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Originally Posted by Storyville  With live instruments I use a lot of room mics. I track almost everything with a room mic. I generally use the room capture as an audio map for pan positions. With drums specifically, I'll aim the room mic so that the center aligns the kick and the snare to dead middle, and coordinate the OHs to sound right at hard left and right. This leaves a little out of center position for the hat and toms (and other brass if I happen to be miking those). |
The big exception with LCR is that if you are trying to accurately match a live soundstage (ie. the 'documentary method'), the LCR really doesn't work unless you mic it specifically so that you can pan LCR. Ultimately you have to spot certain instruments to be in a location because that's how they are in the room or on the stage and you want to remain true to that sound, then you have to pan somewhere in the middle. I think LCR is more for commercial records that don't have much of a documentary aspect (which is probably the vast vast majority of conpemporary music.... especially when it comes to urban music).