drum phase confusion

[@?,*???&?]

i do the virtual version of what garges said, i'll listen to playback and flip phase on the computer to figure out what's what, and then just flip the phase on the appropriate preamps.

i actually spent most of yesterday recording drums and i noticed a couple things about phase....the main thing was that for the life of me, i couldn't get the kick and snare to both be in phase with the overhead and the front-of-kit mic. WTF? i feel like i've done that a million times and it's never been an issue, but no matter what i did yesterday, if the kick was in phase with the OH and the FOK, then the snare would be out and vice versa.

things like that happen to you guys and if so whaddya do? i tried different mics in different spots, i moved the drums in the room too, nothing seemed to work. in the end i just abandoned the fok mic...

the other thing i noticed was with the room mics...i pretty much put these in the same spot almost always, and i know it's a spot where they'll be in phase with the close mics. ok great. but yesterday, whilst trying to figure out the mystery of the oh/fok dilemma, i flipped the room mics and Holy Mother the subs just went crazy. it was pretty interesting. it was like everything dropped an octave, all the 80Hz disappeared, but 40Hz went nuts. switching back and forth it was pretty clear that the regular way was "correct" but it made me think about the conventional wisdom that "the setting that produces the most low end is correct."

speaking of that, do you guys ever feel like certain things just sound better even if they're technically out of phase? like you bring in a certain mic on a kit and with it in phase it sounds kinda wooly and rumbly, you flip the phase and you get a big cancellation at like 250 or 315 and all of a sudden it sounds like a Big Professional Drumkit On A Legitimate Record. happens to me occasionally.

Divide your room into thirds length-wise. If the kit is at the far end of the room, then listen at the first third and then listen at the second third. Holy crap. Always a huge difference. Better with a long rectangular shaped room.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

that's actually pretty much what i've got. the room's maybe 22 across by 36 long. drums are maybe 10 feet out from the back wall. on a further listen to the stuff i recorded on saturday, the fok mic was actually fine. the phase between that and the overheads looked weird but it didn't sound all messed up like i first thought. one of the downfalls to engineering yourself...judging sounds right after doing a take. anyhow, here's another dumb question for everyone: do snare drums (or drums in general) not like the cold? none of my snares seem particularly happy lately, they've all been something of a pain to tune and they all seem to be sounding, for want of a better word, cold.

[RefD]

i'm guessing drum heads, wood shells or not, are at least as temperature sensitive as guitar strings.

[kdarr]

Maintain mono compatibility with your stereo pairs. Make sure you don't have comb-filtering or phase cancellation of important (subjective) frequencies.

Maintain a believable center of your 'phantom image'. Shifting phase slightly (moving the mic while tracking or delay nudge while mixing) on one mic or the other on your overheads will likely make your instruments creep to the left or the right depending on which frequencies are affected. Find your proper center. If you're nudging, don't nudge further than 1ms. Usually very small increments can make a world of difference.

In mono keep your low-end strong and tight and keep your high-end clear.

It's pretty simple once you know what you're listening for.

Set up a control room with good imaging that takes care of side reflections so you can 'hear' a clear, unblurred sound too.

Wait... you guys... did he just post something HELPFUL?

Seriously, that is commendable. A welcome change.

[<|>]

[KyleWieder]

the 3:1 rule has more to do wtih stereo micing. 3x the distance apart than they are from the source. but this really only works with spaced pair

[MoreSpaceEcho]

erm...not sure. my default spot for room mics is 6-7 feet in front of the kit on the floor, pointing straight ahead at the kick drum spurs, so like 2 feet apart. if i had them 21 feet apart i think the stereo image might be just a bit unnatural.

[drumsound]

that's actually pretty much what i've got. the room's maybe 22 across by 36 long. drums are maybe 10 feet out from the back wall. on a further listen to the stuff i recorded on saturday, the fok mic was actually fine. the phase between that and the overheads looked weird but it didn't sound all messed up like i first thought. one of the downfalls to engineering yourself...judging sounds right after doing a take. anyhow, here's another dumb question for everyone: do snare drums (or drums in general) not like the cold? none of my snares seem particularly happy lately, they've all been something of a pain to tune and they all seem to be sounding, for want of a better word, cold.

It's not only the how the temperature effects the drums, it's the humidity. AND the humidity and barometric pressure effect the way sound travels. SO not only do you drums sound different, but you ROOM also sounds different.

[losthighway]

I got in the dorky habit of breaking out the tape measure when I use spaced pair for overheads. I measure the distance from the snare to see that they are both equal.

Takes a moment, but I think it helps.

I do the double mic on the top of the snare fairly often. I just align the capsules of a dynamic and a cardioid and tape them together. This gets a nice meaty snare sound.

The problem is, with two mics that close together if I tape them a cm off of alignment (which is easy because the way the capsules are oriented in two different mic designs is of course, different) I start to notice minor comb filtering come into play, and starts thinning the sound out.

[joederschlagzeuger]

"The problem is, with two mics that close together if I tape them a cm off of alignment (which is easy because the way the capsules are oriented in two different mic designs is of course, different) I start to notice minor comb filtering come into play, and starts thinning the sound out."

I heard about a solution to this problem (although I have not done it myself): Line up the two mic capsules as best you can. Now reverse phase on one of them and make some sort of noise and move the mics about until you can hear nothing - if the mics are in phase, they will cancel each other out. Now stick them together.

[losthighway]

Makes a lot of sense. I would expect to hear a tiny remanent of sound, since they're two different types of mic and not a matched pair.

The only question would be how I can do this and then tape the things together. I need three arms. (bonus tip: I tape a marker above the condenser microphone so that it takes a blow if the drummer loses track of his stick, instead of my sdc)