Minimalist micing thoughts

[Devlars]

Yes the drums on A Ghost Is Born (Wilco) are fantastic. I would agree though that the room certainly plays as large a role in the sound achieved as for the placement of mics. Beck's Sea Change is another record with that very close very intimate drum sound to it. I find that's hard to get but that's because I record in a big church sanctuary so the room is captured regardless. I really should experiment and use the other smaller rooms throughout the church to see if there are any condusive to a "tighter" drum sound.

[Family Hoof]

I'm happy that you are finding it a joy to make the drummer part of the sound by having to use more control of self balance when using a minimal mic set up. It does sound great doesn't it!

Ahem, John Bonham, cough cough... "In my time of dying"... no close mics... the balance is perfect!

[brakeshop]

If you have a good drummer and a nice room, then you should use less microphones. Recording isn't about wasting resources or trying to impress people with how many mics you have. (or maybe it is ) But if your drummer aint so hot or you need a lot of isolation, you don't really have a choice with lots of mics and close micing, regardless of the style of the times. If you don't need those extra mics you can always turn down the faders, but you can still keep your options available.

[Devlars]

Ahem, John Bonham, cough cough... "In my time of dying"... no close mics... the balance is perfect!

I know, I know, that's what I'm getting at. At the very most I use 4 mics on dums though I'm finding that using to LDC overheads and ribbon about 5ft. out and rack tom level is really good in getting a nice full sounding kit as well. The ribbon does a fantastic job of capturing the kick and bottom end but gives the cymbals the most full and lush sound to them when mixed with the OHs...love it.

[heylow]

A couple of thoughts in case anybody's counting:

1) Minimal mic'd drums can be cool and all.....of course so can many mics. A good engineer/producer should be able to decide on which would best fit a given song and be able to do either equally well. Minimal micing is not the be all end all and no one says you have to use everything you record. I will watch my drummer when we are about to record and really try to get inside the drum part to imagine what the relationship to the music should be. For instance, I won't typically mic a hat but if there is something really cool and subtle going on with the hat that I know will get buried in the frequencies of guitars and vocals, I will mic it. There is just no reason to choose sides with a jerk of the knee....it only holds you back.

2) There is nothing wrong printing many tracks and experimenting. As Joel said...get your room/kit mics up and add to them. You'll be glad you did when your awesome song is layered with all the different frequencies that go into an awesome song and now, somehow, that kick just isn't as punchy as you remembered and if you had just a PINCH more snare, you'd be slammin'. I often will put up other mics that I may or may not use just to see if different combinations get a song more happening or even more odd. Sometimes I'll get so far in to the song and it becomes clear which I am not using and they get bailed. (Then I run around showing everybody how minimally I mic'd it. )

3) The phase argument is kind of a cop out because it can be done well. Yes, I understand the theory that you will always have some minimal filtering but when done well, it sounds fine....see the Albini reference above. Of course, there is nothing stating that all faders have to be all the way up at all times....sometimes it's just a little bit of a few of those faders in with the meat and potatoes that generates an "excitement" somewhere.

4) The argument that the drums on "ghost" have more to do with the room is certainly debatable. While it true to a point, ignoring the rest of the picture will not yield such a sound in my opinion. You aren't going to get some of those sounds without lots O close mic on certain drums. I have found I can pretty well nail the kick sound of "I'm a Wheel" and "Theologians", but among drum size and tuning, an inside and outside mic are completely necessary for me to do it....hardly minimal already.

Does this mean that's what they did? No. But it does make a point that no one way is going to work for everybody all the time and what works in context to one person will not always produce the same results for another.

Minimal drums can RULE! But stopping there can be stifling.


Just a long rambling thought directed to no one in particular.

Oh...and PS: You'd be amazed at what well placed, good sounding tom mics brought up in the mix can do to the overheads in the right context.


heylow

[mjau]

I had a lot of success last week with a single baby bottle about 5 feet off the ground, 4-5 feet in front of a small Yamaha kit in my small basement studio. It's a really dead space, so I don't get a lot of slapback from it being a small room, and with some compression on the mono drum track, I was pretty happy.

[Moon Unit]

I've said this before, but having a LOT of room sound in your drums has become something that will make the recordings of the late 90's and early 00's very identifiable in the way heavily gated toms and snares make you think of the 80's.

I think you're right to an extent. But I don't think it's the room sound that will really date things. I think it's rather the way the room mics are so heavily compressed and basically smashed to death. I think the reason Wilco's drums work isn't necessarily because they're dry -- but the fact that they're kind of naturally dry, without a lot of unnatural pumping and breathing going on.

[cgarges]

But I don't think it's the room sound that will really date things. I think it's rather the way the room mics are so heavily compressed and basically smashed to death.

Cha-ching!

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Family Hoof]

Oh...and PS: You'd be amazed at what well placed, good sounding tom mics brought up in the mix can do to the overheads in the right context.

Yes, yes, yes! I've always heard this but never have I heard it verbalized.

[Red Rockets Glare]

I've said this before, but having a LOT of room sound in your drums has become something that will make the recordings of the late 90's and early 00's very identifiable in the way heavily gated toms and snares make you think of the 80's.

I think you're right to an extent. But I don't think it's the room sound that will really date things. I think it's rather the way the room mics are so heavily compressed and basically smashed to death. I think the reason Wilco's drums work isn't necessarily because they're dry -- but the fact that they're kind of naturally dry, without a lot of unnatural pumping and breathing going on.

totally, this is why I dropped the flaming lips reference in there, PZM's on the wall and crushed = the sound of tomorrow, today.

[joelpatterson]

Chris, you keep hitting a cash register with your elbow or something...

[cgarges]

LOL!

CG

[Rigsby]

i'm into it! a special recording to me will always be the one where i set up one mic (a CAD E-100 {my best mic at the time}) and then did every track layer by layer, from drums to bass to vox to marimba to all of it, without moving the mic - just by positioning myself in different places in the room. the way the whole track came together was pretty amazing - it sounded GREAT.

This is something i've been thinking about a lot the last few months but haven't had the space to do it yet. Do you have an MP3 of the recording, i'd really love to hear that.

[Family Hoof]

I'm no rafter but I have an example of this technique. I put an MCA SP-1 ($50 LDC) in the corner, facing the corner of a cement/stone basement with low cielings and recorded everything you hear except the piano through this one mic and an ART preamp to 16-bit Pro Tools (although the first pass of drums and lute hit 1/4" GP9 @ 7.5 ips first). The instruments were all in the middle of the room, several feet from the mic, and everything else except the drums and piano were amplified through a leslie 825 w/no spin. There's a pseudo-stereo effect (one side delayed) on the mixbus just for kicks because the whole thing was mono originally.

"Moon Lute Blues" by Stan Zenkov

[johnny7]

I've said this before, but having a LOT of room sound in your drums has become something that will make the recordings of the late 90's and early 00's very identifiable in the way heavily gated toms and snares make you think of the 80's.

I think you're right to an extent. But I don't think it's the room sound that will really date things.

E.G. The room sound on the drums of the 30's,40's,and 50's...