Your favourite drum overhead method?

[mesadude]

For all venues : beyer m500 pair

www.livemix.be

[mus1k_freak]

Sm81 usually works well

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[Flying_Dutchman]

i got 2x violet design the finger and an audix dp5a-set with addiotonal second floor tom mic

[Moonbaby]

SM81, too.

[ssaudio]

Positioning depends entirely on the act and style of drummer/music. Mics will usually either be 414's or 4038's, but I'm not too fussy about it.

[LX3]

Man, I've got a lot to say on this subject. I'll try not to bore the crap out of everybody about it.

I record and mix a lot of shows, but I rarely get much say in mic positioning, so I get to listen to a lot of live overhead techniques.

Live overheads often sound terrible. But then, half the time, FOH aren't using the overheads in their mix anyway, so why should they care? Or they think overheads always sound like that... which they do if you always put them in bad places.

But on the whole, I find:

i) A-B over the cymbals is okay. As long as they're not too close.
ii) Wide-spaced ORTF over the drums as a whole is usually better. People rarely have suitable stands to pull it off though. Or they just don't think it looks right.
iii) Beware close-micing cymbals, esp crashes. Crashes move when you hit them. See doppler effect. Pish-wish-wish.
iv) Snare and toms will always be in the overheads. So it's better if they sound good in the overheads, even if what you're looking for is primarily cymbals. Otherwise you turn up the overheads and your snare and toms get worse. Maybe that's why so few engineers use the overheads. Efforts to keep the snare and toms out of the overheads sometimes works against getting good snare and tom sounds (unless you just mute the overheads... in which case, who cares how clever you were with positioning the overheads?)
v) Coverage. Important cymbals may be miles away and off-axis relative to the nearest overhead. Big setups may need more than two mics. Or you may simply be able to move the mics up or inward a bit.
vi) Live engineers seem very good at putting their hihat mic in a position where it sounds like it's distorting. But hey, there's no snare drum in it. So what? The hi-hat sound is unusable.
vii) Sometimes you're hearing the sound of the *stand* and not the sound of the cymbal or the mic. On one gig I heard an overhead distorting. We were all certain the mic was broken. They changed the mic. That seemed to be broken as well. They changed the cable. The same. I asked if we could please change the stand. Fixed. Bizarre.
viii) Because something works in a studio doesn't necessarily mean it'll work on a loud stage.

It's much more about the mic position than mic choice. I'd rather have a well-positioned SM57 than a TLM170 a foot away from a crash.

(FWIW, I've heard a 57 sound beautiful on a ride.)

Then again I've never heard a 414XLS sound good as an overhead. Not sure why.

In general, I find the most useful techniques to be: 1) listen 2) think.

[ssaudio]

No reason whatsoever why 414's (regardless the actual model) shouldn't sound good, but, and it's a big but, they need to be in the right place.
You are correct though, the vast majority of live engineers haven't the first clue how to position OH's - invariably way too close and almost always totally phase incoherent :(

[dmilt23451]

I have really been digging micing my cymbals from the underside with Heil PR30s

[ssaudio]

It's not a method I enjoy working with and I'm not too keen on the sound, but I've heard some engineers get great results, so I can't really knock it.

[cyjanopan]

XY, no problem with phase, one mic stand. I used GJ often when I had 4 ins for whole drum kit, worked good

[LinchpinAudio]

Realistically you'll find SM81s on the spec 7 times out of 10. I personally love 214s (cause what other patterns are you actually going to use live).

Key thing to note @LX3 is that you have different objectives than FOH or Monitors. You want a lush full kit sound, and at worst, FOH will just want the ride and crash. When you get to larger venues, the operators should care more about a rounder OH sound with toms and snare included and such.

[ssaudio]

Originally Posted by LinchpinAudio

Realistically you'll find SM81s on the spec 7 times out of 10. I personally love 214s (cause what other patterns are you actually going to use live)

Fig 8 can be very handy for rejecting the FOH slapback in bigger stadium type gigs - I use it often

[Alex_c]

When I have control I will use AB, but often spot mics on the cymbals works fine. Keep them close enough to avoid too much bleed from stage volume, but far enough they don't get washy. Generally you keep them low and to pick up individual cymbals and not the kit as a whole. In a 100-500 seat venue I probably won't even use overheads since the stage volume off the cymbals is enough. In a 500-3000 seat venue I will often spot mic depending on the music. If am recording I will do whatever sounds best to tape and spend more time on it. This is my personal approach and YMMV, but I find it works for me. I don't doubt that studio OH mic techniques work better, but sometimes you don't have the time and often you don't need a lot. Unless I am in an arena, I treat it as reinforcement, and if there is enough cymbal level coming off the stage, I don't see any need to turn them up and introduce phase issues etc. I have had stagehands set the kit up with the mics 2-3 feet over the kit like you would in the studio and I can hear the guitar/bass in them when I turn them up. No thanks!

[John R Truman]

I agree with the Shure SM-81's.
If I have enough height, I like 1 large stand using an ORTF array about 2 feet in front of the kit aimed back across the cymbals about 2 feet above the cymbals.
In venues with lower ceilings, I still use SM-81's, but on 2 medium stands using a spaced pair (in phase) and place them at the extreme sides of the kit still try to be out front of the kit to avoid some of the toms and snare leakage.
For both approaches I also do low cut filters on them at the mic and on the console (200Hz and below) to help reduce the energy of the bleed.

[edva]

For small to mid-size venues, ride cymbal only, with a hyper-card condenser from about one foot above. Unless it is an EXTREMELY skilled and tasteful drummer, then "standard" 414's L-R overhead.

[LX3]

Originally Posted by LinchpinAudio

When you get to larger venues, the operators should care more about a rounder OH sound with toms and snare included and such.

I wish. eg, at a show I recorded recently (8500 seater arena, pushing 103dB at the mix position), FOH barely used the overheads at all. All the crowd heard was kick, snare, vocals and fx. And of course there's not a lot in the way of overheads in monitors. So the number of people that cared about OH mic choice or positioning was approximately... one (me). Unfortunately, on that kind of show, I have to work with whatever I get.

[manysounds]

The wide A/B usually worked for me but really you only "need" them for outdoor gigs...
especially with a god-damned singing drummer. Most any club gig using the OH is useless overkill that's only good for making an unintelligible wall of noise... until you get to 1300 capacity venues or so. (unless the performers are actually gentle players)

I have actually used "recorderman" live with awesome results. The X/Y never worked for me when I tried it because of wildly flailing drummers. I honestly never tried ORTF for this reason.

ONCE, I used wide A/B with a spot mic under the ride. A BetaSM98 IIRC. Sounded as good as was possible for the day.

[rufusdisturbed]

I usually use my pair of Rode NT5MP's in AB. Never have issues. Always good sound.

[carlosj]

2 AKG 451 coincident.

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