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ive been listening to a few albums (deftones, mmw) and notice that they seperate the toms, mounted tom far left and floor tom far right in the stereo image. i was just wondering, should i be trying to capture ONLY cymbals in my overhead mics if i want to do that in a mix? ive read many times that capturing the whole set is what is usually wanted, but if i want the far left and right seperation, how can i achieve that without Micing just cymbals and toms individualy?

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Guest Sun, 05/29/2005 - 04:32

imloggedin wrote: can i achieve that without micing just cymbals and toms individualy?

No. But like you said. All you need to do is place 1 mic on each tom, and put up 2 mic's up for the cymbal's (L&R).
When you mixdown just pan the toms where you want them.
You can do like the Deftones did, or you could pan the toms as the song progresses, where the toms end up out front at certain parts of the song. And back where you would expect them at the other parts.
So break out those mic's 8)

anonymous Sun, 05/29/2005 - 10:08

imloggedin wrote: ive been listening to a few albums (deftones, mmw) and notice that they seperate the toms, mounted tom far left and floor tom far right in the stereo image. i was just wondering, should i be trying to capture ONLY cymbals in my overhead mics if i want to do that in a mix? ive read many times that capturing the whole set is what is usually wanted, but if i want the far left and right seperation, how can i achieve that without micing just cymbals and toms individualy?

If you want it to sound like deftones, etc you will need separate tom mics - compressed, gated, and eq'd to sound huge. If you want to get the imaging somewhat closer to the crazy panning sound, you could try putting your overheads in a closer spaced pair (like 15" apart?) and at right angles to each other.. then move that setup around so that the toms are further apart. Problem with that is, your snare will sound off to one side.. so you better have a snare mic trying to correct that.

Or hey, move one tom the left of your snare.. haha.

Mike

anonymous Mon, 05/30/2005 - 15:03

compressing overheads

I have really crappy overhead mics, which may have a lot to do with this. Because of this, the drums often sound too "slappy".. I compress the overheads with a short attack and medium release, which seems to do the trick for cutting down on some of the drum attack in the overheads. It also can bring out a bit more of the room sound.. since I have a limited number of condensers and don't always use room mics, this is often desireable to me.

If I had some better mics for overheads I might not do this as much. I'd love to grab a pair of beyer m160's but keep dropping money on guitar pedals.. so until then, I'm stuck with doing the squash on my chinese condensers.

I sometimes use the 4047 as a mono overhead (and don't always compress it.. ie. Candy Apple (mp3 in my signature link)). The sound certainly isn't for everything though.. the treble is present, but kind of slow and washy. Not particularly detailed.

Why DON'T you compress overheads? :)

Mike

anonymous Fri, 06/10/2005 - 07:02

imloggedin wrote: did you record your whole cd yourself mike? i like your sound.

Yes, but I got it professionally mastered at [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.joaocarv…"]Joao Carvalho Mastering[/]="http://www.joaocarv…"]Joao Carvalho Mastering[/]. That made a big difference. I finally managed to amass enough gear and skills that I'm happy enough with the sounds that I would release it.. I'm sure I'll think its shit in a few years though :) Hopefully not. Glad you like it.

anonymous Fri, 06/10/2005 - 09:15

Hey Mike,

Sounds very good.. your voice reminds me a little bit of the Counting Crows guy (in a few parts) - but fortunately the music doesn't! (I find a lot of the Crows stuff sounds the same..).

The drums have a nice balance to them (don't know how many recordings I've heard where the kick is lost in the mix).
- What kind of drum kit?
- What kind of drumheads (batter & reso)?
- How many drum mics?
- Were the drums in a booth or did you record the whole band live off the floor?
- Cool!

anonymous Fri, 06/10/2005 - 17:58

Rimshot wrote: Hey Mike,

Sounds very good.. your voice reminds me a little bit of the Counting Crows guy (in a few parts) - but fortunately the music doesn't! (I find a lot of the Crows stuff sounds the same..).

The drums have a nice balance to them (don't know how many recordings I've heard where the kick is lost in the mix).
- What kind of drum kit?
- What kind of drumheads (batter & reso)?
- How many drum mics?
- Were the drums in a booth or did you record the whole band live off the floor?
- Cool!

Glad you like it! This should give you a very good idea: SPL 2384
SPL 2384
SPL 2384

70s slingerland shells - 14x7,16x16,22x16
new hardware - i put them together over a few months of waiting for parts
60's rogers powertone 14x5 snare w/ Puresound snares
heads
rack and floor - aquarian satin finish top/classic clear reso
kick - aquarian superkick 1 batter/remo ambassador coated (w/4" off center hole) reso
snare - remo fiberskyn batter/aquarian classic clear snare side

mics
snare - revox 3500 (basically a revox 201 with more high end) top/shure sm91 bottom (on floor,sometimes)
kick - beyer m99 or at4047 outside, sm91 inside (sometimes)
rack - beyer 201 or beyer m88 or apex 420
floor - beyer m88 or beyer m99 or apex 420
overheads - at4047 or apex 420 pr.
room - beyer 201 or at4047 (sometimes)
ride cymbal - at4047 (on "not blinking", high passed heavily)

I recorded the drums with no accompaniment before I tracked the rest. No click except on "Candy Apple". I used manual stick clicks to time the verses on "autumn" then muted them on mixdown.

Check out the pages, they should tell you even more than that! :)

-Mike

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