Ever recorded drums without overheads?

[imloggedin]

Anyone ever tried recording with no overheads? Just close mics/hihat and maybe sample cymbals in? Seems like no matter what if you use spaced pair theres ALWAYS minor phasey sound in the cymbals. To get a good stereo feel without that what do you do? Why not just close mic and maybe use room mics? Ofcourse im speaking of hard rock albums.

[psycho_monkey]

if you're getting phasey cymbals, why not try an x/y pair? I mean, it's not something that I've found to be a problem most of the time, but nothing wrong with experimenting. Mono overhead, front kit mics, underheads, low mics around the kit...

but I'd probably still record conventional overheads as well!

[dbbubba]

Because cymbals sound ENTIRELY different in front of the kit instead of above the kit I once tried putting a spaced pair out in the room in front of the drummer.

It wasn't spectacular.
But I can't remember how decent or NOT decent that room sounded.

I once had to convince Vinnie Paul in Pantera that the mics he was given to try out that clipped onto the stand UNDER each cymbal DID NOT sound good enough for the mix.
This was on of the ZROCK live broadcast shows I did right when their first record was released.
(I can still remember sitting in the back of the RYDER truck I rented with them listening to a DAT playback of the show. NO air conditioning because it was a rental TRUCK that I put a Soundcraft 800 and some outboard in. We were drinking beer from a pitcher and sweating our asses off. Those were the days!)

[dbbubba]

I got carried away with memories and forgot to add this.

A low ceiling will cause phasey cymbal stuff.
The cymbals reflect off of the cielings and interact with themselves.
Cymbals that don't have proper felts and flap around tend to phase a lot, too.

[John Suitcase]

You can stick a m/s pair out front of the kit, instead of overheads. Sometimes that sounds great, depending on the vibe you're after. I often use very little overhead, depending on the band. Some of my favorite mixes have almost no cymbal on them. It's weird, but it can sound good. Jealous Sound is a band that comes to mind.

[imloggedin]

Really just wondering if anyone has tried this. Ive used X/Y and mono overheads. Just wondering how close ups turned out.

[Matt Grabe]

I have only 8 channels to record with at a time so I always choose X/Y in front of the kit instead of putting up overheads. I've always preferred the way it sounds in a mix compared to overheads (I do mainly pop rock). I close mic the ride and hi hat and automate those in when necessary.

[imloggedin]

Again, im wondering what kind of sound anybody has got with just close up mics, no overheads or anything capturing an overall drum sound. Only using possibly room mics or reverb.

[Ermz]

I once close-mic'ed all the cymbals in favor of overheads. It was one of the dumber things I've done in my time. Since then I've worked a lot on my overhead positioning and have had some fairly pleasing results. You simply need the OHs to capture the kit as a whole and let the cymbals have a natural stereo spill-over effect. You'll always have some phase cancellation with spaced pairs in mono, but if you tweak it enough it won't be a major issue.

[DesertDawg]

Originally Posted by John Suitcase

You can stick a m/s pair out front of the kit, instead of overheads.

Or an ORTF pair... I like that setup, myself - kind of a hybrid between OH's & room mics. Whatever works in the particular room you're in, ya know?

To the OP, I don't know why you'd want to substitute sampled cymbals - given the choice, that's the last thing I'd want to use samples on... definitely try some other options like some other folks have suggested, if a spaced pair isn't working in your particular room.

[vespiz]

I once had to resort to using only the room mics instead of OHs because, well, it just sounded better that way.
There was some nasty stuff coming to the OHs due to the cymbals being nasty. I could hear it in the room mics also, but it was more manageable and did not interfere with the rest of the mix.

I'm of the opinion that you should record with as many or more mics as you think is necessary, since it's easier to take away than to try and add later (provided that you have enough tracks/inputs, take care of phase and all that).
Maybe once I get enough experience under my belt, I can get "The Ultimate Drum Sound" with just 2 mics...

[Nu-tra]

Put some 705 on the ceiling over your kit. Get a correlation plug in and check phase between the two over heads and the snare.

[Evil cat]

I like to miced my drums without over-head. Just close-miking & room mics in front of the kit at about 2 meters looking at the toms. It avoid any harshness of the cymbals, it's well balanced. Blumlein is a very good set up, perfectly mono compatible, very natural.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by imloggedin

Anyone ever tried recording with no overheads? Just close mics/hihat and maybe sample cymbals in? Seems like no matter what if you use spaced pair theres ALWAYS minor phasey sound in the cymbals. To get a good stereo feel without that what do you do? Why not just close mic and maybe use room mics? Ofcourse im speaking of hard rock albums.

One of the more interesting drum recordings I heard was done by Mike Skeet with nothing but a single Soundfield mic. - sounded amazing.

Just needed an extra mic. for the kick, though.

[Revmen]

I have a clip where I only used a D112 on kick, sm57 on snare, SeElectronc se3 on bottom and hi-hat. Then straight in to a Focusrite Saffire Pro, no EQ or compression. I'm not a drummer and this was just an experiment, but I kind of like it.

Drums.wav 8 MB

[travisbrown]

Haven't recorded without overheads, but have recorded without cymbals.

If you want to overdub cymbals later, which is sometimes a useful thing, you still need that OH on the kit to blend in with the overdubbed cymbals to sound natural.

If you don't do OH on the kit, you can reamp the kit through a PA monitor while overdubbing the cymbals.

[nickynicknick]

You can absolutely record without overheads....depending on your mic selection and placement, you can get very nice cymbal bleed through your tom mics...you just have to be willing to commit to that tom sound....I have recorded drums many times as follows...2 kiks, Snare top/bottom, tom mics and a mono room for depth/fun. In my room (which is average) this sounds better than using overs and there is plenty of Hats and Cymbals....but if you are recording over XY (as others suggest) seems like your best route.

Nick

[antti]

It can be done without the overheads but then I would normally put some sort of a room mic somewhere to get the 'kit' sound.. at least a fok a metre away or so. If tracking real drums on top of programmed stuff I could in certain situtions be able to go with close mics only (or room only and no close mics, depends, blah). Whatever does the job.

[Vogon]

Originally Posted by John Willett

One of the more interesting drum recordings I heard was done by Mike Skeet with nothing but a single Soundfield mic. - sounded amazing.

Just needed an extra mic. for the kick, though.

I too have heard some amazing stuff done with the soundfield...
Very cool mics - the ability to completely re-shape the patterns and imaging at the desk is a whole trip.

[imloggedin]

Originally Posted by nickynicknick

You can absolutely record without overheads....depending on your mic selection and placement, you can get very nice cymbal bleed through your tom mics...you just have to be willing to commit to that tom sound....I have recorded drums many times as follows...2 kiks, Snare top/bottom, tom mics and a mono room for depth/fun. In my room (which is average) this sounds better than using overs and there is plenty of Hats and Cymbals....but if you are recording over XY (as others suggest) seems like your best route.

Nick

Cool. You have any sound clips of that recording?

[fooman]

I once mixed a live recording of my own band, with me on drums.
The sound guy recorded snare, kick, toms, guitars close miced, bass DI, vocals, and a room mic.

I used the tom mics as overheads (compressed the shit out of them and panned them hard). That worked well to give the drums some spread and have the cymbals at least spread decently. I EQd the toms so they would benefit the cymbals as well as the tom drums.

I also used the two backup vocal mics set up on either side of the stage as room mics. That worked as well to help.

[jproc]

The room I do most of my recording in has pretty low ceilings, and overhead mics inevitably sound like crap...
I do all of our drum recordings using one of two methods:
A stereo blumlien pair out in front of the kit, slightly _below_ the level of the cymbals - and a kick mic, and snare mic.
or
A modified Glynn Johns... kick, snare, one over the floor tom side pointed at the snare (floor and tom mics panned slightly for imaging)

I've had great results with both...

[betamatt]

Hmmm jproc interesting to see your thing about the Blumlein pair in front of the kit, as it was one of the first things I thought of when I saw this thread. I set up a pair of ribbon mics (Naked Eye) in this position once for my "just for the heck of it room mics" on one session (usually try to have one of those on any session when I have time). Not useful in that particular mix, but listening to them I thought the sound would be perfect for a jazz session, and could provide most of the drum sound (especially on a good jazz drummer, who is going to mix himself). Wouldn't you know it, haven't done any real jazz since I had the idea...

[nickynicknick]

Originally Posted by imloggedin

Cool. You have any sound clips of that recording?

Sure...PM me and we'll talk about it.

Nick

[davew]

my dr ceilings are only 7 ft. i have no phase problems. you'll want oh's to capture the whole kit for a good sound. try using the glyn johns mic method, using ribbons for oh.