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Originally Posted by doorknocker I would try the 'Recordeman' setup.
I copied the info below from an earlier thread and I think it's 'Recorderman' himself explaining his magic method:
1. sit on the drummer's throne/stool.
2.Hold both drum sticks end-to-end so that you have a measuring device ( aprox. 16"...give or take).
3. place the tip of one end of your new double- length-drums-stick-measuring-device in the center of the snare with the "drum sticks" held vertically.
4. The other end will now(depending on how tall you are) be a little above and in front of your forehead.
5. Place a mic here. I've been aiming it down at the snare as of late...
6. With the tip of the "drum sticks" still in the center of the snare, angle the "stick back and down, so that's it's to the right of your right shoulder ( about a 45 degreee angle)
7. Use amic cable. Measure the distance of the over the snare mic to the center of the kick drum. Check that the "right shoulder" mic is also the same distance.
8. Doulble check the snare distance again.
9. As far as where to face them...experiment. I like the extra snare reinforcement, so as of late I've been facing them both at the snare. facing them at the rack and floor toms also produces good results.
10. one last thing to check. with headphones on, both "OH" mics in your cue mix (only them) .fine tune the placement (i.e. adjust their orientation...usualliy just moving the shoulder one) untill the kick is in the center of your "image"
11. When your done you'll notice that at first glance, this looks very weird and unsymmetrical. Yet it is very symmetrical in it's result. A. Rack toms are higher off the floor than floor toms, so this arrangement actually follows the contour of the toms as they really are. Standard OH micing doesn't take this into account, and as such are usually no more than "cymbal mics". Most of them time you see mixers pulling the OH's down to -10 or more in the mix because of the over abundance of cymbals and badly phased snare/kick/toms in the "OH's". I tend to focus my OH on being a cornerstone of my whole kit sound, and as such, and have spent great pains into making the snare/kick/tom elements speak as well as possible. I guess you could say I'm a "drum bigot". It's just that if you "ignore" the cymbals you actually are going to hear them anyway...like the hat, there just so damn loud.
Ever since starting to record drums, I stayed with this setup though I might use a mono OH too once in a while. I often tried something else but always came back to it, it works just great, especially in smaller rooms.
The 'Recordeman' setup (when done right) gives you a very punchy, direct sound due to the phase coherence of the 2 OHs. The rest are 'spotmics' so snare/kick/toms can be brought in a bit.
I never use a hat mic and it's prefectly possible to skip the tom mics too, in the digital world you might cut the tom fills out of the OH tracks and create extra tom tracks in the mix. |
I just gave this set up a try. It works well. I like the balance between the toms.
The spacing I was using before left the small tom lacking in volume and the floor tom really boomy. Overall, the kit sounds pretty much like it does in the room when I'm playing it. I only use 2 OH's......... snare......... and kick for my recordings.
For me it is simple and usually effective for my stuff. Thanks for the tip!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rico