: mw, Jules
Created by Jules, 7th January 2008 at 08:55 PM
Last edited by mw, 27th March 2012 at 03:05 PM
Last comment by drummerboyfarr on 1st March 2010 at 08:04 PM
5 Comments, 12,882 Views
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