Just 2 drum mics

[standup]

I stuck these two mics on the drum kit just to record a couple of rehearsals, and I think i'm going to leave it this way for a bit.

There's a Nady fig-8 ribbon on a short stand angled to catch the bottom of the snare and the beater side of the kick. There's a Beyer m160 as the single overhead. So I get a track that's kick and snare and not much else, and the overhead with not much low end. I kinda like the picture of the kit I'm getting, and I don't recall anyone else suggesting this. The pre's are AEA RPQs, which really helps the ribbons, of course. And the room is still a basement with a low ceiling.

I'm working on the basement space in the house we moved into a year ago. Yes, slow progress. There's a moving blanket across the back wall, 2' from the cinderblock to hide a pile of wood and the sump pump. There are a few fiberglass panels scattered around. Concrete floor, cinderblock walls, 7' ceilings with open joists.

I recently put Roxul between the joists to mitigate reflections off the concrete floor. The monitors and computer are in a 11' x 13' area, the drums are in a 13' x 20' area -- it's an L shape.

Here's a recording of the drumkit with the mic setup above. First 10 seconds are before rockwool went up, following 10 seconds are after the rockwool. No EQ, just a Massey limiter on the 2-buss, the room still sounds a little trashy, but I'm leaving this setup for now.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a37m6rnu1adi9 ... l.mp3?dl=0

The steup: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5eqm8iioqo28f ... e.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w2ephomi9sdzd7p/OH.jpg?dl=0

[vvv]

There is a difference, yeah.

Snare and kick sound cool.

Cymbals sound a little phasey to me with that set-up?

[standup]

Yep, I probably need to put on headphones and optimize the position of the overhead mic. I flipped phase a couple times and left it where it sounded a little better.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I frequently do a set-up like this if the music style calls for it. My version usually has the kick/snr mic back enough that it's "seeing" the front head of the kick (but still off to the side, between the kick and snare). That mic covers kick, snare, hats and rack tom. If the song isn't heavy on the floor tom and/or ride that single mic can usually carry the whole drum sound.
If I need floor and ride to be better represented I put an OH over that side of the kit. Mix both to mono. Done.

[cale w]

I did a similar thing with a fathead doing the kick/snare meat and an ev660 as an overhead. It was after reading the "shitty is pretty" article and I was really happy with the results. It took a long time to get the placement just right, but once it was there, the sounds was cool and simple. Especially the "meat" mic- a tiny angle or position change and suddenly the kick is too woofy, the snare is indistinct, hats are too loud... but when it's int he sweet spot everything just melts right together, and the overhead puts some sheen on everything.

[JWL]

Nice job. Crazy what a difference the absorption overhead can make.

I think that's a lot of the phasiness people are hearing. Comb filtering (from strong early reflections) often sound phasey like that.