first post.. drum mic question

[lionaudio]

this is my first post on here, so hello to my fellow engineers.. i'm entirely self-taught in the engineering dept. and was wondering what advice any of you can give on reducing bleed on close mic'd drums.. i have a problem at times especially with toms in having too much cymbal bleed, and also having too much high hat in my snare mic.. my general set up is either an sm57 or an audix f10 on the snare (top side) and audix f10's on the tom-toms with an f12 on the floor tom. any suggestions on getting a cleaner, more isolated sound from each mic?

[drumsound]

There are many thing you can try and manay variables that will effect the effectiveness.

Can the cymbals be raised some? Or lighter cymbals used? Or player lighter (often the best method)?

You should be aware of mic pick-up pattern and off axis response. Just because a mic is a cardioid pattern doesn't mean that is picks up NO sound from the back, but it will pick up much less, but maybe what it does gather is not a pleasant sound. Then you should move the mic around until the off axis information sounds the most pleasing. Changing the mics relationship to the source in terms of angle of capsule to the head can help. If you get the mic closer and maybe picking up more lows due to proximity effect, you can turn the mic preamp down and thus less of the off axis information will bleed in. If the tone of the source is good you can keep the same angle/relationship but at a different point on the drum that puts the mic further away from the cymbal. You can also see if you can EQ out any of the things you don't like without screwing up the things you do.

In mixing you can rider the faders, try gates and expanders, or even de-esser if cymbal bleed is the issue.

[markmeat]

Welcome to the board, Lion Audio...

[kronosonic]

mute the tom mics when the toms are not played
eliminate the tom mics altogether

Personally, I go about drums like this: the overheads are the sound of the kit and any other mics are used for augmentation or effect.

I never use more than 4 mics: two overheads, one 57 on the snare, and one mic out in front of the kick. With this less is more approach you (or at least I) get the right kind of bleed ( a sense of air and space ) and the phase distortions are working for you rather than against you.

Just my two cents worth

[akg414]

Welcome Lion Audio...

The first thing you HAVE to do is except that there will always be some bleed. There are some cool things to try to minimize this. These being mic-positioning & pick-up pattern usage.

For example, here is a clip of my band's current method of miking drums:

(A little dry/raw still...)
http://www.bradjacob.com/secretsystem/m ... better.mp3


This method started out using an AKG414 for the "top" overhead. It is positioned right over the side of the snare's (opposite the hats) and 41 inches from the center of the snare to the capsule. Then, we place a mic on teh drummer's right side about 6 inches above the flr tom and looking right across the snare and at the hi-hats. Again, 41 inches from the snare.

This way of doing the overheads provides EXTREMELY WELL balance to the kit. It sounds SO real! Especially the snare, hats & ride. They are balanced really well.

Then each tom was miked as well as the kick and snare (these are the "sweeteners"). The snare was aimed at the middle of the shell - and not the skin. This gives you a lot of CRACK without a lot of "bloom".

So, we needed some more cymbals when the music joined in, so what we did (and here's the "isolation" part of my response) was we boomed in a mic right between the two front crash cymbals and put it into the fig-8 pattern. This captured both cymbals and rejected everything below (kick, etc) and on top (ceiling reflections).

I know a lot of people use gates a lot on things like toms, but I feel that those mics add to the snare & kit sound. The kit should be treated as a whole instrument. Sweeteners are there to add specialized EQ to the different drums.

But remember that bleed is part of the game. Experiment, experiment, experiment!!!

[Rodgre]

When I was first getting my feet wet with recording, I was really concerned with bleeding between individual drum mics. The more I started to develop my own techniques, the less I worried about bleed because I realized that the right choices of mic, positioning, and most importantly, phase polarity, I could RELY on the bleed to help gel the whole kit together.

It was sort of one of those "NOW I get it!" moments that took a while to happen. I basically went from being freaked out about it one day to completely rethinking my approach the next.

I still automate tom tracks sometimes, though that often doesn't work like it should because of the bleed (cymbals all of a sudden being loud when the tom is hit, and then disappearing when I fade the tom out) but often, the toms have the right blend of cymbal, so the whole kit sounds right to me.

I also try to get the sound of the whole kit in the overheads plus a mono mic in front of the kit. With those three tracks, the drum kit sounds blended and even. Then I can blend in the close mics to beef up the kick, snare, etc.

Sometimes I rely on samples if I get to mix time and the toms are too washed out, but that's a last resort.

I admit that this is like me saying "if you do what I do, it won't be an issue" but you're not me and I'm not recording what you're recording so it's not a fair thing to say. You can minimize bleed with positioning the mics, raising the cymbals, deadening the space around the drums so you don't have as much bright reflections (I learned to do that when I recorded a loud hi-hat player and the hats were loud in EVERY track because the room was so bright and reflective). Gates and volume automation can help as well, though that's something you need to really tweak to sound right.

Roger

[Velcrocore]

The figure 8 pattern is a god send some times. When the drummer has his hi-hat close to the snare, you can put a figure 8 mic right next to the hi-hat, aimed down at the snare. There's way less hat bleed that way.

Gates on toms is a necessary evil for everyone at some point too.

[lionaudio]

Welcome to the board, Lion Audio...

howdy mark!! good to see ya on here..

[lionaudio]

Welcome Lion Audio...

The first thing you HAVE to do is except that there will always be some bleed. There are some cool things to try to minimize this. These being mic-positioning & pick-up pattern usage.

For example, here is a clip of my band's current method of miking drums:

(A little dry/raw still...)
http://www.bradjacob.com/secretsystem/m ... better.mp3


This method started out using an AKG414 for the "top" overhead. It is positioned right over the side of the snare's (opposite the hats) and 41 inches from the center of the snare to the capsule. Then, we place a mic on teh drummer's right side about 6 inches above the flr tom and looking right across the snare and at the hi-hats. Again, 41 inches from the snare.

This way of doing the overheads provides EXTREMELY WELL balance to the kit. It sounds SO real! Especially the snare, hats & ride. They are balanced really well.

Then each tom was miked as well as the kick and snare (these are the "sweeteners"). The snare was aimed at the middle of the shell - and not the skin. This gives you a lot of CRACK without a lot of "bloom".

So, we needed some more cymbals when the music joined in, so what we did (and here's the "isolation" part of my response) was we boomed in a mic right between the two front crash cymbals and put it into the fig-8 pattern. This captured both cymbals and rejected everything below (kick, etc) and on top (ceiling reflections).

I know a lot of people use gates a lot on things like toms, but I feel that those mics add to the snare & kit sound. The kit should be treated as a whole instrument. Sweeteners are there to add specialized EQ to the different drums.

But remember that bleed is part of the game. Experiment, experiment, experiment!!!

i definitely agree with the "no gates" method.. my problem has always been that once i have the toms up in the mix, the cymbals are actually too loud overall and when i try to eq them out of the toms i loose alot of attack so my toms end up lost in the mix.. i record alot of aggressive music, so there are loud distorted guitars to compete with.. meaning the attack is what lets the listener know the toms are there.. i'll definitely experiment with this technique.. sounds like it will be fun. thanks!

[mwikkid]

Try switching to hypercardioid mics.
Try reassessing why you're concerned about bleed, and why you're close miking the kit. Would you close mic each string on a guitar and try to eliminate the bleed between them?

[Johnny B]

i definitely agree with the "no gates" method.. my problem has always been that once i have the toms up in the mix, the cymbals are actually too loud overall and when i try to eq them out of the toms i loose alot of attack so my toms end up lost in the mix.. i record alot of aggressive music, so there are loud distorted guitars to compete with.. meaning the attack is what lets the listener know the toms are there.. i'll definitely experiment with this technique.. sounds like it will be fun. thanks!

Also, you can try miking the bottoms of the toms. That should minimize the cymbal bleed. You may need to flip the polarity of those mics, though, to keep them in phase with the overheads. This will depend on exactly where the overheads are.

[Brett Siler]

Welcome to the board, Lion Audio...

howdy mark!! good to see ya on here..

Uh Oh

We are taking over....

[8th_note]

A few things I do to deal with this issue;

I've settled on Audio-Technica Pro37 mics for toms because they reject bleed well and they are stubby which allows for greater flexibility in placement. A long dynamic gets in the way of the cymbals too often if you point it straight up and down.

EQ the tom tracks to reduce the cymbal sound and maybe a little boost of the main frequency you're after on each tom.

Automate the tom tracks. I do this more for the boominess you get from sympathetic ringing from the kick. I've never been successful in using gates for drums.

[markmeat]

Totally... the Ohio River Basin is the next big scene (in the future it will be referred to as O.R.B., and will be bigger than whatever happened in Seatle 14 years ago)

[lionaudio]

Totally... the Ohio River Basin is the next big scene (in the future it will be referred to as O.R.B., and will be bigger than whatever happened in Seatle 14 years ago)

yup.. we should all just pool our money and build one huge mega studio for recording all 5 bands that exist in the O.R.B. we'll be thousandaires!!