should i align my overheads with snare?

[asylum]

does doing this, and say with room mics help in any way, or does it destroy the spacial content thas been recorded?

[asylum]

what i meant was should i actually move the recorded trcks till the kik and snr tracks are time aligned with all tracks?
make sense/or rubbish!

[T-rex]

That makes sense. I know a lot of guys do it and claim it makes the tracks punchier, but I am not a fan of it. It really just depends on what you want to hear. Do you want tight punchy close miked sounding drums or are you going for a more roomy vibe?

You should really just do it and see what you think sounds better. You're obviously on a daw so for a quick A/B test do this: copy the drum tracks with one set normal and one set time aligned, send each to their own bus and switch back and forth to compare. Ultimately you'll have to listen within the mix but that will give you the immediate differences in sound. Also, depending on how consistent your overhead sounds are, it might sound amazing one time and horrible the next depending on your phase relationships in general.

Good Luck!

[ethan_c]

Originally Posted by asylum

what i meant was should i actually move the recorded trcks till the kik and snr tracks are time aligned with all tracks?
make sense/or rubbish!

never heard of this... how do you do it?

[NathanEldred]

Originally Posted by ethan_c

never heard of this... how do you do it?

Pull the overhead(s) waveform back a few milliseconds (one foot equals roughly one millisecond, but in the DAW it can be done visually down to the sample level) so the snare hit(s) match up in time...so when the close mic'ed snare drum hits it corresponds with the hit being picked up by the overhead mics. It's subjective whether this is a good thing or not, you really just have to try it and see if you like it.

[mtstudios@charter]

I not a fan of that. I just reverse the polarity on my top snare mic, and don't on the bottom snare mic.

www.bluethumbproductions.com

[ethan_c]

Originally Posted by NathanEldred

Pull the overhead(s) waveform back a few milliseconds (one foot equals roughly one millisecond, but in the DAW it can be done visually down to the sample level) so the snare hit(s) match up in time...so when the close mic'ed snare drum hits it corresponds with the hit being picked up by the overhead mics. It's subjective whether this is a good thing or not, you really just have to try it and see if you like it.

Ah, yes.... stupid me... Thanks for the great explanation. Yeah off the top of my head I wouldn't think this to be great of an idea as you are basically negating the whole reason for having an overhead(s)... or at least one of the main reasons why.

[ron florentine]

If you mic your drums correctly making sure you have proper phase with all your drum tracks this should not necasary........I feel with properly miked drums that time alignment actually creates phase issues and less overall depth........but like I said in the begining your drums need to be properly phased aligned to begin with.


Ron Florentine
Soundswest Studio

[ScumBum]

I get the stereo overhead track and then line each drum hit to it so they hit at the same time .

Sounds like the Drums get more punch that way .

[dokushoka]

Time aligning is not the same thing as phase aligning. At the tracking stage, I ALWAYS phase align the kick and the snare to the overheads. I go through great pains to insure that they are *perfectly* in phase.

In a mix situation, I will use the Little Labs phase box to correct any out of phase mics. It is important to understand, that, what this box does is MUCH more sophisticated than time aligning drum tracks.

The only drum tracks that I will time delay are generally room mics. Sometimes its nice to give them some delay off the initial snare hit. It can make the room sound a bit bigger.

[ron florentine]

Originally Posted by dokushoka

Time aligning is not the same thing as phase aligning. At the tracking stage, I ALWAYS phase align the kick and the snare to the overheads. I go through great pains to insure that they are *perfectly* in phase.

In a mix situation, I will use the Little Labs phase box to correct any out of phase mics. It is important to understand, that, what this box does is MUCH more sophisticated than time aligning drum tracks.

The only drum tracks that I will time delay are generally room mics. Sometimes its nice to give them some delay off the initial snare hit. It can make the room sound a bit bigger.

I completely agree

Ron Florentine
Soundswest Studio

[opentune]

Originally Posted by ron florentine

I completely agree

Agreed.

What you could do is start (phase or time) aligning your kit in solo mode,
then undo and redo with the full mix running.
That way you can get a good impression of what happens after alignment.

You´ll probably like the aligned drumkit.

[George Necola]

I phase align the OH (mostly XY or pseudo AB) with the snare and invert the phase of the kick and yeah.. it kicks you right in the face.

I am interested to share more opinions!

[Zwinter]

All of the great classic albums that I love didn't have time aligned overheads and yet they still sound amazing. In fact, I'm listening to Zeppelin right now and something tells me his overhead was not time aligned. Yet his drums sound amazing!

[GearHunter]

I believe that natural phase imperfections make for a musical sound. I'm not saying 90 or 180 degrees out, of course, but a little bit of phase wierdness helps a recording sound spacial and three dimensional. I like a little bleed between instruments on a basic track. I like some roomy-ness.

In a stereo recording, I think the brain percieves phase things as part of the front-back image. I would imagine that a perfectly in-phase recording might sound flat or boring.

I'm not a scientist (but I play one on TV) but I think the sound in nature has all kinds of in and out of phase things going on. Like when you're in that beautiful concert hall listening to the orchestra, for instance. I don't think the strings are time-aligned with the horns or the percussion or the reflections off the balcony, but it's a surrounding sonic experience.

I'm not saying you shouldn't play around with time-alignment, because the only rule in recording is that there are no rules.

Once I heard a CD once of a guitar-instrumental trio...great guitarist, great players.... and the recording was perfection. Impeccably flawless. And I couldn't figure out what was bothering me about it. It was pefect and I didn't like it. But why? I later found out that they had totally perfected the phase. Everything was totally 100% in perfect phase.

Yawn.

[moogus]

Any of you guys tried moving the mics, until they all sound good together?

I agree with the mercenary guy...


M

[warhead]

Moving the overhead tracks can make more sense as it brings them in line with the toms moreso as well. As stated above, it can be a plus or a minus and you really just have to use your ears as usual. I have found that the snare can sound much more lively by doing some small sliding of the OH track.

War

[crypticglobe]

Yeah... I don't like the way it sounds 99% of the time. Just take that extra half hour to hour solo-ing up mic's together... moving them around... using a IBP-1 here and there... and you will be MUCH happier with the end result.

Moving OH's and Room's in the computer to match the snare (or any other instrument in the kit) may make that one part of the kit "punchier", but in my experience it almost always causes some other part of the kit to loose "focus". It also tends to make the "space" go away. It's all just right there... all natural ambiance is greatly reduced. Just get it right the first time.... Ya gotta wonder how all those amazing sounding records got made 20 years... hell even 10 years ago. Ya know?

[PRobb]

I've done that to align the OH and room to the kick. It definitely has a unique character. Whether or not it is an improvement is a per song judgement call. Just something else for the bag of tricks.

[Drzayuss]

I just did this with one song on a record I mixed and it worked very well. I actually did all the math and moved everything to their respective point in the overheads . . . this allowed me to turn the OH up very loud without the time variance (about 3ms) between the close mics and the OH (particularly on kick and snare) putting the drums out of focus (spreading the point of attack over 3ms . . . a difference that is audible in the form of "punch" or "focus") . . . As far as classic records not needing this technique to get great sounding drums, particularly Led Zeppelin, well . . . that can be said for many other techniques that are currently used to make great records today. However, in the Andy Johns interview in Tape Op . . . he said that he always records OH . . . but they almost never end up in the mix . . . that his cymbals come mainly from the ambient mics (or in the case of a Van Halen record he engineered, close mics). Try it, see if works.


Justin

[egan]

Originally Posted by crypticglobe

Moving OH's and Room's in the computer to match the snare (or any other instrument in the kit) to may make that one part of the kit "punchier", but in my experience it almost always causes some other part of the kit to lose "focus".

This is my biggest issue w/ 'time alignment' ...So you align the OH's w/ the kick but now where do they stand w/ the toms? Once you start moving the toms you have to watch the interatcion of the bleed from those mics. etc. etc. It almost seems like this came about from the fact that we would rather stare at a monitor than stand up and go move a mic. This technique seems most viable to me in 4 mic situations or i you're gating/triggering the hell out of your tracks.
But, if others are getting good results who cares what I think.

[mtstudios@charter]

Originally Posted by GearHunter

In a stereo recording, I think the brain percieves phase things as part of the front-back image. I would imagine that a perfectly in-phase recording might sound flat or boring.

Like when you're in that beautiful concert hall listening to the orchestra, for instance. I don't think the strings are time-aligned with the horns or the percussion or the reflections off the balcony, but it's a surrounding sonic experience.


Yawn.

Although I agree with negative artifacts of time alignment, perceiving sounds behind in a stereo situation will not happen because drum kit is not aligned. The only way to get that omni experience, is to have two omni microphones at ears width and then only listen on headphones. Binaural recording


www.bluethumbproductions.com

[NathanEldred]

Originally Posted by Zwinter

All of the great classic albums that I love didn't have time aligned overheads and yet they still sound amazing. In fact, I'm listening to Zeppelin right now and something tells me his overhead was not time aligned. Yet his drums sound amazing!

Remember that Monty Python 'argument sketch': Why does this post make me feel that way even though I hypothetically agree with it?:

******//www.davidpbrown.co.uk/jokes/m...arguement.html

[Kiwiburger]

Transient peaks are the enemy of digital audio. Why you would want to align all your transient peaks beats me ...

Sure, it will sound punchier. But the ME will probably take them all out anyway.

[GearHunter]

I've never tried time-alignment by track-slipping. I've certainly moved mics alot, and flipped phase-switches. I usually find that what's good for the snare is bad for the kick and vice-versa.

[RichT]

Originally Posted by moogus

Any of you guys tried moving the mics, until they all sound good together?

Werd brother.

[copperx]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

Transient peaks are the enemy of digital audio.

You must be kidding.

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally Posted by GearHunter

I believe that natural phase imperfections make for a musical sound. I'm not saying 90 or 180 degrees out, of course, but a little bit of phase wierdness helps a recording sound spacial and three dimensional. I like a little bleed between instruments on a basic track. I like some roomy-ness.

In a stereo recording, I think the brain percieves phase things as part of the front-back image. I would imagine that a perfectly in-phase recording might sound flat or boring.

I'm not a scientist (but I play one on TV) but I think the sound in nature has all kinds of in and out of phase things going on. Like when you're in that beautiful concert hall listening to the orchestra, for instance. I don't think the strings are time-aligned with the horns or the percussion or the reflections off the balcony, but it's a surrounding sonic experience.

Oh totally!

If someone is that concerned about phase & polarity it'd behoove them to spend more time selecting & hanging microphones then bumping stuff around by fractions of seconds.

One of the biggest things that people never seem to pick up on is the nasty comb filtering & cancellation that can occur when tracks are moved around in small increments. Sure, it might make the guitars or Hammond or whatever super wide & HUGE in stereo but it disappears in mono.

The mix should get smaller in mono...but the core elements like the main guitars shouldn't disappear. That's just bad engineering...ignorance.

[rwhitney]

In my experience, alignment with the most prominent or pointed percussive attacking source between multiple mics can make for clearer spatialization. In this case, the snare is probably most prominent.

I've discovered, though, this isn't always necessary, or even desirable. I've placed things off center to get a larger sound by spreading a source out unevenly between mics.

I recently recorded grand piano and percussion. Placing the percussionist slightly to the right of the soundstage between four microphones (and an additional spot) made for nice imaging. I'll post a short example from that session here in a few minutes.

Oh yeah, I think placement should be done by listening through headphones while moving the mics around (if you're alone, or, in the monitors if you have an assistant and a separate control room).

I also like to use the Little labs IBP, esp. for piano.

[rwhitney]

This has two M149s as main PU w/2 TLM170s on the piano and a C414 spot on perc. 90% of this is the main PU. I used a limiter here (no eq):