Greetings! We've spent a lot of time discussing drum overhead mic placement, but one of the things Im wondering is how accurate you folks recommend we get with the distances between mics and sources...
For example, I've just replaced my C1000s with large-condensers (huzzah!) but have noticed that when Micing them as a coincident pair, for example, it takes more finesse to get the 2 mic diaphrams close enough to each other...
Or when using a spaced pair, I know it'll help the snare sound a lot to make sure the mics are the same distance from the impact point. but how much tolerance do they have?
Am I swatting at flies here? Is the answer to just "make it sound good"?
Thanks in advance...
Kase
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"to hell with the CD sales- download the MP3s and come to the shows!"
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You are going to have some transient blurring no matter what, bu
You are going to have some transient blurring no matter what, but the difference in distances has to be over a few inches or so in order to substantially change the image... take it as a percentage. If one mic is 1" from the drum and the other is 6" from the drum, well then there's going to be an obvious imaging issue. If one is 50" from the drum and the other is 52" from the drum, you are not going to notice an image difference. My rule of thumb for ambient-field stereo recording is to get the tolerance less than the smallest dimension of the radiating area of the instrument... so for a 14" snare drum, then your tolerance is less than 14" if you're really in the ambient field.
Frankly there's so much else around and within a drum kit to blur the transient detail and screw up the imaging (like other microphones mixed in!) then to get hyper about overhead placement for stereo image is kind of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I vote for putting them where it sounds good. Almost nobody really cares about coherent stereo recordings of a drum kit.
krash wrote: My rule of thumb for ambient-field stereo recordi
krash wrote: My rule of thumb for ambient-field stereo recording is to get the tolerance less than the smallest dimension of the radiating area of the instrument... so for a 14" snare drum, then your tolerance is less than 14" if you're really in the ambient field.
HUH?
so you can move an OH mic, say, a foot and it is insignificant?
I can move it on an axis an inch or two and make a big change.
yes,yes that's right! Just make it sound good!
yes,yes that's right! Just make it sound good!