basic miking techniques?

[snuffinthepunk]

i normally wouldn't ask, but, the project I'm working on at school has a drum kit that was miked so poorly that I have to eq every one of the mics to get rid of as much extraneous noise so that i can effectively process it. example: in the kick drum track, I went to gate it and when I was setting the threshold, the snare showed up before the kick....on the KICK track. wtf? so, if yall got any good miking techniques I'd appreciate hearin 'em.

[Everybody's X]

maybe your gate is triggired by a higer frequency?

for rock, put the kick mic inside the drum about 5 inches from the beater have somebody sweep the mic back and forth while you listen and the drummer kicks it, find the sweet spot and lock it down, then throw a packing blanket over the front of the kick.

[BJohnston]

Good question, I also like gating the crap out of my drums during mix down. The mic technnique definitely has something to with it. Listening to gated drums soloed by themselves generally sounds kind of weird anyway. Usually when you add the overheads, high hat, room mics etc... it helps bring it all together.
To the actual mic placment though, I usually place my kick drum mic toward the outer hole of the kick opposite the beater. Depending on the mic, drum head etc. For big bottom go further out, for more snap go further toward the beater head. Generally for my snares and toms I'll mic it so that the diaphram sits at the outter rim about 2-3 inches above the head. You basically want to give the drum head enough room to vibrate and creat it's natural tone and give room to interact with the microphone. Again play around getting the kind of placement can greatly effect the tone as well as how much bleed you'll get from surrounding mics.
Be sure that you pick mics with patterns that suit your application. The bigger the pattern the bleed you'll have.
Hope that helps.

B.Johnston

[snuffinthepunk]

Listening to gated drums soloed by themselves generally sounds kind of weird anyway. Usually when you add the overheads, high hat, room mics etc... it helps bring it all together.

yeah man, as i was listening to the soloed tracks earlier i was questioning that myself (seeing as how I'm new to mixing). when it all played together, after a God awful amount of eq'ing and gating, it sounded much much better.

here's somethin funny/sad though...in the OHL and OHR mics, i could hear the entire drum kit and it sounded like a mono mix of an entire drum kit. the levels of the kick, snare, high hat, etc, were so high...so, what about miking overheads? any tips on that? (as far as mic placement goes)

[BJohnston]

There are really 2 most common practices of micing overheads. One is from "Drummers Perspective" the other "Audience Perspective". It's important to figure out which scenario is used to figure out which way to pan each. Drummers Perspective would be mic'd as if you were sitting down at the drum kit yourself and looking at each of the mic's. They would also be panned accordingly. That is to say that sitting down at the drum kit your OHL is exactly that "the overhead mic that is on your Left". Same with the OHR. If it's Audience Perspective that changes your panning placement because now your visualizing the drummer sitting in front of as if you were watching at a show or something. The OHL we had from the Drummers Perspective is actually the Audience Perspective's OHR. From the Audience Perspective the drums would be panned exact opposit than they were from Drummers Perspective. Why is that important? When your listening back to the OH's and they sound Mono actually might be because you might have them panned opposite where they should be. Try panning them the other way. They might have mic'd it from Audience Perspective and your panning them Drummers Perspective or vice versa. The other thing you might try if that doesn't work is compressing the OH's. Play with the attack time if you slow it down you should be able to get rid of a lot of the snare and kick bleed. Sounds strange, but try it. It really works.
To the mic placement. I've found that it's not a complete exact science. Steve Albini would probably disagree. There are a couple of ways I go about it. 1 is setting the mics about 6 inches above the cymbals at hand. Point the Diaphram more at the outter edge of the cymbals. Depending on how many
cymbals there are, I usually try to split the difference on each side. Then you can try raising the OH. They usually sound a little more shimmery the Higher you go. You will however pick up more room from raising them. The closer to the bell you point the diaphram the more the body of the cymbal comes out. That may or may not be the desired effect. If you want, a lot of people mic up the ride cymbal seperately. I never have. It's your choice though.
Hope that helps you out a bit. Let me know if there's anything else I could help with.

B.

[cgarges]

so, if yall got any good miking techniques I'd appreciate hearin 'em.

Miking techniques, for future reference or mixing techniques, for this particular situation?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[logancircle]

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=3214 and then go to RECORDING and check out all the drum threads. Great info there already!