DRUMMER CAFE

hey all,

a friend of mine and i wanna do quick and dirty demo's, and have only 2 mics to spare in our rather filled little Mackie 1202VLZ.

so, i thought why not just go with overheads.  but is there an exact science to this?  anything with phasing i should be aware of?  how do i know how far to set the mics from one other?  

should i just put them together right above me in an X/Y pattern with the capsules intersecting one another?  or should i just place one aiming straight down on one side of the kit, with the other one opposite it?

any pointers?

exactly.. there you go. lock the thread now please (jes' kiddin')

I love it when the entire drum sound comes from the overheads.  
A friend of mine is a good engineer and he recorded me playing on a couple of projects. When he was mixing he suddenly muted a few tracks and the drums sounded amazing. I said "what's that?" and he said it was just the two overheads (Neumann KM84's). The only thing that was missing was a bit of bass drum ooomph. So I'd always make sure to have the bd miced in some way.

dr tama, man you are on the right track live. that's when i always feel the most confident playing - when i can bring a condensor OH and just use 2 mics for the drums. i feel like my playing is actually coming through the mix. good dollop of limiting on the OH is a nice touch too.

a few times i brought my 2 mics (B/D & OH) and my old symetrix 202 dual mic pre and took the mixed mono out into an old ashley compressor then an altec passive EQ. plugged into a di and that was my drum sound. people always commented favourably on the sound out front mostly saying how much clearer the drums sounded than they usually hear. if i was on tour with the main guy i play for that's what i would do every night.

XY over the centre is a good safe place to start and tends to capture more drums than over the sides which usually accentuates cymbals more. XY also avoids an exaggerated left/right image. for that technique i tend to come slightly angled in from the right (as looking from the throne) so the ride tom and floor tom are evenly balanced left and right with the snare (and 2nd tom if you have one) in the middle. if you go straight over from the front or back the snare is to one side which doesn't sound right in the mix (to me).

spaced omnis can sound really sweet on either side of the kit but often works best in a sweet sounding room in combination with close mics.

as for height, it's a matter of how high the cymbals are, and the reach of the drumsticks. if i am only using overheads i try to stay as low as possible without being too low to impede playing. generally this helps the toms and snare come out and puts the side cymbals more to the outside of the stereo image.
if i am using close mics and overheads i move them up and down until i find the sweet spot for being in phase with the close mics.

then there is the led zep technique which is to have one sort of in between the rack tom and snare and another over by the floor tom(s). this can work great too, but be careful of phasing issues where the tone might be cancelling out.

Yeah, XY will keep you from having to deal with phase traps which are painfully easy to fall into with 'em apart.    Plus, like Marc said, good solid "kit" sound, no exagerated stereo wierdness.

Is this a great place or what?

One of a number of stereo mic'ing techniques.  

XY - the mic elements are in as much the same place as possible, typically right over top of one another, and angled toward each other (typically 90 degrees) so the tails of the mics are apart.   With the capsules right there together, the sound hits 'em the same time, which eliminates phase issues.

ORTF - the heads of the mics about 6" apart and angled away from each other about 110 degrees.  So the tails are closer than the heads. Simulates human ear placement.

MS - uses a directional mic and a figure 8 on top of one another.  So the 8 gets the sides, and the directional gets the front.

2 mic capsules adjacent at 90 degrees. like a widened V.