Detuning Room Mics

[jredrecording]

Hey all,
I read about this online, detuning room mics for a 'fatter' drum tone. Curious if anyone has had any luck with this? Sound interesting. Any tips on the application of it in 'tools.

thanks slutz


J

[C_F_H_13]

Originally Posted by jredrecording

Hey all,
I read about this online, detuning room mics for a 'fatter' drum tone. Curious if anyone has had any luck with this? Sound interesting. Any tips on the application of it in 'tools.

thanks slutz


J

I know some guys who track at 48k at a faster tempo, then drop down to 44.1khz for a fat drum sound....but I've never seen anyone tune down just room mics...I'll give it a whirl though.

[gainstages]

never tried it, but if i want fatter tone, i'll start with different mic/preamp selection....

[Bob Ross]

I've never done it in digital, but back when all I ever did was analog tape (god, it's been years... :::sob:::) I used to do a lot of varispeed tricks with ambient tracks and/or reverb returns to get a thicker, sludgier sense of "air"

[richardswag]

Interesting idea. My gut reaction would be to use Ableton Live..

I'm going to try this now in fact!

[recall]

Originally Posted by richardswag

Interesting idea. My gut reaction would be to use Ableton Live..

I'm going to try this now in fact!

works well sometimes if you have a kick and snare without much sustain, just drop it into live andpitch down. mix back into clean tracks and away you go.

I also do it on hats sometimes.

[jredrecording]

ok so i tried to give this a shot, applying it to a stereo room track via audio suite, shifting down an octave. now obviously it puts the shifted track and the regular one out of time cus its streching it. i know this isnt the right theory, anyone care to correct me? maybe via an aux? but im thinking the same thing would happen

[John Suitcase]

I don't know that you'd want to go a full octave, probably just a few cents. Don't know about Pro Tools, but in Cubase, you can select whether the pitch change changes the length of the sample. Just set it to not change length.

You could do something similar by putting the room mics through a very slow flanger or chorus effect, too.

[jredrecording]

cmon guys, i know someone is ninjaing this up somewhere!

[84K]

f you like the sound of them, but want more thud/girth, the rack mounted bass pod is awesome. You need two of them for stereo room mics, but it is worth it. I have made a few presets. I mult the room mics to the bass pod, find the thud I like and blend it in with the clean signal. Really adds a nice low end punch.

[juniorhifikit]

for perfect examples, listen to "Back In Black" and I believe "Some Like It Hot" (Tony Thompson!!). Although now come to think of it, on BIB they pitched the snare...

Anyway, good fun - give it a try

[skybluerental]

Originally Posted by C_F_H_13

I know some guys who track at 48k at a faster tempo, then drop down to 44.1khz for a fat drum sound....but I've never seen anyone tune down just room mics...I'll give it a whirl though.

ive done this and had great success.
its a cool seldom used trick.
but you have to have a good drummer who can play the same feel faster while listening to squirelly sounding high pitched playback..............

[russrags]

I've had long disscutions w/ Brian Ahern about this. Vari speeding the room mic's +/- tricks the listener into beliving the space the drums was recorded in is larger or smaller. Of course this is easy on a Studer 2" and just a few cents worth ... gosh I miss Vari-Speed, some of the best technique's are accomplished w/ vari-speed .... are you listening Digi ???


Russ
Nashville
"In Order To Predict The Future ... Create It"

[Ben B]

Interesting concept. If you're using traditional varispeed, how do you prevent the affected tracks from gradually drifting out of time with the others? If everything is on the same tape, there's no way to only varispeed certain tracks, so I assumed that you mean the room mics were recorded on a seperate machine from the rest of the drum mics. I'm imagining these getting progressively out of sync with the close mics as the song goes on, no?

-Ben B

[Drumsound]

Originally Posted by Ben B

Interesting concept. If you're using traditional varispeed, how do you prevent the affected tracks from gradually drifting out of time with the others? If everything is on the same tape, there's no way to only varispeed certain tracks, so I assumed that you mean the room mics were recorded on a seperate machine from the rest of the drum mics. I'm imagining these getting progressively out of sync with the close mics as the song goes on, no?

-Ben B

I think what you do is overdub with the varispeed on or redo the other parts and regular speed. To just do the room mics, you could send out to a speaker in the room while playing back and recoerding at a slower speed.

Originally Posted by skybluerental

ive done this and had great success.
its a cool seldom used trick.
but you have to have a good drummer who can play the same feel faster while listening to squirelly sounding high pitched playback..............

Originally Posted by C_F_H_13

I know some guys who track at 48k at a faster tempo, then drop down to 44.1khz for a fat drum sound....but I've never seen anyone tune down just room mics...I'll give it a whirl though.

I've done it on tape. It's fun and odd trying to play with a sped up backing track. I did two sections because I wanted the drums with the slow down sound (sped up recording) in the verses and regular speed drums in the chorus. It really cool how you can leave the crash cymbal from the slow drums ringing while the regular speed starts (and vice versa).

I posted a mix but I can't find it with the search.

I tried again and found the thread Here. It's a ruff mix but gives you the idea.

[mtstudi@pacbell]

I believe on the Power Station record they used a Publison to take the room mics down an octave.

www.bluethumbproductions.com

[russrags]

Drumsound (Tony)

IMO that oughta be your everyday setup.
You really know what your doing ... great deepth.

Russ
Nashville
"In Order To Predict The Future ... Create It"

[tuflek]

You can try to copy the room mikes track,detune it for an octave,align it to original track and blend to taste.