drum panning

[maskedman72]

how do you pan drums in a mix? lets say that 100 is hard left and right and o is center.

well also say that the kit is a standard 5 piece kit and the recorded tracks are as follows:

1-hats
2-kick inside
3-kick outside
4-snare top
5-snare bottom
6-tom 1
7-tom 2
8-floor tom
9-oh l
10-oh-r
11 room l
12 room r

thanks!!!

[Charles Dye]

With -100 as hard left and 100 as hard right (as in PT):

1-hats (-40 to -100)
2-kick inside (0)
3-kick outside (0)
4-snare top (0)
5-snare bottom (0)
6-tom 1 (-60)
7-tom 2 (0)
8-floor tom (60)
9-oh l (-70)
10-oh-r (70)
11 room l (-100)
12 room r (100)

I prefer to pan my drums drummer's perspective.

[kieran kelly]

I agree with charles ..... I might go -100 and +100 on the oh if it sounded good

[not_so_new]

I prefer to pan my drums drummer's perspective.

Me too. Just seems to feel better to me but it is funny how much flack I got for that when I first started mixing. I hear it on Steely Dan songs all the time and if it is good enough for them... hey..

Charles how often do you see this in the big leagues?? Seems as if most people are panning audience perspective about 75 / 25?? Does not really matter I guess because I like it and that is all that counts to me, I am just curious.

Also I like to pan my snare about -5 or so to get it out of the way of the vox. Works well with lots of ghost notes in funk etc. Seems to make sense because of the feq spectrum of the two instruments but I don't hear too much about it. It is subtle and I am willing to live with the snare a slight bit off center to get the vox to stand out.

Again it works for me and your mileage may vary but do you see many people do this?? Very few of the people I have worked around do but then again many of them are stuck doing the same old things and getting the same old results.

[Dave Martin]

I'm with Charles - drummers perspective almost always. Though from time to time I have reversed that. And sometimes, when there's a really dominany floor tom groove or some sort, I'll do the 2 rack toms and 9:00 and 3:00, and the floor tom in the middle (that works only when OH tracks are pretty low...).

[maskedman72]

i am also wondering about panning kick and snare slightly off center. does anyone do this? if so why?

[djui5]

Originally posted by maskedman72
i am also wondering about panning kick and snare slightly off center. does anyone do this? if so why?

If this was me...I'd pan like this. negative is left..positive is right

1-hats -60
2-kick inside -5<>-10
3-kick outside -5<>-10 (not same as kick inside)
4-snare top -40<>-45
5-snare bottom -40<>-45 (not same as top)
6-tom 1 -65
7-tom 2 +10
8-floor tom +60
9-oh l -95
10-oh-r +95
11 room l -80
12 room r +80

I like to keep the rooms inside the OH's so the kit stays focused, or if it sounds bad for some reason I'll move slightly outside of the OH's but keep them close.

I also don't like to pan the snare and kick bottoms/outside on top of the other mic as this tends to hide things. Sometimes moving things just a touch can really change how it comes through a mix.

This is the reason I pan the kick slightly off center...the only thing I want straight up center is the vocal. The bass would be panned to +5<>10, whatever is the mirror of the inside kick.

Guitars will be panned so they're not the same as anything else in the mix....

Every instrument get's it own pan setting..none ever have the same pan setting.

I find it helps the instruments sit in their own "spot" if you will

Also...I like drummers perspective. The drummer likes to listen to the kit as if he was sitting on his throne and the consumer won't know the difference or care. If you pan audience perspective a lot of drummers will say something...

[music]

I also pan drummers perspective. It is so nice to see others doing it too! It seems the norm is audience perspective.

I usually go -65/-10/65 on toms and 100's on OH though. Hats -100. Maybe I'll try -60/0/60.

Keith

[maskedman72]

Originally posted by djui5
If this was me...I'd pan like this. negative is left..positive is right

1-hats -60
2-kick inside -5<>-10
3-kick outside -5<>-10 (not same as kick inside)
4-snare top -40<>-45
5-snare bottom -40<>-45 (not same as top)
6-tom 1 -65
7-tom 2 +10
8-floor tom +60
9-oh l -95
10-oh-r +95
11 room l -80
12 room r +80

I like to keep the rooms inside the OH's so the kit stays focused, or if it sounds bad for some reason I'll move slightly outside of the OH's but keep them close.

I also don't like to pan the snare and kick bottoms/outside on top of the other mic as this tends to hide things. Sometimes moving things just a touch can really change how it comes through a mix.

This is the reason I pan the kick slightly off center...the only thing I want straight up center is the vocal. The bass would be panned to +5<>10, whatever is the mirror of the inside kick.

Guitars will be panned so they're not the same as anything else in the mix....

Every instrument get's it own pan setting..none ever have the same pan setting.

I find it helps the instruments sit in their own "spot" if you will

Also...I like drummers perspective. The drummer likes to listen to the kit as if he was sitting on his throne and the consumer won't know the difference or care. If you pan audience perspective a lot of drummers will say something...

thanks for that post. im going to try those things and check it out.
it seems that having everything panned at different places would be a good thing to let things through.

[jbuntz]

Overhead and room panning is so dependent on mic placement/stereo technique. I like to do alot of XY and M-S stuff so you can pan stuff pretty hard and it retains it's focus and punch. Spaced pair have too much phasey stuff going on.

[maskedman72]

Originally posted by jbuntz
Overhead and room panning is so dependent on mic placement/stereo technique. I like to do alot of XY and M-S stuff so you can pan stuff pretty hard and it retains it's focus and punch. Spaced pair have too much phasey stuff going on.

is it possable to fix or re-align phase problems in pro tools?

[jbuntz]

Originally posted by maskedman72
is it possable to fix or re-align phase problems in pro tools?

Yes and no. With drums, all the phase relationship between drums will be different. You could align one source but not a whole drumkit.

[djui5]

Originally posted by jbuntz
Spaced pair have too much phasey stuff going on.

I used spaced pair almost exclusively and when put in the right place there's good phase coheriency (did I spell that right?).

Also fixing phase problems in a drum kit will depend on what's out of phase.

If it's the OH's you can nudge one track a little.....but if it's something like the snare that's coming through all the mic's then you might have a bigger problem.

Of course the best solution is to be carefull when tracking, though I know that's not always a possibility due either to time constraints or when your mixing something you didn't track.

[jbuntz]

There will always be phase issues somewhere on the kit with spaced pairs perdiod. You can align the phase on any one thing, everything else will be out. It's not always a huge deal on cymbals though since the frequency content is so high and they are a bit white noisy.

[maskedman72]

does xy(or any other overhead micing method)eliminate phaze problems being that the mics arent spaced?

[djui5]

Originally posted by maskedman72
does xy(or any other overhead micing method)eliminate phaze problems being that the mics arent spaced?

xy will remove phase issues between the 2 xy mic's, but won't fix phase issues between the OH's and other mic's in the kit..

[Charles Dye]

Originally posted by not_so_new
It is funny how much flack I got for that when I first started mixing.

not_so_new,

Re panning drummer perspective. Just tell'em what I always do... the drummer's left-handed.

[maskedman72]

Originally posted by djui5
xy will remove phase issues between the 2 xy mic's, but won't fix phase issues between the OH's and other mic's in the kit..

can someone describe,in detail, how to mic xy? ive never tried xy before. what do you point them at and how do you place them in realtion to each other?

[natpub]

1 vote for audience perspective.

[not_so_new]

Re panning drummer perspective. Just tell'em what I always do... the drummer's left-handed.

Yeah unless the drummer is really left-handed then the whole piece of crap blows up like a sh*t sandwich!!

Charles about the snare slightly off center like -5 or so, you don't seem to do that?? I do (and it works for me so I probably will continue to do so, unless I get board of course). Any reason why you don't? Just does not make a big enough difference to you or it makes the kit seems out of balance maybe?? Anyone else in the big's do this that you have seen??

[Charles Dye]

Originally posted by not_so_new
Yeah unless the drummer is really left-handed then the whole piece of crap blows up like a sh*t sandwich!!

nsn,

Whatta ya kiddin'?!? I pan them drummer's perspective too. Nobody ever asks me about a left-handed drummer. They assume he's right.

Re the snare panning. I do sometimes pan off center. It works for me sometimes. But on more aggressive tracks I just prefer the anchored feeling I get from the rhythm section of the kick, snare + bass panned dead center. The repetitive pounding groove of them all hitting one after the other in exactly the same place only multiplies their power. The section becomes more than the sum of its parts.

And I don't mind them occupying the same space as the vocal. They each are so completely different in their sounds, neither my ear (nor do I believe the listener's) becomes confused. In fact I believe there is great strength in panning instruments to the center and I like that feeling. Sometimes I'll also pan (in emulation of older records) the hi-hat in the center. It gives the track a much stronger drive. Not unlike a mono drum loop.

Hope this helps.

[Jose Mrochek]

Now that you mentioned the Hi-Hat in the center, we are doing that same thing on my album. Since we are looking for a mainly overhead sound from the drums, the OH's tend to incline the Hi Hat to one side. With the combination of the HiHat mic on center, it gives it a cool sensation.

[music]

Who is using xy? Who is using spaced pairs etc. Just curious.

Keith

[LTA]

Originally posted by music
Who is using xy? Who is using spaced pairs etc. Just curious.

Keith

It all depends on if the drummer is playing heels up or heels down.

Sorry.

Now, since you didn't think about my camera analogy too hard, I will explain it a touch more.

Spaced pairs are better when you have your OHs really tight on the drumset, and want the left and right sizes to have a similar 'volume' as the center of the kit. This is similar to using the macro lense setting.

A (near-)coincident pair close over the center of the drumset is best when you want to accentuate the center of the drumset and diminish the sides. When the overheads close, this would create the fisheyed effect to a point. This is roughly analogous to a wide angle lense.

As you back away from the kit, the xy pattern is more readily "zoomed" by decreasing the angle between the axii of the mics. Also, the farther away you get, the more even the left and right of the kit will be as compared to the center.

Near coincident pairs will give a little more depth (or blurring/smearing) as opposed to conincident techniques. Just two common examples, ortf and nos, have different levels of "zoom." Ever seen a movie where they would zoom in on an actor while trucking the camera away?

No sense not practicing and becoming well versed in all the different approaches to stereo micing. Might be fun to try a mini-decca tree on a drumset sometime. Never know till one tries it....

[djui5]

Originally posted by maskedman72
can someone describe,in detail, how to mic xy? ive never tried xy before. what do you point them at and how do you place them in realtion to each other?

http://www.dpamicrophones.com/

Click on microphone university on the left....then stereo techniques in the body of the page......it will list a ton of various stereo mic techniques.

[maskedman72]

Originally posted by djui5
http://www.dpamicrophones.com/

Click on microphone university on the left....then stereo techniques in the body of the page......it will list a ton of various stereo mic techniques.

much good info there,thanks!! when you have the oh mics placed over the left and right of the kit what is the term for that method? is it considered a-b micing?

[LTA]

Originally posted by djui5
...it will list a ton of various stereo mic techniques.

It is missing "H" pattern, although i totally have no clue as to what it really is. Might just be a slang name for something simple.

And X-Y has become almost meaningless except that it defines a coincident micing technique. Blumlein is just an X-Y with bipolar elements set at ±45° from center. And MS is just a figure-eight mic coincident rotated 90° off axis from a cardiod pointed at the source. Through some clever manipulation, that array is basically rotated 45° back to center, and also refered to electronically as being x-y.

So, would near coincident mics using directional capsule be XY+AB? Great, stereo micing is just the combination of two vectors (time and intensity). Figures. If only music where that simple

[djui5]

Originally posted by maskedman72
much good info there,thanks!! when you have the oh mics placed over the left and right of the kit what is the term for that method? is it considered a-b micing?

It depends on where they are facing. If facing straight down they would be A-B (I believe this could have been called "H" somewhere as LTA said),
If they were pointing towards each other in a cross type of fashion (say the mic over the floor tom was pointing at the snare, and the mic over the snare was pointint towards the floor tom) this would be called spaced X-Y or something else depending on the angle and distance apart. Spaced X-Y would put the capsules at a 90 degree angle with each other but spaced apart more than 11 inches, NOS stereo would be 90 degrees but spaced 11 inches apart, DIN stereo is 90 degree angle but spaced 8 inches apart. ORTF would put the capsules at a 110 degree angle with each other and spaced 6.6 inches apart.

You can move these distances to suite your taste..but these are the recommended distances for optimal phase coheriency across the broadest freq range.

[music]

LTA,

That's pretty funny the heel up or down thing. Does it matter if the drummer is a gender bender and loves high heels?

Sorry.

I re-read the thread and didn't see anything regarding the camera analogy.

However, great answer. I need to do alot more experimenting with these different techniques.

I am looking to get a very wide image on the cymbals. I use spaced pairs and that does a good job. I'm thinking ORTF will work well.

Thanks,

Keith

[LTA]

Originally posted by music
I re-read the thread and didn't see anything regarding the camera analogy.

My apologies. I was having an out-of-forum experience. This should be the link to it. It is the last entry, and was a passing comment having nothing to do with anything, really. I might need to keep better records as to cross reference myself in the future. Going somewhere doesn't matter if i can't remember where i've been.