mono drum overhead vs. miking every piece?

[schnozzle]

For our first attempt at multitrack recording, my band decided to track our songs in our own space using a Tascam 80-8 and then bring the tapes to a friend who's an experienced engineer at a "real" studio for mixing and mastering. We're pleased with the results in general, but I think that the drums (among other things) sound kind of crummy--specifically the toms are more or less lost when the bass, vocals, and guitar come in.

Due to budgetary reasons, ineptness, and because I wanted to keep things as simple as possible, I ended up using a single overhead (Stapes omni) for the whole kit (apart from the kick and snare, they had their own mics), and then ran the signal without EQ through the direct out of our Tascam 520 board into the 80-8. I didn't try to EQ the track myself because I'm still kind of figuring EQ out, we were in a rush, and I figured it would be better to let our engineer friend handle it in his Protools computer.

Now that our record is done, and I'm trying to learn from my mistakes, I wonder whether it would be better to do as our engineer suggests and buy those little individual drum kit mics for every piece, or should I stick to my guns and try to work with the mono Stapes mic instead? Is this an EQ or compression issue? I know that many of my favorite '60's records were done with a mono overhead, but I also know that they were made with much better mics and preamps than I can afford to buy.

Any advice?

[soundguy]

its a mic placement issue. if you have thhe mic in the "right" place, wherever you deem that to be, EQ and Compression has the potential to make it sound cooler and its foolish to look at either of those tools in any other light. If you have the mic pointed at the wrong thing, no amount of EQ or compression is going to change off axis material into an on axis source or vice versa. What the hell is the origin of "vice versa", that should be a home depot item.

If you cant get the sound you want from one mic, add more, but if you are a newbie adding 30 mics is not the solution and will only complicate and overwhelm you. It is not HARD to get a good sound from the setup you have. But you of course need to take more care in placing the mic as well as having the drums tuned and played well. close mic'd drums can work well if you have a shitty drummer where as with three mics, you are just gonna get whats in the room but everyone knows that the first thing step to a good recording is rehearsel, right?

work on your mic placement and just record record record. throwing money at the situation with more mics or more boxes with knobs on them will not change the amount of experience you have and you'll only get better by doing more. Trust me, in the beginning, being limited by the gear that you have is the biggest blessing you can ask for even though in the position you are in it may seem like that ultimate hindrance to your creative process.

Look at it like this, you gotta drive cross country, youve never done it before, you dont have a map. If there were only a few roads, it wouldnt be so bad to figure out, but today if you dont know where you are going its real easy to get lost. Sometimes less options are better.

dave
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[schnozzle]

Dave:

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I agree with you that limited equipment is probably a blessing--like I now wish we'd bought a 4 track rtr rather than an 8, in the sense that it would have forced me to figure out bouncing, EQ, and mixing down a long time ago rather than now.

I'll keep the Stapes and try putting it in different places. I think our biggest problem was that we were in such a rush to get the songs on tape that we didn't really have time to experiment.

[schnozzle]

As for "vice-versa," I tried looking it up in an etymological dictionary. Here it is:

"Latin vice vers : vice, ablative of *vix, position + vers, feminine ablative of versus, past participle of vertere, to turn."

I have to admit that I have no idea what an "ablative" is.

[slamonson]

don't worry about buying more mics! placement is key.
the most important thing over heads is range-- can you get enough range out of one mic to cover toms/cymbals?
move the mic around alot. make sure everything is in tune and upfront--meaning the cymbals aren't overpowering or over played- same for any piece of the kit. its called controlled dynamics and its hard for drummers when they are starting out on a " mid-fi " multitrack session. (i went through this early on in recording with my drummer, cause he was wondering why the drums sounded weak.... we spent more time setting up and getting sounds the next time, and it sounded more upfront and powerful than we were used to).
i know that i've had good luck with a pair of OHs (akgs) and even a cheapo dynamic on the tom that needed the most "help". 3 to 5 mics on the kit can yield a very comprehensive and solid sound if you take your time.

eq and compression are not neccessary or useful unless you have something pleasant to listen to, in other words, they are a last resort- you did the righ thing by not EQing- its usually a bad idea when tracking.

i've recorded several bands (including my own) with a similar setup, using an teac 80-8. the results with drums (and other stuff too) can kick ass, so keep at it. just give yourself enough set-up time and don't feel pressured to hurry. get a trust worthy buddy to help out during tracking, someone who can move a mic stand around and help out with simple stuff-it'll help you focus more on the sound.

[spiral]

Don't stick to placing mics to where you see them on TV. One example: if you have an omni, stick it right inside the kit just above the bass drum, pointing at the snare.

When you are thinking about micing, think about what kind of mic you have. The omni mic will pick up sound in all directions. If you had an ear that could hear in all directions where would you put it? (peanut gallery: step off) You could put it just in front of the drummers face (so you'll hear the kit as s/he hears it.), out in front of the kit to get the sound of the whole kit (one of my faves ... the drums are meant to radiate towards the audience), or even on or near the floor which will give you a great kick sound.

Like dave said, you really can't hurry good mic placement, and as you are finding, you spend more time and energy trying to fix it later than if you got it perfect the first time. Don't worry. Everyone has been there. I'm still there. But you can get closer to perfect when you have a good thought process and methodology behind your decisions.

Lastly don't forget to document in detail the things that you do when you experiment. I still get lazy and think "oh i'll remember that" but i never do. Take photos, mark your takes, have a notebook that references those takes, write down the preamps, mic, placement, what was in the room etc etc. You learn more from the mistakes than the good stuff.

Stick to your mono guns. When you can make a kit sound really good with one or two mics in a mono mix, you know you are getting to be pretty bad-a$$. Working in mono is really limiting in a good way. You have to fit alot of $hit into a very narrow bandwidth.

You should probably have fun too, but i still haven't gotten down the mic technique for that yet.

[marqueemoon]

With a single mic for an overhead you also have to think a lot about, the room, how the kit is set up and how the player digs into it. I have been playing the same cymbal setup for about two years and it's only been in the last week or so that I feel like I'm getting a balanced sound between my two crashes. Same with the toms. I really have to hit them carefully to get the sounds I want out of them.

Sure, throwing a bunch of mics on a kit allows you to fudge a little later, but that's no fun.
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[dgochenour]

hey Schnozzle!

Messing around with mic placement and recording a kit is one of my favorite parts of this art. My wife's kit is set up in our space the same way it has been for months, but I've mic'd it many different ways just looking for that perfect method (that I'm the last one to figure out!)

Use beer or take out food to bribe the drumer to come over on a night you're not working on a specific recording. The presure will be off, so you can experiement freely.

Don
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[penrithmatt]

i agree with what was said above,one other thing you might wanna consoder is the sounds of the other instruments.....you mention that you loose the drums when the other instruments are added.....try and imagine yer song like a house.you have a foundation and various floors after that.how does it all fit together??
if you loose the kick when you add the bass you need to think about what the foundation is going to be.is it the kick,or the bass that is the lowest thing in the song.modify one or the other to make room so you can hear both.if you add low end to the kick,take some out of the bass.......that should help you get some more definition from both...make space.you probably won't need tons of low end in the guitars,so roll that off.how does it all sit now??
think about sounds as part of the arrangement of the song,then you might not even need to use any EQ.

you can record killer drum sounds with one mic,it just depends on what type of music you are doing as to wether it's the right sound for you.i mean,if it's metal you might wanna think about getting some more mics,but......also if you like mono drums you could try panning them slightly to one side,and the bass slightly to the other.....i have a big thing about trying to make records that have a sense of space......
cheers
matthew
www.allairestudios.com
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[miriamaudio]

I couldn't agree more with the advice that's been given. You guys really know your shit.
Two additional points:
Part of getting great drum sounds with one mic is having a good sounding drumkit. this doesn't mean an expensive kit, but something that sounds balanced - basically like you want it to sound in the mix. If the drums are dead sounding and quiet from all the drummer's duct tape, and they use 18" rock crashes, this will not work with one mic. when I started to mic my drumkit in mono, I started tuning my drums a bit higher and ringy, and hitting the cymbals less often and softer. this get is to the second point - I used to work for this amazing engineer, and most of the time we miked the drum kit with two coles 4038 overheads. every time we set it up, he'd say: "you, as the drummer, have to mix your own drums. you are the compressor. you are the eq." adding more mics, in my opinion, grew out of troubleshooting, problem solving, and compensating for various problems. One mic sounds way better to my ears, but you have to work for it. and so does the drummer.
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[schnozzle]

Thanks for the advice, everyone...I guess I'm in the same boat as Don, 'cause my wife is also our drummer. That makes it a little harder to tell her how to play, but a little easier to bribe her with beer.

[hethaerto]

[fuzz1964]

has anyone tried the knee high method? one mic as an overhead, and then two mics set up as a triangle with the kick drum mic, anywhere from 4 to 6 feet back from the kit, and maybe about 8 feet apart from eachother, and about a knee high from the ground....this works great at capturing, not only the stereo spread but, the toms and the lower frequencies of the kit....

[morganellington]

Hey, don't let the fact that you have lotsa tracks keep you from doing the occasional mono drums. I did a song where I ended up using just the floor tom mic for the intro, compressed the crap out of it with nice long release times, and got the sound of the whole kit (albeit squashed and freaky.) Then when the vocals came in it switched to a "regular" multi-mic mix.
Of course, it's easy to use a single mic set up for an effect and much harder to do it as your main, "realistic" drum sound.
Morgan
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[schnozzle]