Dynamics as OH

[sheltersoton]

Hi,

Just cogitating and i wondered if any one had used any decent dynamics as overheads... i may have a play but just wondered if any one had ever experimentred before?

i remember a led zep footage where RE-20's were used as over heads.. i might try with 421's or sm7's see what happens

[John Suitcase]

Sure, you can use anything as overheads, but you might need to do some significant eq'ing...

I actually am moving in that direction myself. And ribbons are technically dynamic mics, and can sound really good as overheads, too.

[arpodthegreat]

Before i had that much i gear i used EV re11s (kinda like 635a or re50 but hypercardiod.) i´ve stopped using them recentyl because i´ve got better stuff now. but they are kind of my favorite mic. never recorded anything bad with them. i kinda wished i didn´t have better mics cause now i never use em. i remember placing them under the cymbals so that i could pick up more toms. i don´t remember exactly how it worked but it sounded great. great vocal mic too btw.
sometimes i use an sm57 to mic a crash cymbal that has a trashy sound. i did a song once where there was just
kick 421
snare 57
km 84 hi hat
57 crash

it was a great trashy dance rock song and i think it worked fine. i really wanted to just close mic everything and i liked the results. you can really get a lot of different sounds from a crash depending on where/how close you get to a cymbal. under is really dark or right at the edge can be cool. try it. too close though and you get proximity weirdness.

[beechstudio]

I did a demo in 1994 where I used a single sm58 as a mono OH. Although it was 4 track analog.......The track slammed for the crappy gear I was using. Here's a sample:



http://gearslutz.com/board/attachmen...achmentid=6490

[AlexLakis]

One time, out of necessity, I got lucky using just one SM58 FOK. Reeeeally lucky. Worked somehow. I wouldn't do it again...then again...I might...

[Nutmeg II.]

Used MD441 on OH with best results! nice over all drum sound!
Ad a kick mic and something on snare and be done!
I guess you could throw up a RE20 there and it will be fine too.
SM7 might not work that well because of the low output it has (than again why not).

[borau]

MOVING COIL dynamics sucks in this application.

Ribbons however excells. M160 and 4038's.

Some folks like Royers too.

If youre talking about RE15/16/20 , SM 55,56,57,58, MD421, 441 etc.

Not IMHO a good idea.

[opentune]

I was playing with a pair of RE16 as an alternative for my standard OH´s,
and it sounded better than i would´ve thought... Whatever that means...

Then i used one on the snare (top), and it was great!

[The Reel Thing]

Hi there,

I had a session just recently with a rockband with a bit of a punk approach.
I'm really a U87-as-OH guy, but didn't like them this time, too clean. I tried an old pair of AKG 451s and didn't like them either.
Joking around with the drummer, I put up a pair of SM 57s as overheads, maybe a foot above the cymbals, one close to the hihat, one close to the ride - and there we were, really great drum sound with a bit of an edge, lots of street credibility.
There was also a pair of Royer R-121s on the floor behind the drummer as room mics, picking up some of the cymbals as well.

Guess I'll try dynamic mics on cymbals moreoften now.
Cheers,

Tom

[jbuntz]

EV 635's do sound cool in front of a kit or in the room and crushed - trashy in a cool way. Dynamics have shit transient response which makes them very smeary on overheads, but it that's what you want, do it.

[sheltersoton]

sweet, cheers guys... i have a pretty filthy rock and roll / hardcore band in in a week or two, i might tryusing my regular oh's (old 451's / AT 4051's) with a pair of 57's up there with em and then a/b em and see how that works... at least i guess it'll give me more options at mix

there are so many mics i want to get to try!! and its almost ALLWAYS because of the drums!! i want to try some ribbons (im thinking either go cheap with some shinybox or swallow hard and get a pair of m160's), i really like the 4051's so i wouldnt mind trying some ond the AT LDC's i also want to hear how the classics (U87 C414's) sound in my room1

cheers again!

[dub3000]

i remember reading somewhere that u2 used a really basic mic setup for most of achtung baby - something beefy on the kick, 57 or 58 on snare, single 58 as mono overhead.

actually, here it is:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997.../flood_u2.html

Three years ago, U2 engineer Robbie Adams explained in SOS how he recorded Larry Mullen's drums with just three mics, an approach he had picked up from Flood, who, said Adams, "is bored with all this traditional, big stereo nonsense." Flood explained that his way of recording drums was partly born from necessity, and partly from reading Mark Lewisohn's classic book on The Beatles' recording sessions: "When we were working on Achtung Baby, we had two drum kits set up, and I had very few channels on the desk, so that was a bit of a problem. I noticed from the photographs in the Beatles book how there was always one mic parked just above the drum kit. I thought it was maybe just for the photo or something, but then I saw it in other studio shots as well, and so, because of the problem I had with too few channels, I decided to try it out on one of the two kits. I put one mic on the bass drum -- an AKG D12 or Neumann U47 -- a Shure SM57 on the snare, and an SM58 as the overhead just above the kit.

"What started to happen was that people would prefer that drum sound, even though it's virtually mono. I also noticed that with Larry, who is a powerful drummer, when you put the drums in stereo you have to have the levels up higher on playback, whereas the mono drums were more powerful, even at lower levels. When I thought about it, I realised that if you're standing in front of a drum kit, you hear it in mono -- you don't hear the toms panning neatly from left to right in your ears. Also, a mic just above the kit compresses the sound. And that's the same effect that happens in the ears of a drummer or when you stand close to the kit; the sound is compressing in your ears because of the level of air pressure. So when you have a cheap, lo-fi overhead mic in that position, and add compression on a mic that's already compressing, it brings out the excitement, the same feel and natural balance that the drummer is getting."


sounds like a lot of stereo room mic'ing, though - and there's definitely some hi hat stuff on there as well. but i think they make most of the stereo space up with percussion overdubs.

--dan http://remaincalm.org

[Jamstudio]

Beyer m101 are nice on oh/hh
its the omnis version of the m201

Remco

[AdamJay]

Originally Posted by beechstudio

http://gearslutz.com/board/attachmen...achmentid=6490

The track slammed for the crappy gear I was using.

indeed!

[arpodthegreat]

sounds like a lot of stereo room mic'ing, though - and there's definitely some hi hat stuff on there as well. but i think they make most of the stereo space up with percussion overdubs.

--dan http://remaincalm.org[/QUOTE]

that´s key. i think you can have a mono drum sound that has huge and pan the hat or overdub some bell or do shakers and tambos and move those around. i once couldn´t get the drums to come out of the track well enough so i just panned the kick and snare hard left and hard right with the bass in the middle. that was really cool. there was a lot of bleed and room mics so it was a more subtle sound but amazing none the less.

635/re50 over the kit, straight into a guitar amp. have the drummer play while you set the amount of dist and the eq on the amp. OMG! i prefer smaller amps to bigger once. old princetons. even those 8inch squier $99 volume and tone amps work amazing. adds grit to the whole track. you can even pull out the other drums for a cool intro or outro.

[Bob Ross]

Somewhere out there is a VacuumHeads record from around 1980 or '81 where I used EV RE16's as overheads...just 'cuz that was the only matched pair available (and the whole mono retro craze wouldn't start for another 15 or 20 years). The tunes are kinda fratboy power-pop/punk, so that sound worked fine, but I can't say I'd ever willingly make that choice again, unless I was going for a specific effect.

[kevinc]

Originally Posted by Nutmeg II.

Used MD441 on OH with best results! nice over all drum sound!
Ad a kick mic and something on snare and be done!
I guess you could throw up a RE20 there and it will be fine too.
SM7 might not work that well because of the low output it has (than again why not).

HA !


I was just going to start a thread with the same title before I saw this one. I knew Nutmeg was going to say 441`s.

I think I may have landed a whole bunch of them so I`m going to have to try this.

[r0ck1r0ck2]

ev664a...like a top...very good sound thankyou...

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by John Suitcase

Sure, you can use anything as overheads, but you might need to do some significant eq'ing...

I actually am moving in that direction myself. And ribbons are technically dynamic mics, and can sound really good as overheads, too.

Ribbon mics are, indeed, technically classified as dynamics but they are so different in terms of practical reality from typical magnet-and-coil dynamics that it's probably best to keep them separate in your head. (The output of the element is so small a step-up transformer is frequently used. While many other forms of dynamics are unaffected by the phantom power often used to power modern condenser mics, applying phantom to a ribbon may likely fry it. Etc.)