Hypercardioid pattern: Too tight for single overhead?

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2002 1:06 pm

Your thoughts requested, especially impressions from any who've tried this. What I'm contemplating is using my new Beyer M260 with Sank mod as a single drum overhead in Fletcher's three-mic technique. I'm a week out from this session, and wondering if its hypercardioid pickup will present too tight an image. If not, such a pattern may be desirable for the fact that there will be guitar amps playing (and tracking) in the same live room. My objective: no overdubs, or vocal-only overdubs.
TIA
-kent
-kent

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2002 12:20 am

Sorry I didn't get to post in time. How did the session go? Did you end up using that beyer as OH?

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2002 1:51 pm

Thanks for asking Ang. Not to whine but there was no response to this post until your own. So I chickened out and used an omni. I was scared the Beyer M260 would not image well with that tight a pattern as the only OH. Might have worked with two OH's, or if it were a figure 8 like most ribbons. Plus I was scared for the safety of my only ribbon mic, good drummer or not.

The session went well. Good drummer, good kit, good room. Omni a couple feet over the drummer's shoulder, another peeking over the floor tom and a condenser in front of the kick. Nice natural mono reproduction of the sound in the room which was good, and just what I was looking for.

The real beauty of it is there's so little to do to it in the mix. No 'verb needed. HPF out the subsonics and that's about it. Maybe a little low boost on the FOK mic.
-kent

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2002 3:33 am

Ok... well, if you get a chance to do it again... I was gonna suggest getting the mic up fairly high over the kit to get more of it in the pickup pattern. But YMWV depending on the room and the kit.

Don't fear anything. Smile

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2002 10:59 am

Thanks Ang! Sounds like good advice. I bet it will sound awesome. I'm thinking a ribbon would smooth out harsh cymbals going to my DAW. The omni sounded pretty good in this case.
-kent

Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2002 12:33 pm

Thanks for the info, ld! Yeah, we're all pretty thrilled with the drum sounds from that session using the omni for OH. I'll try the mod'ed M260 in that app one of these days though.
-kent

Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2002 12:51 pm

Geez, kent.

Why didn't you just call me? You coulda borrowed my 260DX for a stereo pair.

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