Drum recording: OH and room mics

[zinzin]

do you guys align the room mics to the OH mics in the DAW after recording? or do you leave them like they are to hear the phase difference and therefor more room?

[AudioWonderland]

Originally Posted by zinzin

do you guys align the room mics to the OH mics in the DAW after recording? or do you leave them like they are to hear the phase difference and therefor more room?

Leave them alone. Aligning them with the OH screws up the timing with the other mics. You just create another set of issues.

[Sheikyearbouti]

I guess that you have some phase issues?
I always try to record them in phase and the key here as usual is to listen. First with your ears and than trough the equipment. I usually will put the OH first and than find the right spots for the rest of the mics while listening to the mix including the OH. I personally find it hard to understand what's goin on in the cans while being next to the drummer so I prefer to have someone else to move the mics around while I'm in the control room/room next door/far from the source.
If for some reason you really don't want to move a mic from a particular position I would recommend you instead of moving the track around in the DAW to try to use some plug-in (or hardware) like the UA Little Labs IBP or if I'm not wrong Voxengo has a similar one as well. This will change the phase of the sound and not just move it as moving means that it simply will be out of it's natural place in time.
Of course everything that sounds good is good so there are no strict rules and I have solved some problem in this way as well. But think of this: if all of your tracks are alined all you'll achieve is nothing but a huge initial transient. On the other hand a good blend of well positioned mics will give you a way better perception of the space and how the instrument sounds in this space.

[666666]

Originally Posted by zinzin

do you guys align the room mics to the OH mics in the DAW after recording? or do you leave them like they are to hear the phase difference and therefor more room?

No rules, do what sounds best to you.

Sometimes leaving things alone works just fine, sometimes spending a lot of time with precision time / phase aligning can work wonders too, depends on how things were recorded and the ultimate goal.

Personally, I tend to prefer to experiment with "time aligning" later in the DAW, I find I can yield a lot more tone, clarity, detail and focus by spending a little time with it. This helps me get to where I want to go. Someone else may prefer a "less precise", less focused, less detailed drum representation, it's all personal preference and situation dependent.

A friend of mine did a mix where he completely distorted the drums on purposes, very grainy, washed out, phasey, etc... this was the intent... I'm sure he did not spend any time phase aligning anything... it ultimately works just fine in his mix for his production. My personal production style is different, I like accuracy and immediacy, I like ass-kicking, razor-sharp transients, I like very fine detail etc... so I do anything I can to get me as close to this as possible. Time / phase aligning can help here. Any time you have time / phase differences, you start to loose sharpness, fine detail, tone, etc... it's all in the ear of the beholder.

[lalune]

+1
If the distance room mic to drums is much larger than the distance OH to drums, as is normally the case, there is no need to move the tracks around.
Of course, if a natural drum sound is not your objective, you can do as you please.

[AudioWonderland]

Originally Posted by Sheikyearbouti

I guess that you have some phase issues?
I always try to record them in phase and the key here as usual is to listen. First with your ears and than trough the equipment. I usually will put the OH first and than find the right spots for the rest of the mics while listening to the mix including the OH. I personally find it hard to understand what's goin on in the cans while being next to the drummer so I prefer to have someone else to move the mics around while I'm in the control room/room next door/far from the source.
If for some reason you really don't want to move a mic from a particular position I would recommend you instead of moving the track around in the DAW to try to use some plug-in (or hardware) like the UA Little Labs IBP or if I'm not wrong Voxengo has a similar one as well. This will change the phase of the sound and not just move it as moving means that it simply will be out of it's natural place in time.
Of course everything that sounds good is good so there are no strict rules and I have solved some problem in this way as well. But think of this: if all of your tracks are alined all you'll achieve is nothing but a huge initial transient. On the other hand a good blend of well positioned mics will give you a way better perception of the space and how the instrument sounds in this space.

To avoid phase issues 1) I place the mics properly and 2) don't use any more mics than necessary which is typically 3-4 for me. When using a lot of spot mics, OH's and Room mics the phase issues multiply with every additional open mic. When placed properly the different arrival times can create a nice depth of field but when placed poorly its a phasey mess. In my experience nudging tracks that sound bad around in the daw just exchanges one phase issue for another.

[alasdair]

Originally Posted by AudioWonderland

In my experience nudging tracks that sound bad around in the daw just exchanges one phase issue for another.

What about nudging well recorded content around to avoid hearing two sets of drum hits a few milliseconds apart from each other?

[AudioWonderland]

Originally Posted by alasdair

What about nudging well recorded content around to avoid hearing two sets of drum hits a few milliseconds apart from each other?

If your hearing that and did not want to then you did something wrong prior to that point that needs to be corrected

[alasdair]

this is not necessarily from experience, but what if the room mics were set far back so as to capture the room ambience well, but in setting them back at this distance, could not a flamming effect could become apparent?

One example I am familiar with was when I sat in on a professional recording session of a pianist with 2 close mics, a first set of room mics, and a further distanced set of ambient mics in the hall, and after recording it, the engineer proceeded to time align all the mics in order to display the sound of the room but not the delay present between the mics

I must state that I'm not trying to prove any methods incorrect!

[AudioWonderland]

Originally Posted by alasdair

this is not necessarily from experience, but what if the room mics were set far back so as to capture the room ambience well, but in setting them back at this distance, could not a flamming effect could become apparent?

One example I am familiar with was when I sat in on a professional recording session of a pianist with 2 close mics, a first set of room mics, and a further distanced set of ambient mics in the hall, and after recording it, the engineer proceeded to time align all the mics in order to display the sound of the room but not the delay present between the mics

I must state that I'm not trying to prove any methods incorrect!

If you put the mics that far back and you are hearing that I would say the rooms mics are way too loud in the mix. People used room mics long before we had DAW's to time align things. You just need to know what you are looking to accomplish and how to get that