Drum Micing

[giraffe]

Originally Posted by Wayne

It is a ratio for distance separation to cause enough attenuation of cross bleed between two or more mics picking up separate sounds, so that the phase effects are not generally audible.
It's primarily a starting point guideline as the things being miced need to be of similar loudness, and mics similarly sensitive for it to pan out.

thumbsup

i think bells should go off (like in pe-wee's play house) every time someone gets this right.

[SoundHouse]

Originally Posted by doorknocker

As for the 3-1 rule, be aware that a mic never just picks up the direct sound but also reflections. Seems obvious but it's something many 'how-to' tutorials totally ignore. Every room is different and every drummer is different.

Of course we all should be careful about mic placement but I'm constantly amazed how big a difference the player makes. The way somebody hits a drum has not only an influence on the tone itself (so many drummers only seem to be able to produce upper midrange and I don't mean just cymbals) but also how the room reacts and the kind of reflections you get.

I definitely only use mics that I at least plan to use in the mix. Very rarely a hi-hat for me in my room. 'Covering all the options' will only make the whole process longer so don't be afraid to COMMIT!

+1
I was able to have a true session player come in to track a song and you can clearly hear the difference between that and when I track bands. The sound is more controlled and tighter. Makes for an easy tracking session.

[malfunction]

i usually use the ORTF method and have always been happy with the results but yesterday i tried experimenting with a spaced pair...i was happy with the the positioning of the cymbals and toms but the snare and kick were just to far apart in the spectrum. If i got the snare in the center the kick would be too far to the other side and vice versa. When i added the spot mics i actually sound quite good with lots of separation.
I was hoping to get the kick and snare a little more centered but just couldn't get the results i desired.

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by malfunction

i usually use the ORTF method and have always been happy with the results but yesterday i tried experimenting with a spaced pair...i was happy with the the positioning of the cymbals and toms but the snare and kick were just to far apart in the spectrum. If i got the snare in the center the kick would be too far to the other side and vice versa. When i added the spot mics i actually sound quite good with lots of separation.
I was hoping to get the kick and snare a little more centered but just couldn't get the results i desired.

Considered centering as a function of arrival time? 6" difference can put you square into the Hass pan effect range even if the levels are equal.
I've found if I still have a compromise between kick and snare I'll center favoring the snare as kick (plus the close mics) isn't as picky in the blend.

[recordinghopkins]

I don't mind the snare being off center a bit in my overheads. It actually IS in real life. The kick is the center of the kit, and the most susceptible to phase problems caused by arrival time differences. If my snare is drifting left a bit, panning the close mics a few degrees opposite and including distant room mics solves the problem just fine.

[Syncamorea]

Originally Posted by studjo

if you don't wanna have a phase mess in your overheads you'd have to use a coincident mic technique

For rock, I tend to get the most consistent results from Glen Johns but if I have time, space and inputs, I like to put a M/S or Blumlein pair out front, looking across the top of the ride. M/S been a mixed bag for me, probably because I occasionally record in sub-optimal spaces. But when you can get it working right, it offers an amazing look at the air around the cymbals.

[malfunction]

i agree that the kick should be more centre than the snare, i'm a drummer myself, a right handed drummer, so the snare should be slightly off setted to the left.
I seemed to have more difficulty getting the kick drum in the centre, the snare was quite easy, perhaps because it was closer to the mics...i'll be experimenting some more on monday :-)

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by recordinghopkins

I don't mind the snare being off center a bit in my overheads. It actually IS in real life. The kick is the center of the kit, and the most susceptible to phase problems caused by arrival time differences. ...

If you don't mind, in what ways do you see the kick most susceptible to phase problems?

... the snare should be slightly off setted to the left.
I seemed to have more difficulty getting the kick drum in the centre ...

Interesting both expressing concerns around the kick.

From what I've seen the snare and the kick can be placed rather very near center in a wide pair even before the close mics to help pull them in.
My placement typically is low and slightly rear from each side of the kit -i.e. a very wide placement.
Perhaps the kick is being a bit more difficult than the snare in a pair above in that it does radiate from a wider front to back foot print than from the rear.
Maybe XY would be a better fit for 'true to life.

[recordinghopkins]

well, if an 80Hz wave is 14' long, you'll achieve some cancellation at even divisions of that number. If one mic is exactly 14' farther from the kick than the other, you'll have complete cancellation at 80Hz. Obviously that's extreme.

But 1/4 wavelength is just over 3ft, easily within the realm of your efforts to center the snare in the overheads and will result in a 25% reduction of 80Hz from the kick. (I think that math is correct... ) With higher frequencies, say, 2k, the wavelength is .5 ft. At 5k, that number is .2 ft. So for me, placement starts with the broad strokes of low frequency, then fine adjustments for high frequency phase. Time arrival differences of high frequencies skew stereo placement but are more easily compensated for with subtle panning of the close mics. If the kick is out of phase in the OH, you can't just flip the polarity of one of them without destroying the imaging of the whole kit.

With any spacing, there will be cancellation at some frequencies, depending on the distance and vector of each drum from the spaced OH pair. I'd rather lose a small notch in the hf (which is easily masked by close mics) than fight with the kick phase in the combination of close, room, and OH mics.

There's one more thing to consider - ceiling height. Floor/ceiling standing waves should dictate the height of your mics. For example, an 8 foot ceiling will produce a 70.6Hz standing wave, and also at whole number multiples: 141.2, 282.4, etc. This can destroy your tom sounds. depending on how high up the toms are mounted, the antinode will move with them and so should your OH mics.

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by recordinghopkins

well, if an 80Hz wave is 14' long, you'll achieve some cancellation at even divisions of that number. If one mic is exactly 14' farther from the kick than the other, you'll have complete cancellation at 80Hz. Obviously that's extreme. ..

Thanks for coming back.
Actually it's tighter than that- 7' then for half cycle.

... But 1/4 wavelength is just over 3ft, easily within the realm of your efforts to center the snare in the overheads and will result in a 25% reduction of 80Hz from the kick. (I think that math is correct... ) With higher frequencies, say, 2k, the wavelength is .5 ft. At 5k, that number is .2 ft. So for me, placement starts with the broad strokes of low frequency, then fine adjustments for high frequency phase. Time arrival differences of high frequencies skew stereo placement but are more easily compensated for with subtle panning of the close mics. If the kick is out of phase in the OH, you can't just flip the polarity of one of them without destroying the imaging of the whole kit. ..

I see where we were diverging then, looking at it from quite different ends of the issues at play –re times and distances.
I'm taking the point that placement range is down to a few inches for questions of position in the stereo field -less than a ms arrival difference, and final tone. You're talking about large O/H height differences for the combined effect of O/H height to close mics.
I would add then that in the low or less than ms range differences (height or otherwise) it is the high frequencies that see the phase tone shifts, and the strikes (spikes) are what cue us both in tone (the highs again) and pan.
From this view the kick or snare get placed as desired (stereo) via the hits, final tones are still total diff and polarity to the close mics.

[recordinghopkins]

Originally Posted by Wayne

Thanks for coming back.
Actually it's tighter than that- 7' then for half cycle.

Ah yes! And some good points you made there.

[Cheebs Goat]

Originally Posted by recordinghopkins

I don't mind the snare being off center a bit in my overheads. It actually IS in real life. The kick is the center of the kit, and the most susceptible to phase problems caused by arrival time differences.

I see a few drummers (myself included) who do not put the kick in the center of the kit. Seems like a bad use of space to me. I'm in the center. I have one leg going off this way and one leg going off that way. Much more comfy for me to put the kick drum at whatever angle my leg is naturally pointing at.

[recordinghopkins]

But you're not at the center. You've rotated the whole kit so you're facing "front", but you're still on the left side of the kit when there is only a hihat on your left and toms and cymbals and kick drum wrapping around to your right.

The kick is technically always angled in an ergonomic kit, the whole set is just oriented so the kick projects toward the audience and the drummer turns slightly counter clockwise. The one exception being when you have two physical kick drums, then they usually form a V shape and the player is actually centered.

[Cheebs Goat]

It's not quite like that... I have an extra floor tom adjacent to the snare taking most of the space where the kick would have been, and then the kit continues to extend father out to the hat side with an extra "dead" snare for verse/chorus tone variety. So looking at the kit as a whole, the kick really is pushed off center to the ride side.

[da burf]

This video changed my perspective on overhead placement.
Smart yet simple. Kick and snare centered. Toms where I'd pan them. Sounds good if you want to rely on your overheads for the stereo-image. Anyway, check it out. (Can't get the youtube-embedding to work, sorry)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZOVZQgXl9k

[recordinghopkins]

weirdo.

I occasionally play a floor tom to the left of the hats where you mention a secondary snare, but I'm having trouble picturing the floor tom placement you mention. Can you post a pic?

I never understood the appeal of a secondary snare to the left when recording in stereo. Sure, it may sound different, but it's gonna be way off in left field in the overheads. Cool for the very occasional production effect I suppose, but in the studio it makes more sense to me to just swap the snare and punch in for the chorus or whatever. Live, it's safe to assume that everything is mono and obviously you can't swap snares mid-tune, so it makes sense.

I'm not intentionally hating on your style, I just don't care for the technique when there are two overhead mics panned LR. YMMV

Originally Posted by da burf

This video changed my perspective on overhead placement.
Smart yet simple. Kick and snare centered. Toms where I'd pan them. Sounds good if you want to rely on your overheads for the stereo-image. Anyway, check it out. (Can't get the youtube-embedding to work, sorry)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZOVZQgXl9k

cool vid. Although GM, with all of his knowledge, tends to be kind of condescending of people that don't do things his way. Maybe I was doing the same above, I don't know. That was not my intent. Anywho, many many great sounding records have been recorded with the OH's in "exactly the wrong f**king place"... and who needs the first octave in a kick mic anyway? 10hz? How is he even hearing that? I'm not trying to make enemies here, I would like to try his suggested method, and I admire his experimental approach. I'd really like to buy the guy lunch sometime and hear him ramble about mp3 compression. He's a really smart guy.

[bambony]

Originally Posted by da burf

This video changed my perspective on overhead placement.
Smart yet simple. Kick and snare centered. Toms where I'd pan them. Sounds good if you want to rely on your overheads for the stereo-image. Anyway, check it out. (Can't get the youtube-embedding to work, sorry)

In studio with George Massenburg - Ep. 1 : miking the drums - YouTube

GM is a top notch technician. For more optimal phase correlation draw an imaginary line between where the stick hits the snare and the beater the kick. This becomes your centre line around which you 'space' the mics. It is diagonal compared to the direction the kick is facing.

I personally use intuition to place spaced pairs and then listen back and shift mics until they are all working well as a whole. Sometimes this can result in spaced pairs in strange places. Using string to measure your distance to both the centre of the snare and Kick yields similar results you will still need to tweak position - don't just trust the string. Regularly flipping phase is crucial to minor repositioning. If you find positions where you have a ton of cancellation when flipped out of phase then you know you are winning.

In smaller rooms this becomes more critical. Bigger rooms are easier to work in in every way and you can rely on the OHs to make up the bulk of your sound, unless of course you are after the close mic sound.

Tony

[da burf]

Originally Posted by recordinghopkins

cool vid. Although GM, with all of his knowledge, tends to be kind of condescending of people that don't do things his way. Maybe I was doing the same above, I don't know. That was not my intent. Anywho, many many great sounding records have been recorded with the OH's in "exactly the wrong f**king place"...

I actually like his sarcastic tone, I see a lot of humour in there, but YMMV.
The thing that resonates with me is to listen instead of placing mics where they look good or because 'everyone' puts them there. Low end from the overheads instead of rolling them off? First time I heard that, maybe it's me.
I tried the overhead positining he advocates and it simply works as advertised There's a couple of other nice vids from the same session (hearing him dissing Headphones and gobo's is nice aswell) Sorry for the OT ramble.

[recordinghopkins]

He's actually really funny. I watched a video in the video vault of him at a conference of some kind, and he said "Recording bluegrass with a coral electric sitar really pisses nashville off, and that's important to me!"

Also, there are some other videos in his "In the studio" series that show for a second or two the placement he described. He's basically rotating the whole OH array clockwise so the kick AND snare are straight up the center. It looks like he used a KM184 or similar to close mic the hats, I imagine for pushing it left in the mix, since the adjusted OH placement puts it nearly center with the snare and kick. It looks like it's also picking up an awful lot of the rest of the kit though, almost like he's aimed it at the snare. Interesting.

[recordinghopkins]

after sleeping on it, I feel bad for being critical of GM. You cats know how every engineer thinks they can do it better? You go to a show, and think, "If the engineer would just pull a little 250hz out of that vocal it would sound pretty good" or "I could walk over there and fix that mix in two minutes" or other stuff along those lines. We listen to other people's mixes and the subjective aspect that gives each of our work it's own creative signature doesn't always jive with our own preferences.

George has contributed to our craft in a big way from a lifetime of exploration and innovation, and is completely within reason to question the way others work, just as each of us do in our quest to develop and discover our own skills and preferences. That's how new ideas are formed, how advances are made, and it ultimately furthers the science and art of recording music. It's also why I love this forum so much. Peer review is an important part of the development of our skill set, and it's engineers like GM that challenge my own ideas and inspire me to try new things.

[ARIEL]

Hey Recording Hopkins . I haven't heard a ton of Georges work but from what I heard it sounded great . I think the issue some of may of had with his talk on drum mic technique from what I remember him saying was the overhead placement . He seemed to be harshly critical of those whom spot the cymbals instead of the kit . The problem is in hard rock or metal with a wall of gtrs you do that and you may come up with cymbal dropages = certain cymbals may not be picked up as well . This will lead to dead spots . I use the OH to focus only on the cymbals to get that correct . Cymbal work in metal is HUGE ! His technique would not work as well . He also made the metalica reference as being "messed up"

[Nathan Redmond]

One of my favorite vids talking about drum mic'ing. Not a vid about drum mic'ing per se, but still cool hearing how they did the drums for the song.

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