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anonymous 20 February 2004

Hi All. I'm new to the forum. I'd like to get your opinions on Micing techniques for drum overheads. Right now I'm in a good sounding, basstrapped room with C1000's as spaced overheads. I get a lot of mid range trash and not a lot of silky high end. The ceiling is only 8 ft (problem #1) but it is quite dead with 50% covered in OC703.
Should I be trying some other mics ?
Taking into consideration all rooms and setups are different, what freqs are people generally cutting for overheads ?

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jdier Fri, 02/20/2004 - 12:50

I have a similarly treated room with 7'8" ceilings. I am using Oktava 012 mics and getting nice results
(http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/danwhitakercountrybandmusic.htm)

I put one mic directly above the snare, 2 stick lengths away from the center of the snare, pointing right down at the center of the snare and the other one just over the drummers right shoulder (also exactly 2 stick lengths from center of snare) but this one pointing at where the beater hits the kick drum. I then use a measuring tape to make sure that both mics are the same distance from the kick.

It sounds strange and the drummer may think you are a wacko, but the results are pretty good. If you do it right you can get away with those two mics and a single kick mic. The recordings I linked to are driven by the overheads and have two mics on kick and two on snare. Everything is right up the middle accept for the overheads which are panned hard left/right.

I have a touch of compression on the overheads and one of the kicks, and some big reverb on the snare bottom, but that is it. No EQ on any of the mics.

Hope this helps.

Jim

Barkingdogstudios Sat, 02/21/2004 - 05:58

Smog,

I also used a pair of C1000s mics for overheads and had the exact same problem. I ended up putting them back in their box and buying a matched pair of AKG C451b's. Much better.

Failing that, try angling the mics so that they're not pointing right at the cymbals. I had slightly better results with the C1000s by placing the mic stands about five feet apart in front of the drum kit, as high as the ceiling would allow and pointed at the drummer's shoulders. The front end of each mic was roughly even with the front of the kick drum. Of course, it'll depend on how your drummer sets up his kit.

On second thought, the best results I got were by placing the mics in an XY pattern roughly in the "centre" of the kit. Again, as high as possible and pointing at roughly a 45 degree angle to the floor and 90 degrees to each other.

Keep in mind that I use my overheads primarily to capture cymbals. I use other mics to pick up other stuff.

If you can afford it, get better mics. I'm glad I did.

Oh, and I'm in St.Catharines.

Midlandmorgan Sat, 02/21/2004 - 05:59

Small Condensor...also known as SDC, D for diaphragm...

I use a variation of the 3 mic setup touted by Fletcher at "another site"...but give 24" inches each OH from snare center, slightly off axis, and a pair of ADK A51 Series III mics...SM7, RE20, or SM57 mic and a 10" speaker on the kick...for jazz brush stuff, I'll add an AT4041 if the drummer has a really light touch...

Compression (a bit) to avoid spikes, and a touch of EQ on the OHs to roll off some of the toms, and there ya go...note this is not a panacea for all drummers or music genre, but its been a good reference point for a long time.

anonymous Sat, 02/21/2004 - 17:01

Guys, awsome responses. Thank you so much. I'm of the opinion it's the engineer, not the equipment but in this case I've never particularly liked the 1000's. I have an AT3031 for hats I like. I wonder if I'd be better off trying a pair of those ?

R.O in St Catharine's - Is that you Rob ? You used to do sound at Castle Rock in Niagara Falls ?
The OC703 was through a small company here in TO. 75 cents a square foot. If you want the address and number, email me at smog@rogers.com

Davdog - Thanks for the clarification (SC)

Barkingdogstudios Sun, 02/22/2004 - 06:43

smog,

Oh, and I also have an AT3031 which I had originally bought for hats but I don't really use it for much anymore. I don't know that it would be much better than the C1000s. I'm actually getting too much hat in my recordings so I don't mic them separately anymore. It may also have to do with the fact that I'm using Paiste 2002 Sound-Edge hi-hat cymbals. Great for live, not so great for recording. Nice for cutting through but that's not really necessary for recording. I've been looking around pawn shops for some cruddy old regular medium hats that won't sound so bright. I've seen some "recording" hi-hats by Zyldjian but they look and sound like toys.

I'll email you about the insulation. THanks.

anonymous Sun, 02/22/2004 - 10:15

I don't ever post, I would but when I signed up a long time ago I couldn't get the first 15 names I tried :)

Anyways... The C1000S's are very usable overhead mics. They do lack a bit of top end, and they are a bit slow, but matched with a 1073 (or clone) and some slower compression and you can get some very cool splashy cymbals and thick sounding kit.

I generally use the RecorderMan method for overheads lately, with the C1000S's... I don't think the C1000S's are capable of sounding pristine... or even clean. But they are capable of getting really cool sounds!

Before you sell them try them with a nice colored pre, and try them on hi-hat and guitar cabs. The person who reviewed the C1000S's in Tape Op said they were the best on guitar cab's so I tried for myself... Better than a 57 in many, many, many cases.

anonymous Tue, 02/24/2004 - 08:03

Originally posted by TheChronic:
I don't think the C1000S's are capable of sounding pristine... or even clean. But they are capable of getting really cool sounds!

Before you sell them try them with a nice colored pre, and try them on hi-hat and guitar cabs.

I'll second this. I'm in the middle of a project that used C1000s into a Great River MP-1NV for distorted guitar. Couldn't be happier with the sound so far.

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