kick snare and ambience

[Nu-tra]

How do you guys get the kick and snare in the center when you use two mics for drum ambience? What is your technique?

Thanks you for your time.

V

[godcity]

mic position, eq, compression, and a whole lot of "f*** it" when it doesn't come out perfect.

[thethrillfactor]

Originally Posted by Nu-tra

What is your technique?

Thanks you for your time.

V

Mix it and pan it in mono...or just use one side.

[Chris Parsons]

Just make sure the kick/snare are in the center of your image before you hit record, then you never have to think about it again. If you talking about that little difference with the snare being 6 inches to one side of the kick...you need to relax.

[DirkB]

Or just don't use too much of the ambience tracks. It it's a situation where kick and snare need to smack dead centre, you'll be using a lot of the close kick and snare mic's a lot probably.

However, this is the reason why I prefer mono room mic's (and I don't like the entire drumkit too wide anyway).

Greetings,
Dirk

[Nu-tra]

Cool thanks

[justbrian]

Originally Posted by Nu-tra

How do you guys get the kick and snare in the center when you use two mics for drum ambience? What is your technique?

Thanks you for your time.

V

Next time you're standing in "front" of a drum kit, take two steps to your left (or right, if the drummer is right handed). Depending on the size of your steps you should now be able to draw a straight line between yourself, the kick, snare, and second rack tom (on a 5 piece, for example). This is the new "center line" of your kit - mic accordingly.

[Nu-tra]

Oh cool this is how I position my overheads. So it's a couple of steps to my left and I'm lined up with my kick and snare. Do you put your mics close to the floor?

V

[Nu-tra]

Pumps in the bumps

[stevep]

Originally Posted by Nu-tra

Oh cool this is how I position my overheads. So it's a couple of steps to my left and I'm lined up with my kick and snare. Do you put your mics close to the floor?

V

I never worry about the kick and snare in the overs being to loud in one side......

as far as placement its never the same .........Close , but not a rule

If i have a drummer hitting a ride soft in some part of the song i will move the over closer to that ride till i get the sound i want,

If the drummer is slamming ALL the cymbals i can keep the overs up higher and farther apart,

As far as A wide stereo pattern i love to get it as wide as i can,.... some songs and drummers will be wider. depending on how they hit the toms and cymbals


I pan the rack toms hard with floor in the center and pan the overs hard and the rooms hard ... but can be changed at mixdown if i want.....

I cant remember ever having a kick snare centering problem,

As someone has said in this thread before, Get your levels rite and sounding the way you want them in the final mix when you track them and you will have less troubles at mix down.

Do you put your Mic's close to the floor?

Not that i can remember....... but there are NO rules


Have fun, every song is different






steve

[audioez]

Originally Posted by Nu-tra

How do you guys get the kick and snare in the center when you use two mics for drum ambience? What is your technique?

Two omni directionals behind the drums about ears length apart. These mics generally get the most abusive comp/limit treatment to tape/disk. Here's a clip of a live mix during tracking. The drummer in the clip calls it "snake eyes," because of close prox. of the mic capsules.

[Fletcher]

I've found not giving a shit unless something sounds wrong has been a pretty good working program so far... but as always, YMMV.

[Nu-tra]

I appreciate it guys. I've been building my studio for the past year and it's finally done. I let some things slide in the past and it bugged me this is why I seek advice. You guys are right though... there are no rules. I need to quit being so anal and just hit record.

[drundall]

This has always bugged the shit out of me. I know some people don't worry about it, but I hate hearing the kick sound more prominent in one speaker. The last time I did a stereo room thing I used MS with good results. You might want to try experimenting with this, sounds a little different that maybe what you're used to but the image it completely centered.

I do more live than studio recording but this:

"The last time I did a stereo room thing I used MS with good results." hits home with me. With a live band, I use an MS overhead, snare and kick at least and the stereo overhead does the work! Snare for accent and kick for the thump, and it sounds like you are right there front row center. I do aim the MS overhead for the snare mostly centered, but it depends on the rest of the kit - size and spread. But I love being in the center of the kit and having the cymbals around me, as opposed to separate overheads with the cymbals between them. Add tom and hat mikes to taste (but with a lot of live gigs there just isn't time!).

For the record, much of what I do is jazz and acoustic groups, so amp bleed is less of a problem.

Just anoher opinion for ya!

<L>

[DirkB]

Although I like M/S sometimes on drumrooms, I don't think of it as "stereo" i.e. there is no real capture of L-R information. I do like it a lot as "widening ambience", but if you really want stereo information, I'd go for something else.

Good luck,
Dirk

[mtstudi@pacbell]

As far as Kik goes I think this is only an issue if there is too much weight to one side.
Overheads would affect the snare to be more to one side than room mics. For me neither one of these have been an issue with mono room or stereo room. I have a parallel compressor down the middle on kik and snare, which I use quite a bit of. At the end of it all, stereo imaging is narrowed anyway. I would not be too concerned in less it is obviously bothersome.

www.bluethumbproductions.com

[stevep]

Originally Posted by Nu-tra

I appreciate it guys. I've been building my studio for the past year and it's finally done. I let some things slide in the past and it bugged me this is why I seek advice. You guys are right though... there are no rules. I need to quit being so anal and just hit record.

"" I need to quit being so anal and just hit record""

Get it the way you want it to sound......... Then hit record


strive for Perfection

[Improv]

Originally Posted by DirkB

Although I like M/S sometimes on drumrooms, I don't think of it as "stereo" i.e. there is no real capture of L-R information. I do like it a lot as "widening ambience", but if you really want stereo information, I'd go for something else.

I don't really understand this. M/S does indeed give you proper stereo information if done correctly. Perhaps it's not as wide as a spaced pair, but there is definite L-R differentiation.

[Nu-tra]

This is so bazaar. My kit is centered in the room and parallel to the walls. I'm gonna move the kit at an angle to see what happens to the sound. I might be getting weird phaseing problems because I have never had to flip the top of my snare and the bottom to please the overheads it's been the bottom all the times I've done it.. I spent all day checking for cables with reversed polarity and they are all fine.

[lucey]

Originally Posted by Nu-tra

You guys are right though... there are no rules. I need to quit being so anal and just hit record.

Check phase first ...

[fross]

OT of course, but the Elimotion clip is ass kickin. I did a quick search and suprise suprise!! Funny, cause I'm a longtime Matt Garrison fan.
-F

[Nu-tra]

Something is wrong... I'm gonna have a tech come and see because I am through trying to figure it out. I think there is something in the wiring I seem to keep missing.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

V

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by Nu-tra

This is so bazaar. My kit is centered in the room and parallel to the walls. I'm gonna move the kit at an angle to see what happens to the sound. I might be getting weird phaseing problems because I have never had to flip the top of my snare and the bottom to please the overheads it's been the bottom all the times I've done it.. I spent all day checking for cables with reversed polarity and they are all fine.

I've always viewed these two's relationship like this; The snare mic is damned near perpendicular to the skin and OHs.
It's as apt to be a distance + polarity thing.

[Improv]

can you post a clip of just your ambience mics?

[warhead]

Hey Nu-Tra, I recorded a 3 piece blues band about a month ago and loved...I mean absolutely LOVED the sounds I was getting by placing the mics about 1.5' off the ground facing into the kit, pointed towards the snare, from left and right. The "problem" was the kick was a good bit more right and the snare a good bit more left...until I just kind of let go of the whole centering thing and went with it.

Nobody noticed an issue or complained, and it sounded so freakin' realistic it was scary. It just happened to rock on that one little kit sitting right there, it also put out a realistic image which..,let's face it...puts the kick right and the snare left to a certain degree. (the mics are side-address, not pointing at the ceiling!)



Typically though I do try to keep things pretty well centered and find that starting with near coincident (ORTF) over the player's head pointed into the kit, rotate the mics so that they are physically over the center line between kick and snare but are facing into the toms / cymbals at different angles that allow roughly the same amount of center to enter each mic. Takes a few tries sometimes but well worth it. I am a drummer and have my own ideas of what works, like everyone else I suppose.

Hope you figured out your wiring deal!

War

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally Posted by Nu-tra

This is so bazaar. My kit is centered in the room and parallel to the walls. I'm gonna move the kit at an angle to see what happens to the sound. I might be getting weird phaseing problems because I have never had to flip the top of my snare and the bottom to please the overheads it's been the bottom all the times I've done it.. I spent all day checking for cables with reversed polarity and they are all fine.

I don't know if I've ever noticed any kind of rhyme or reason to phase & drum sounds. Generally the rack toms all end up going in the same direction but that's about it. If you move any mic an inch or two in relation to the others it's phase relationship with that first mic is going to change.

So it's different this time. What's the big deal?

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by warhead

Hey Nu-Tra, I recorded a 3 piece blues band about a month ago and loved...I mean absolutely LOVED the sounds I was getting by placing the mics about 1.5' off the ground facing into the kit, pointed towards the snare, from left and right. The "problem" was the kick was a good bit more right and the snare a good bit more left...until I just kind of let go of the whole centering thing and went with it.

Cool, someone else coming in low. I gravitated to a pair of Earthworks low and from the rear-sides, but part of what drives this is to help with isolation. I do like the way this position puts the skins up ahead of the cymbals though.

[Nu-tra]

Well guess what? I built some preamps and something must be wrong. I'm looking into it. I just plugged everything into my two syteks and everything turned out fine mind you I did not touch the much placement. My snare is fine now. now on to fix the problems on my kit.

[Mike Caffrey]

Heh. Someone brought a pair of Syteks to my place and everything that went through them was backwards based on what I was used to.


I usually just set the mic pres so that the kick and snare sound fairly centered. ive' got so much disortion and limiting on the room mics I don't know how anyone would ever knw they weren't unless they were panned pretty radically diffferent from each other.