Panning: Glyn Johns + 2 close miced toms

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JES
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Panning: Glyn Johns + 2 close miced toms

Post by JES » Sat Apr 01, 2017 5:11 pm

Greetings. I've got some tracks recorded with the "Glyn Johns" setup for overheads but also close mics on the toms (yes, I know, the technique was developed to conserve tracks/mics but that's just how the guy recorded it). I'm doing 10:00 and 4:00 on the overheads and I've been panning the close mics by ear. But is there a standard practice to preserve phase relationships and produce a clear stereo image? They're lower down in the mix but they do add nice punch on fills.

Thanks!

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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sun Apr 02, 2017 6:35 am

Pan them by ear but watch out for that floor tom mic. I never have luck getting it to work with a Glynn Johns set. It's too close to the side mic and always creates a phase-y mess.

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Post by JES » Sun Apr 02, 2017 6:59 am

Yeah, I have been having that problem even with the gate! Thanks. Will just go by ear then.

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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sun Apr 02, 2017 7:03 am

Sometimes keeping the close rack mic and dumping the FT is the best move. The Rack is always the weaker tom in a GJ setup.

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Post by Nick Sevilla » Sun Apr 02, 2017 7:12 am

Hi,

The only "standard", is:

"if it sounds good, it is good" - Duke Ellington.

So, if one of the mics makes the whole sound like crap, mute it.

If two microphones are doing nasty phase issues, and you only really need one of them to make the good sound, then mute the other one.

There are no rules really, other than to make sure it sounds good.
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Post by Drone » Mon Apr 03, 2017 5:50 am

I did close mic'ing and GJ for a while and ended up just muting the tom mics and falling back on the GJ it sounds so much better, in my normal situation. The other week I had another drummer in and he was so cymbal heavy, I was like, damn, needs to be close mic'd, so I guess it's always situation dependent.

I have a friend who swears the key to GJ is using a dynamic on the floor tom mic.
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Post by JES » Mon Apr 03, 2017 6:31 am

Thanks everyone. I've been getting creative. Mostly overheads, but the close mics with no overheads (except for a distant room mic) have also been useful for a section where the drummer is playing with mallets. Speaking of which -- mallets on toms are really hard to get clear, punchy and authoritative in a full band mix!

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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Mon Apr 03, 2017 7:14 am

Drone wrote:.

I have a friend who swears the key to GJ is using a dynamic on the floor tom mic.
My best results have been with a pair of AKG D224s. It's totally drummer and room dependant though. Sometimes it just doesn't work.

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Post by Gregg Juke » Mon Apr 03, 2017 9:08 am

>>>>"if it sounds good, it is good" - Duke Ellington.<<<<

I thought that was Joe Meek(?).

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Post by vvv » Mon Apr 03, 2017 9:34 am

I've seen it attributed to both, but I reckon more often to Duke E.

I have my own variation, y'know.

"If it sounds like shite, it's mine."
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Post by Gregg Juke » Mon Apr 03, 2017 11:58 am

Kinda like "Dancing about Architecture."

Mine is "Painting about Parenting."

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Nick Sevilla
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Post by Nick Sevilla » Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:22 pm

Gregg Juke wrote:>>>>"if it sounds good, it is good" - Duke Ellington.<<<<

I thought that was Joe Meek(?).

GJ
Duke started that nonsense long before Meek was probably even around LOL.

Some attribute it to Steve Albini, so at least we're a few decades before that mistake.
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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Post by losthighway » Tue Apr 04, 2017 3:10 pm

A more laborious approach would be to listen to the floor tom on just the overhead and consider if anything's missing. It could be just a little lo-mid, or possibly smack/attack/stick missing. In either case you could try doing some strong cutting, low and or high pass filters on the close tom mic, leaving mainly the missing frequency you're looking for and only putting in as much level from that close mic as you need.

Also you could try scooting the floor tom track/visually aligning it to see if it clears up your image/phase stuff.

ALL of this could easily be tail chasing, but I think it's worth the 15 minutes of muting, un-muting, scrunching up your nose.

One thing I almost always do with any tom track that has any issues is automate it so that it's mostly gone outside of the tom hits.

The other, other thing, is sometimes you can get away with putting a little bump to boost a frequency on the overhead to get what you want out of a drum, without changing the cymbal sound too drastically, at least if it's not boosting really high mids, or treble. This seems inevitable in a lot of minimal mic'ing situations. I figure those Dap Tone guys have to do it sometimes

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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Wed Apr 05, 2017 4:35 am

JES wrote:mallets on toms are really hard to get clear, punchy and authoritative in a full band mix!
Tell me about it! The kit should probably be tuned for mallets. I don't know if that'd help but I fight it every time so I figure it's likely the source. Room mics make a big difference. Aggressive parallel compression at mix time also helps. Sometime I even run a distortion pedal in parallel. It make everything sit better.

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