Just thinking about experimenting here, and I'm sure someone has done this before... I've seen live drum setups that use 2 pairs of LDC mics (Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater for example) but I don't know if they're as concerned with phase as we are around here...
I'm thinking of using a left-center-right setup with my overhead mics. My drummer has a fairly large kit, and getting an even sound with 2 mics has been problematic- a coincident pair in the middle loses the stuff on the outside, and a spaced pair set too wide has the opposite problem (although I think I've found a decent spot with a spaced pair, I'm always looking to improve). How many of you guys have tried doing this? I've been thinking about it, but haven't had a chance to try it out yet. A couple things have come up in my mind...
1) if I keep them all nearly the same distance from the snare drum, there shouldn't be too many phase problems. If I have them too close to the cymbals, there might be problems there, so I'd think I'd need to keep them up pretty high.
2) if I set them up so that the left and right mics have a good image of the kit on their own, I can just drop the center channel if it causes more harm than good.
Leaving hardware choice aside for the sake of this discussion, is there anything I should strive for or avoid?
Thanks in advance!
Kase
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Yeah, one thing to try and do is get all three mics the same dis
Yeah, one thing to try and do is get all three mics the same distance from both the kick and the snare (kick beater contact point, center of snare head).
That is, if you want the kick and snare centered in the image, as most folks do.