A good drum room faking technique??

T-rex · Post by **T-rex** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:22 pm

I Have had great luck with my 4047, mc-12s and my omni bova ball. Just experiment!

The most important thing is a lot of gain cause the signal well probably be low.

joel hamilton · Post by **joel hamilton** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:28 pm

Sometimes an omni in a space like that works really well, sometimes it doesnt.
Just check it out.
Try running something sympathetic near that mic also, like a piece of sheet metal, or even a ride cymbal can do it. You would be surprised at how good something like that can sound, when the snare makes it really move and the kick does not.... totaly physical and "real" sounding.
I have used ride cymbals with SDC's on them across a small, carpeted room, with the SDC pointing away from the kit, right at the cymbal... like a centimeter away from the cymbal. I like sheet metal better, because it sounds less like a note, ,,, but anyway: try ductwork, or a door closer spring on the mic stand.... anything that will ring longer than the room can be really cool, especially if you throw a verb on that track later also.
Unique.
Creative.

BrontoSoreAss · Post by **BrontoSoreAss** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:42 am

As an extension of the steps idea which is great, see what the drums sound like in all the other rooms of the house. I used to live in an old house which had very low ceilings in the basement (around 6.5 - 7 feet). Drums sounded pretty good down there but there really wasn't much natural verb happening at all. However in the room directly over where the kit was the drums sounded huge and spacey and actually better then they did when you were in the room with them. In this case the majority of the drum sound was traveling up through the floor (the stairs were on the opposite end of the house+closed doors). Have a walk around the place while your friend plays, you might just find yourself a magic spot.

evilaudio · Post by **evilaudio** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:09 am

Had a session cancel, so I had a lot of time to experiment yesterday. I started with a 635A/B mic at different heights at the top of the stairs pointing up at the ceiling. I got the best "balance" way up about a foot below the ceiling itself. I then tried a SM57 at that position and got a leaner less boomy signal. I'll try a PZM and other condensers today and then off to other rooms of the house. This is fun! It is rainy season right now, so my sump pump keeps kicking on and getting into the mic. Putting the mic in another room upstairs will help eliminate this "toilet-flushing" sound every 2 minutes or so... Good thing I don't have a real session, that would be a real challenge (hold on guys, wait for the pump to kick on... okay, GO!)!

Great ideas!
thanx!!

johnny7 · Post by **johnny7** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:43 am

Love the sump pump!
This reminds me of a session I did where we were using the kitchen for one of the acoustic. The damn fridge kept kicking on. So I found, labeled, and flipped off the breaker. Just had to remember to turn it on.

Of course, this could have much more serious consequences when flooding is involved...

Johnny7

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:50 pm

It would be one way to get a really "wet" sound tho' ...

I been using a lot of M/S lately, including faking it with a re-amp on the monitors.

AlexHerd · Post by **AlexHerd** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 7:34 am

I have a similar problem. My "live room" doesn't sound fantastic and its pretty small. I never had luck with room mics because the room just didn't sound that great. Recently I tried the Albini omnis on the floor thing and it worked great! Even un-delayed it gave me the best room tone I'd gotten out of my tiny room. Here is a pic from an Albini Don Cab session:

Message Board

A good drum room faking technique??

Who is online