Phase and Drum Recording

Xspringe · 19th April 2008, 05:21 PM

I'm quite new to recording live drums and I have a question for the people on here with experience with recording drums: do you already compensate for phasing due to delays and polarity between microphones during recording (so you can audit and tweak the phase compensated sound) or do you do this after recording?

And if so, how do you do this?

Musiclab · 19th April 2008, 05:38 PM

It depends on what you using, for instance if you use one mic on each drum and a set of overheads, unless you're placement is really bad you're mainly going to be checking the phase between the close mics and the overheads. The more mics you put up the more important phase issues become, for instance a mic in the kick and out of the kick you will have to compensate for phase issues between them, for me I record using an anolog console and often I go to 2" tape so I want to take care of those problems before hand, if I can. If you're using a daw for everything it's pretty easy to time align the two kick mics
or get a free plug in like phase tone and use that. When in doubt have everything go down onto a separate track so you can fix later if need be

Jack Ruston · 19th April 2008, 06:15 PM

Well it's like a jigsaw puzzle...You need

1. The two overheads to be equidistant from kick and snare so that those two key elements appear in the middle and are phase aligned between the two mics.

2. The overheads to line up phase wise with the decaying kick and snare from the close mics, which will obviously be a few ms earlier.

This is all about the height of the overheads really. If you can get a good sounding kit...with a couple of really solid close mics, some half decent overheads which are reinforcing with those close mics rather than cancelling, and some ambient mics in a nice room, you'll have a great sound. The BIG problem in this chain is the first element.

J

Xspringe · 19th April 2008, 07:58 PM

Thanks for your feedback!

I have a centered xy overhead setup with one mic on kick and one on snare. I plan on adding additional mics for toms in the near future.

Would it work if I simply used a delay to time align all the other mics with the two overheads? And then I would use a plugin (like that one by voxengo) to make sure the phase of the other mics aligns with the overheads.

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19th April 2008, 05:21 PM	#1
Xspringe Gear nut Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 91	Phase and Drum Recording I'm quite new to recording live drums and I have a question for the people on here with experience with recording drums: do you already compensate for phasing due to delays and polarity between microphones during recording (so you can audit and tweak the phase compensated sound) or do you do this after recording? And if so, how do you do this?

19th April 2008, 05:38 PM	#2
Musiclab Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Elmont NY Posts: 3,222	It depends on what you using, for instance if you use one mic on each drum and a set of overheads, unless you're placement is really bad you're mainly going to be checking the phase between the close mics and the overheads. The more mics you put up the more important phase issues become, for instance a mic in the kick and out of the kick you will have to compensate for phase issues between them, for me I record using an anolog console and often I go to 2" tape so I want to take care of those problems before hand, if I can. If you're using a daw for everything it's pretty easy to time align the two kick mics or get a free plug in like phase tone and use that. When in doubt have everything go down onto a separate track so you can fix later if need be __________________ Lou Gimenez www.musiclabnyc.com

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19th April 2008, 06:15 PM	#3
Jack Ruston Lives for gear Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Wimbledon Posts: 706	Well it's like a jigsaw puzzle...You need 1. The two overheads to be equidistant from kick and snare so that those two key elements appear in the middle and are phase aligned between the two mics. 2. The overheads to line up phase wise with the decaying kick and snare from the close mics, which will obviously be a few ms earlier. This is all about the height of the overheads really. If you can get a good sounding kit...with a couple of really solid close mics, some half decent overheads which are reinforcing with those close mics rather than cancelling, and some ambient mics in a nice room, you'll have a great sound. The BIG problem in this chain is the first element. J

19th April 2008, 07:58 PM	#4
Xspringe Gear nut Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 91	Thanks for your feedback! I have a centered xy overhead setup with one mic on kick and one on snare. I plan on adding additional mics for toms in the near future. Would it work if I simply used a delay to time align all the other mics with the two overheads? And then I would use a plugin (like that one by voxengo) to make sure the phase of the other mics aligns with the overheads.