keep the room mic

[dokushoka]

What are you all trying to get from the room mics?

For me, what I find generally works best, is to simply get some decay from the kick and snare. I don't really want early reflections because most rooms simply don't have that great of early reflections and I can create those better with my reverbs. I do not use omnis because then I am just going to load up on those ERs and, in most rooms, I will get an unfocused kick and snare image. With a tighter pattern, I can aim the room mic like a flashlight at a spot that is a midpoint between the kick and snare so I can get a really great balance of them. Furthermore, this tight, focused pattern allows me to move the ambient mic FURTHER back without getting too much of the room. The result is that I have tons of control over how much decay I get from the kick and the snare in a highly focused image. I vary the distance of the mic largely based on the tempo of the song. Also, I do NOT compress or limit this mic while tracking. The compression is tempo dependent. I am trying to get a really smooth "booooooooooompaaaaaaaaaaaaah" sort of thing happening with the kick and snare instead of the sort of short decay of "boooom paaaaah."

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i'm trying to get the overall sound of the kit, to me they don't really sound like drums until i bring in some of the room mics. i'm trying to get some decay and just some SIZE. i do a lot of Really Loud Guitar Rock and to me the room mics are essential to having drums that can keep up/cut through the wall of distortion. like you i never compress them when tracking, cause i want the option of being to use both the uncompressed and compressed mics in the mix...

[drumsound]

I'm trying to get some splash, and the sense that the drums are in a real space, some spread. Focus comes from the close mics, breath and space come from the room.

I usually mix in a parallel comp for the drum mix, though not all elements of the drum micing scheme get sent to the comp, but that's a whole other subject.

[Cojonesonasteek]

I'm lucky to work out of a studio (5am in Austin) with a fantastic-sounding live room, and I use it for natural ambience on lots of things, but like most folks drums and electric guitar the most. For drums, I like to get a good overall balance of the kit in the room with an R84 about ten feet in front of the kit and 7-8 feet high, pointed down and looking at the top of the kick drum. I don't pan my drums very much (maybe 10:00 to 2:00) so the mono room mic doesn't affect the stereo image that much. I don't compress the room mic while tracking, leaving that to the mixing stage.

For adding ambience to electric guitar, I prefer an omni (like a KM83 or multipattern LCD) aimed at the upper far wall away from the speaker cabinet. Sometimes a fig 8 mic works OK as well, but just as for drums, I like to be able to try different amounts of the room sound in the final mix.

[trodden]

agreed. haven't put reverb on drums in a million years...

Good for you "Mr. big loft room with high ceilings studio guy"..

Us basement dwelling CHUDS depend on our fake shit to give it some room!

[MoreSpaceEcho]

ugh. i can't believe i'm even lowering myself to respond to your post.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

but actually it was really (ok, sorta) funny the first time i recorded drums in my current place...after three years of recording in the basement of my previous place i was completely freaked out hearing real live reverb on the tracks...

i'm actually setting drums up in the control (read:bed) room tonight cause i want small and dry for a change...

[trodden]

ugh. i can't believe i'm even lowering myself to respond to your post.

jerkstore.

[dokushoka]

i'm trying to get the overall sound of the kit

For me, this is what the overheads are for. I spend a lot of time setting up the drums and listening to them with just the overheads. Now a days, most of my drum sound are the overheads and not much else. I don't rely on the ambient mic(s) to give the drums "size" but merely to get the "booooompaaaaaah" decay that is shaped with compression. I also add reverb to my room mics and typically, with a mono room, I will send it to the 231 patch on the H3000 to spread it.

[lionaudio]

I would counter you, respectfully, and say that perhaps you have just not heard the right reverb units. I have a box that has such a good room sound on it that I bet you'd think it was real! And no, its not an impulse response!

Don't get me wrong, I love room mics as much as the next guy and they are very important to my drum sounds but I rely on them to glue the kick and snare together and to get some decay but not to get the ambience I need. Its just not going to be a flexible as a high quality reverb for fitting it into a mix.[/quote]
The thing is, I'm not AGAINST reverb, or any other effect for that matter. If I had to record drums in a room that sounded like crap, or was too small, I would throw on a good lexicon reverb and be very happy. I just find it more appealing to use a good sounding room. I'm sure I have heard recordings that I thought was real room, when it was a really nice unit instead. But I'm not talking about listening to music. I'm talking about recording music. This thread is about using reverb effects vs. using room mics. And you hit it on the head, you use both. I think we all sometimes see recording as "I can either do this, or I can do this, but not both". If the music we are recording calls for more reverb than our room provides, it's time to dust off the effects unit, or move to a larger room, or both.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

For me, this is what the overheads are for.

yeah, i knew someone was gonna say that! i can dig it. i just mastered a record that was really overhead heavy and it sounded awesome. for me and my space/mics here though the room mics are usually what does it. when we're getting drum sounds here i'll record the drummer for a bit and have him come in and listen...i'll give them kick and snare, then bring in the overheads, then bring in the room. EVERY time, when i bring in the rooms, the drummers go 'yeeeeaaaahhhhhh!' and then i throw the stupid blockfish on them and make them explode and the drummers eyes really get big. it's fun.

to me, the sound of the room mics by themselves with some compression is a lot closer to how it sounds to me when i'm playing the drums than the overheads+kick+snare are. wow that sentence sucks but you know what i mean.

[dokushoka]

If I had to record drums in a room that sounded like crap, or was too small, I would throw on a good lexicon reverb and be very happy. I just find it more appealing to use a good sounding room.

I find room mics appealing, but I also went through a phase where I went overboard with them. Of all my work, the records where I had the room mics up really high, with a few exceptions, are easily my worst sounding recordings. Things tend to sound washed out and unprofessional. The room I used at my old studio for drums was ok sounding, but honestly, not great. I've since worked in some really fantastic sounding rooms and that completely changed my perspective. In those rooms, I can cram in more room mics or will go with a spaced pair of m160s. Here is a link to how I set them up on my site:

http://sfrecording.com/photos.html

They are equidistant from the snare and panned out fairly far. In this instance they were them slammed with a pair of Neve 2254e compressors in dual mono with the limiters engaged. I included this pair of m160s on many of the songs in this case, but only in one song as the heart of the drum sound.

In the case of which reverbs I use on drums, I actually never use Lexicons. I actually think that most all of the Lexicons aren't really the ideal reverbs for drums, including the 480 and 960. They certainly have their place, but I never am happy with them on drums.

Stuff that I routinely use would be:
Sony DPSR7 (this is FANTASTIC for room sounds)
Yamaha SPX990
Alesis Midiverb (the old table top model) I mostly use #9 on it
EMT250 IR in Altiverb is fantastic
Also, the Cello rooms Altiverb are useful, too
Sometimes I'll use something from the H3000
AMS RMX16 IR in Altriverb can be awesome
I used to have a Yamaha REV7 which had a very cool "snare" preset that was a bit grainy though

The thing with Lexicons is that most of them aren't true stereo and, also, they do all the modulating reverb thing which is bad for drums because the algorithms totally envelope the dry signal. This is really not what you want. Predelaying them doesn't really work, either, as that just pushes the reverb so far out from the dry signal that it starts to sound strange. You need a box that has convincing early reflections that can sit as low as like 5ms behind the drum sounds. The Sony and the Yamaha are both very capable of this, although Yamahas always sound a little "ringy" to me and you have to want that sound. The Sony is just perfect, though. I think if you're serious about mixing, everyone should have a DPSR7 or DPSV77.

[drumsound]

I find room mics appealing, but I also went through a phase where I went overboard with them. Of all my work, the records where I had the room mics up really high, with a few exceptions, are easily my worst sounding recordings. Things tend to sound washed out and unprofessional. The room I used at my old studio for drums was ok sounding, but honestly, not great. I've since worked in some really fantastic sounding rooms and that completely changed my perspective. In those rooms, I can cram in more room mics or will go with a spaced pair of m160s. Here is a link to how I set them up on my site:

http://sfrecording.com/photos.html

That might be why you get something different from me and MSE. i like omnis about waist high and he likes them near the floor. Up high is a totally different thing.

This has turned out to be quite a cool thread and It's interesting to hear what you and others think about room mics.

[dokushoka]

I find room mics appealing, but I also went through a phase where I went overboard with them. Of all my work, the records where I had the room mics up really high, with a few exceptions, are easily my worst sounding recordings. Things tend to sound washed out and unprofessional. The room I used at my old studio for drums was ok sounding, but honestly, not great. I've since worked in some really fantastic sounding rooms and that completely changed my perspective. In those rooms, I can cram in more room mics or will go with a spaced pair of m160s. Here is a link to how I set them up on my site:

http://sfrecording.com/photos.html

That might be why you get something different from me and MSE. i like omnis about waist high and he likes them near the floor. Up high is a totally different thing.

This has turned out to be quite a cool thread and It's interesting to hear what you and others think about room mics.

Sorry, by "really high" I meant in terms of volume in the mix. Stupid intermaweb.

[Rigsby]

Aye, single room mic around thigh height works for me.