Earthworks as drum overheads, controlling the kick?

[citystate]

i am using the tc30k as my overheads thru the api 3124 pre.

i like the cymbal sound a lot but am getting way too much bad kick sound in there too. it's the round, non-attack part of the kick. some would be nice to round out a natural kit sound of course.

any eq ideas?
is this the nature of the mic?

[Professor]

Is that something you get with other overhead mics in the same position or does it seem specific to the TC30k?
I'm just curious if it's something about the sound of the drum or the room from the particular position. If that were the case then perhaps dampening the drum a bit or adjusting room treatments might help.

Otherwise, a simple low roll off on the OH mics could drop out some of that as long as you're careful not to pull the roll off frequency so high that it weakens the low toms and bottom of the snare if that's tuned kinda low. You could probably pull the corner freq. as high as 100-120Hz pretty safely depending on the specifics of your kit.
But if you do that then you'll be that much more dependent on the kick mic alone to provide the punch and tone of the drum in the mix.

-Jeremy

[Kevin Kitchel]

I'm willing to bet it has more to do with the room too. I have recorded a kit with an earthworks overhead, the other from the pair on the snare shell, and a AT4047 on the outside of the kick (under a blanket), and it sounds great. Translates really well to a lot of speakers too.

I end up moving the mics forward more than I would with the standard AT4050/414 rock setup though. YMMV.

[glagola1]

I would wager that it has a lot to do with the room too. Since the mic is an omni I bet you're getting a lot of reflection from the ceiling and I bet that reflection has a particular frequency that you're not liking.

You better have some tall ass ceilings with good diffusion if you want to use an omni as OH in my experience.

I've had a lot of luck lately with using a Beyer M160 as a mono OH and using my earthworks as room mics. I especially like one of the earthworks placed around the corner from my kit so it gets no direct sounds but only reflections.

I've found the earthwork mics to be very uncolored which i really like but there's something to be said about colored mics. Personality if you will.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

where do you have the mics positioned?

how do the overheads sound when mixed with the kick mic?

and does it sound bad in the context of a whole mix?

i've used the tc30s as overheads before and thought they were just fine, didn't notice any weird kick drum response or anything. if you do need to eq, i would imagine either a high pass filter and/or a cut somewhere between say 200-600 would do it.

[citystate]

thanks for the ideas.

i am in the process of making 2'x4' panels with 703 for my live room. i have realtraps in my control room but it would be way to expensive to put those in both rooms.

should i put a line of panels hanging down the center of the ceiling (at the point) or flat on either side? or both?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

probably both. i would start with a couple on the ceiling over where the drums go, and a couple on the side walls....it's not like you need to do the entire ceiling or walls. i just stand in the room like a complete dork and clap my hands, whistle, yell stuff...see how it sounds...listen for flutter echos and weird resonances and try to deal with 'em without taking all the life outta the room...

[JASIII]

i just stand in the room like a complete dork and clap my hands, whistle, yell stuff...

I'm glad I'm not the only one doing that.

[JWL]

definitely move the mics. My guess is that they are too close to the ceiling, but I could be wrong.... you can also put some absorptive material (like your realtraps) on the ceiling, that should help....

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i just stand in the room like a complete dork and clap my hands, whistle, yell stuff...

I'm glad I'm not the only one doing that.

the stairwells here at my day job are DELIGHTFUL. nice warm 4 second reverb. people are convinced i am insane. heh.

[joel hamilton]

I use TC30's almost exclusively as OH. almost every single record i have recorded for years now I have used them.

Of course this depends on the song/drummer/room/everything...

I seem to have narrowed down my approach to the kick in the OH to two choices: with a moving blanket doghouse for the kick (see bruce swedien) or without.

Thats it. I always setup the mics so they ARE catching some of the beater side of the drum, like above the snare and floor tom, not just above the cymbals. I would rather have some useable snap from the kick pedal/beater contact than some honky-450hz-shell-boxy-cardboard-crap. If I want beater, but no shell: moving blanket doghouse comes out quick. I do this maybe 60 percent of the time.

The OH sounds like the kit to me using TC30's. I treat OH like room mics that are simply above the kit instead of out front, rather than like cymbal mics with some drums in them. The TC30's with a doghoused kick works for me in many different size rooms. only in the biggest of rooms do i need some more direction from the OH... even then i will try to gobo before switching OH mics.

The ceiling of a studio should be soft. The floor should be hard. too many "studios" are acoustically upside down these days. The ceiling is acoustically "infinite" if it does not reflect.... think about that.. if you have some low ceilings: make them as soft and squishy as you can across as wide a range as you can, then put plywood under your drums. For real, yo.