stereo room micing

[meLoCo_go]

I've been asking it once on the old MARSH...
Somehow it didn't make sence to me)
So
How do you set up your stereo ambience mics?

[meLoCo_go]

Oh
and I mean drumzzz
however
other sources application would be appreciated!

[slabrock]

How do you set up your stereo ambience mics?

According to the stereo image i want to get.

If there's more than just drums, I draw a map (like a pan circle with everything marked in approximate positions the way i'm going to pan them in the mix) and try to place everything right in the first place.

If there's just drums, there's a severe probability that you're going to end up with mainly cymbals, so maybe you've got to place the ambiences pretty low to get a good balance. Sometimes i have to hang something in front of the mics to get the cymbals out of the picture.

Peace,

Slabrock

[PRobb]

There are two separate approaches. One is full kit micing, the other is room micing.

Full kit tries to get a stereo picture of the whole kit with two mics. A great spot for that is 2-4 feet in front of the kit at about the level of the rack toms. I love SDCs, particularly 84s, for this. However it does put the job of mixing the kit on the drummer.

Room micing is like recording reverb. The mics would be farther away and, if possible, high up. Also not necessarily pointed at the drums. Since the point is to get ambience, they might point at walls or corners. Omni can be great for this too.

[meLoCo_go]

thanks!
please more))))

[slabrock]

thanks!
please more))))

:grin:

Depends what you want.

Sometimes it's a SM57 6ft directly in front of the drum kit and squeezed beyond recognition. It rocks.

Sometimes it's a Crown PZM or a couple of them in places where you get the most reflection, places you would never ever place a monitor (or your head).

Sometimes it's a couple of MD421's lying on the floor.

Sometimes it's great to have a PA set and drive all drums (no overheads, no hh) cranked through it, and place some AB positioned mics in various distances.

Sometimes it's the staircase, and doors left open.

The lower the mics, the more deep end they generally catch from the floor reflection. And vice versa. The room i have lately used the most has an array of odd mics mounted in the ceiling.

Be creative. Think of sound as a beam of light.

And... have fun experimenting,

Slabrock

[malice]

I have to do some groceries now, but I'll be back with a long post about this because I think it's a critical aspect of drums recording.

stay tuned

malice

[dnafe]

Malice you are a mighty mouse among men

:grin:

Looking forward to your missive

Don


ps. don't forget the wine and cheese

[malice]

Ok,

First of all, it is important to know what you are seeking with the room mikes.
One of the first pitfalls when recording drums is to mike as much as you can thinking you will decide what shape of sound you will give to your drums during the mix.

It won't happen like that. It will be to late. It will influence the rest of the tracking and will render the production dificult.

you need to make choices, you need to have a vision.

Of course, you can mike the toms and not use them.

Room miking, overheads, FOK mics are a whole different animal.

Sometimes you won't need room mics. If so, you can leave the track in record, but don't make your drum sound while listening to it. mute the track and move the overheads until you get what you want. If you don't do this, you will end with very difficult to mix overhead tracks.

You need space ?

Try the mono room first. It might sound more elegant. a 57 aimed at the opposite of the drums might be the best sounding alternative. Use gobos or not (between the drums and the mike), try, try everything.

you want it larger ? try the mono mic in a very short room from your favorite Fx unit. Sometimes, it's working best.

You really want that xtra large drum sound that will leave very little space for gtrs and the rest of arrangement ?

ok, let's talk about it.

When I first started as assistant, big sounding drums were the shit, and I leaned to put tlm170 and Bruel&Kjaar in omni absolutlyeveryfuckingwhere in the room. in corners, space like you wouldn't believe, near the open piano to get the strings vibrate (neet trick, you should try).

I don't do this anymore. I don't like that. If you listen good, you will realise that the snare in corner of the room left is amazingly louder than in corner right (for example) . You have to listen carefully because the more you try to do extreme things with room miking, the more you'll realise that acoustics is not always an exact science in studios.

you will realise as well that putting room mike 60 feets away is not always the trick to do huge massive drums.

Try closer.

I often prefer to put blumein (two figure 8, coincident 90°) in front of the kit (I have a stereo ribbon for that) , like 3 or 4 meters from it, or even less.

A B should work as well, even ORTF.

If you want it larger, you can try spaced pairs, but be very carefull for the extreme reasons I explained above: you might have surprises like the snare or the kik being louder on one side.

And check your phases.

more later

malice

[PRobb]

Ok,

First of all, it is important to know what you are seeking with the room mikes.
One of the first pitfalls when recording drums is to mike as much as you can thinking you will decide what shape of sound you will give to your drums during the mix.

It won't happen like that. It will be to late. It will influence the rest of the tracking and will render the production dificult.

you need to make choices, you need to have a vision.


Great post. I do have a minor quibble with this point. One of the great things about DAW is that extra tracks are cheap. I recently did a song where I was sure I wanted just the room sound. But I miced up the whole kit anyway. Once I was sure all the mics were OK, I only monitored the pair and FOK. But in the mix, a bit of the under snare mic was just what was needed. I'd rather have the tracks and not use them than wish I had recorded something I didn't get.

[malice]

Great post. I do have a minor quibble with this point. One of the great things about DAW is that extra tracks are cheap. I recently did a song where I was sure I wanted just the room sound. But I miced up the whole kit anyway. Once I was sure all the mics were OK, I only monitored the pair and FOK. But in the mix, a bit of the under snare mic was just what was needed. I'd rather have the tracks and not use them than wish I had recorded something I didn't get.

I hear you.

The trick is to "try to get your drum sound as soon as possible". If you feel like you won't use the room mics, make sure the rest is there, well balanced when tracking.

Lemme give you a practical example.

You are tracking a band, you know that you will use the room mics on certain songs and not on others.

You have a killer drum sound with the room mics on with a good balance between the cymbals and the rest of the kit.

comes a song that you will want "without the room", but you leave the mikes "on" during tracking without checking.

Are you SURE that you shouldn't have put the overheads higher in order to have a better balance instead of having them closer to have more control and balance them with the room ?

The tracks that are opened or closed makes a great deal of difference in how you gonna fine tune the usable mics.

If you are going to use 4 mics to capture the kit, you might not put them in the same spots than if you are going to use 12 of them.

Now when you make your drums sound with the 4 mics for one song, free to you to leave the others in "record", hey, you might end with interesting things you never would have tried, but ultimately, I noticed that even if I recorded them, as soon as possible in the production process: I simply throw the unused tracks in the bin.

Decisions like that helps focusing into your own vision of the whole arrangement (given that you are producing the track, of course) and the weight you will allow to the drum part in the big picture.

malice

[Comte de St Germain]

You both make great points and I'm a "make a decision now" kind of guy but... There's always a but...

When you are doing very quick records and you know you are going to have a few tunes that will require different approaches it is good to "group" the extra drum tracks and record all of them across the session.

I look at the FOK and OH as my benchmark.

That said, the close mics are "just in case" mics.

The room mics are my flavors.

If one is limited (or just wants to limit) then one can leave the mics up and patch them in and out as each new track is tracked. I personally just arrange the tracks in the DAW mixer for reference (old timers) and keep rolling.

Yep, flow is one of the most important things in tracking full bands so in those cases a little sorting later is probably a better idea than halting a session needlessly.

[otek]

Yep, flow is one of the most important things in tracking full bands so in those cases a little sorting later is probably a better idea than halting a session needlessly.


This is where I end up a lot of the time.

Malice is dead on about forming a vision of the end result even before putting up the first mic, and maintaining it throughout the session. I also agree that once you positioned a mic, there is no such thing as "shaping it in the mix" - the sound will remain essentially the same.

However, I too make a lot of "quick records" (in the Comte's parlance), and it's not always an option to go on long "tweaking expeditions" in between songs - there simply isn't enough time. Putting up more mics can be a way of giving yourself options - provided they all sound good in their given positions as well as in combination.

Lately, I have sometimes solved this by putting up two overheads - one where I use a pair to get in close with the cymbals, and one framing the kit from a little higher. The latter even ends up being mono sometimes. This way, I can give the whole kit a little bit of air, and still get a lot of focus and presence from the cymbals.

If I use a mono "second" overhead, it gives me an extra option - by controlling the blend of the mono and spread overheads, I can "shrink" the kit a little during verses, and open it up during choruses. This has to be done kinda subtly, and it doesn't always work - it depends on what the drummer is playing.



The other factor that determines for me whether to "mic the drummer's ass" (put up a lot of mics) is the style of music. In metal and other heavy music styles, sadly, the drummer is often the weakest link - there simply aren't a whole lot of players that can handle the fast tempos while maintaining control over dynamics and articulation. As an engineer, you are forced to pull out every trick in the book to gain control of the drummer's somewhat erratic output.

This last point is, admittedly, somewhat tangental to the gist of Malice's post, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

[PRobb]

I'm with Malice on the "decide early" thing. Once I had all the mics up, I only monitored the sound I wanted to work with. The close tracks were muted. My only point was that in a DAW, where tracks are cheap, it's better to print something you won't need than wish you had something you didn't print.

[slabrock]

I'm with Malice on the "decide early" thing. Once I had all the mics up, I only monitored the sound I wanted to work with. The close tracks were muted. My only point was that in a DAW, where tracks are cheap, it's better to print something you won't need than wish you had something you didn't print.

Brian Eno once said something like: "Make a list of what you don't want to include in the project and remove the equipment to do those things. if that leaves you with a desk and a chair, fine. Then you do a record with those."

It probably was a joke (i don't really know) but that made sense to me. And all the more sense considering nowadays' 150+ track projects (i learned the ropes with an 1" 4-track and graduated to a 2" 16-track in the late 70's / early 80's).

Peace,

Slabrock

[malice]

Brian Eno once said something like: "Make a list of what you don't want to include in the project and remove the equipment to do those things. if that leaves you with a desk and a chair, fine. Then you do a record with those."

It probably was a joke

Not sure,

but this post will grant you an increase in rep power.

great quote (although I'm biased to that philosophy)

malice

[slabrock]

Not sure,

but this post will grant you an increase in rep power.

great quote (although I'm biased to that philosophy)

Thank you.

Slabrock

[meLoCo_go]

Thanks everybody!
In my case the music is some hardcore/artcore and I will rely on close-mics a lot for definition... However, I found that I need some room to add a bit of 'context' and 'reality' to the drums. I've never recorded room in stereo, and I always had a problem that when I set the mono-room sound the way I liked for kick and snare I always had strange sounding cymbals from center that a bit distracted the stereo image of cymbals in OHs. So I wondered if stereo-room would give me the thing I want for kick and snare and kinda 'hide' cymbals behind the OHs in stereo.
Probably I could do something else - like put up room-sample for kick and snare or gate the room from snare and kick....

[Johnny]

"artcore?"

"Art...Cor...velay."

[meLoCo_go]

well
they change tempo/time sig/keys everytime...
me likey)))

[shhpeaceful]

you can try spaced pairs, but be very carefull for the extreme reasons I explained above: you might have surprises like the snare or the kik being louder on one side.


Okay, this thread is ancient, but I have to draw a hypothetical picture to see if this makes sense:

Let's say I use a spaced room pair with the intention of creating some stereo width, depth and 'crack' for the snare drum. Couldn't I center the snare drum somewhat in the mic pair and roll off low end to stop the kick drum from pulling to the side?

I'll have to experiment the next time i get some microphones hung up around the kit...maybe center the snare in the overheads, and center the kick in a low stereo room pair and dip out snare in the rooms and roll off lows in the OH's in an effort to keep the drums from pulling and get the kick and snare up the middle.

[otek]

The easier way to get the depth of the snare would be a mono ambience. It doesn't "pull" at all. You can also key it with the snare drum, so that it opens up when the snare hits (and mutes or attenuates everywhere else).

The stereo ambience (in addition to the above) could be used for the whole kit, which would allow you to center things as needed using mic placement, or use a coincident pair which would make for a very natural stereo ambience.

Another method would be using an M/S ambience setup, which would sound super-wide yet perfectly centered.


otek

[Comte de St Germain]

Stop worrying about centering shit and make it sound worth a shit.

This spot in my room is where my BALLS live(ignore the amps). I've found them to work here for basic ambience mics for the drums (across the room) if and only if I put 4 foor high gobos in between the drums and these mics. This increases the distance, eliminates the direct sound and makes 1000% more useable euphonic ambience mics.

My point?

Sometimes it's not the mics, the preamp, the technique, the distance, the placement but instead some plywood with 703 on one side.

[weedywet]

Stop worrying about centering shit and make it sound worth a shit.


that's good advice.

If I use stereo room mics, I tend to space them out wider than the kit and looking in at the snare.
figure-of-eights looking in at 90 degrees or cardioids looking in at 120 degrees...
but either way I make a sort of isosceles triangle with the distance from each mic to the snare being the same.
And then I tend to throw a blanket over the bass drum to keep it low in the rooms ANYWAY.
but truth is, there are loads of people (foolishly :finger: ) panning things into all sorts of phantom, imaginary, in-between positions.. so if by adding the close mic to the room sound, the bass drum or snare drum really DOES end up seeming a tiny bit off centre... SO WHAT?

One thing though, is that if you compress those rooms, do it with a stereo linked compressor so that the apparent centre doesn't go dancing around.

[otek]

One thing though, is that if you compress those rooms, do it with a stereo linked compressor so that the apparent centre doesn't go dancing around.

A very important point.

In fact, with a linked stereo compressor, the image often appears to shrink somewhat, which helps with a cohesive room sound.


otek

[damionhill]

I saw somewhere in here that they mentioned this
"Sometimes it's great to have a PA set and drive all drums (no overheads, no hh) cranked through it, and place some AB positioned mics in various distances."

So my question is... How do you avoid looping/feedback?
Couldn't you in this case have a recorded drum track in a small room, send it to someone who has a big room and play the tracks through a big PA and record it? This makes no sense i'm sure, but could it be done?

I've never had the chance to try it out. i, at this point, have a small room to work with. So I kill acoustics like a pop record. I record pop and Metal. I know doesn't make sense there either but it's what i've got plus processing the same amount. lol

[meLoCo_go]

Couldn't you in this case have a recorded drum track in a small room, send it to someone who has a big room and play the tracks through a big PA and record it? This makes no sense i'm sure, but could it be done?


You can. And it makes every sense if you don't have good room. I've did it once with good results.

[otek]

So my question is... How do you avoid looping/feedback?

By not routing the mics you're recording back out to the PA.

Couldn't you in this case have a recorded drum track in a small room, send it to someone who has a big room and play the tracks through a big PA and record it?

Yes you could.

This is, incidentally, also the principle behind the oldest "artificial" reverb in recorded history - the chamber.

i, at this point, have a small room to work with. So I kill acoustics like a pop record.

For the record, a small room for drums can be just the ticket - for "heavy" music too. More "heavy" records than you can shake a stick at have been recorded in small rooms.

And, just to be a terminology stickler, you're not killing acoustics. You're killing reflectivity, which is what most people do when they start throwing foam and egg crates on the wall. :Wink:

Ironically of course, doing so many times ends up "killing acoustics", because reflectivity in and of itself is not a bad thing.


otek

[Comte de St Germain]

Ordinarily I don't compress the rooms very much but my original SC2 is a great device for a few db of reduction and most importantly the sonic signature it imparts on the sound brings the brass into a sweeter range and helps the meat of the drums come forward a bit. If it ends up on bass then the trakkers are clean GR.

And sometimes I mult the rooms and stun them with MXR Mini-Limiters.

Down beat in a few...

[damionhill]

Otek,

Quote:
Originally Posted by damionhill
So my question is... How do you avoid looping/feedback?

By not routing the mics you're recording back out to the PA.

Maybe I still don't get it. So once i've recorded the tracks from the drums in my space I send the tracks minus the overheads to a guy with a big room. He routes the Toms, kick, snare out to the PA. How does he properly record just the live room without feedback? I'm confused. I used to have an article on how to make a Chamber. I wish I could find it. That explained it. It's a really cool idea and keeping it natural is the route I'd like to go If i'm working on rock bands. Metal yes...

I actually have been talking to Jonas Kjellgren from Scar Symmetry. He records in a small room. The drums were recorded in an even smaller room than the main room. I thought it was weird at first. But now I know why. Metal needs to have a more controled sound and not much ambience to mud up the mix. I guess that's the only way to explain it. and that's why i belong to this forum to learn more.

I've learned so much oin this forum.
thanks everyone! :D

[meLoCo_go]

Feedback is short for "positive feedback loop". If you send your music to PA and mics go to your recording rig without being sent to PA you don't have a loop, thus no feedback.

PS another thing is recording drums with simultaniously feeding some of the drums to PA in the same room. There's a possibility for feedback loop in that case. But signal that is sent to PA is usually from close mics on snare and kick that receive relatively small portion of the room sound so PA doesn't have much influence on them.

[otek]

Otek,
.....

Maybe I still don't get it. So once i've recorded the tracks from the drums in my space I send the tracks minus the overheads to a guy with a big room. He routes the Toms, kick, snare out to the PA. How does he properly record just the live room without feedback?


Damion,


I think I see what you're getting at, but I'm gonna explain it from two different sides, and see if I can hit on the problem.

I read your question in two different ways.

1) How do I avoid the room mics (which are picking up the PA) to not feed back on themselves as I record the room?

This would be the question I tried to answer. What I meant was simply to record the room mics without sending them back out to the foldback which is feeding the PA - this would have created a feedback loop. This is basically managing your signal flow using routing in the console or DAW.

Reading your question again, however, it seems you might have meant:

2) How do I keep the direct sound of the drums (close mics) coming out of the PA from getting recorded back in, and just record the room?

This may become a bit abstract so bear with me. :D

Let's take a look at the way ambience mics would work if you were to record your drums in a big room in the first place.

Ambience mics would be picking up two things: first, the direct sound emanating from the drum kit, and reflected sound from the walls, floor and ceiling, what we would refer to as the "ambience" or room sound itself. To get a really effective ambience, you would want to minimize the ratio of direct versus ambient sound.

Therefore, you would want to shield the mic as much as possible from the sound waves emanating directly from the PA drivers, much the same way as you may want to shield ambience mics on a kit in a large room from the direct sound of the kit (and even more importantly, from the cymbals).

The answer is to place the mics behind gobos, i.e. panels of some sort which would block the direct sound of the PA, leaving a much larger ratio of diffused sound to be picked up by the mics. It also helps to face the mics away from the kit, this way you would get a maximum amount of diffused (reflected) sound.

With a real kit in a room, you may not want to block all of the direct sound from the kit, but with a PA, which would introduce quite a bit of coloration, this will likely sound more natural. Try it both ways and see which you prefer.

A chamber works this way too. In essence, what you have is a speaker and one or two mics in a very reflective room. The speaker is often placed in such a way that the direct sound emanating from it is not picked up by the mics, just the reflected sound from the room's surfaces. You can then send signal from any channel on the console (using an aux) to the amplifier driving the room speaker, pick it up with the mics, and return it on a fader pair in the console, where it can also be recorded if needed.


otek

[damionhill]

I think I get it now. I mean the way you explain it is as clear as day. When i record it would I mute the channel being recorded? So that it wouldn't clash with the sounds alrerady recorded? Or because it is blocking the initial sound coming direct from the speaker and only getting relections it would record it in esence a new signal not really of the same sounds but it is... haha. I get it. I'm not lost but I just don't actually get the theory of why it doesn't feed back. I will try this in an experiment. No need to beat this into the ground. It makes perfect sense why it should work and why it will.

[otek]

When i record it would I mute the channel being recorded? So that it wouldn't clash with the sounds alrerady recorded?

Exactly how this would work depends on what you are recording to, but the signal being recorded (the mics picking up the PA/speakers in the room) should not be sent through the foldback that feeds the PA/speakers in the room! That's about as clear as I can be without developing a serious hernia. :D

In practical terms, if you want to be sure about this regardless of DAW, make sure the channels being recorded to have no output assignment, and, if you use any kind of direct monitoring (foldback signals going out pre-DAW), you should deactivate it.

Or because it is blocking the initial sound coming direct from the speaker and only getting relections it would record it in esence a new signal not really of the same sounds but it is...

It still sounds a little bit like you are confusing the two explanations above. The first is about preventing signal chain feedback (à la monitors squealing on a live stage), the second about dealing with the signal content being recorded (direct vs. reflected sound). The two phenomena, and their explanations, are unrelated but describe two different interpretations of your question.


otek

[damionhill]

Very nice. works for me. thank you for clearing it up. I just never tried it before. thanks a lot Otek!

[otek]

Very nice. works for me. thank you for clearing it up. I just never tried it before. thanks a lot Otek!

So out of curiosity, which of my explanations were you referring to in the original post?

otek

[damionhill]

Out of both of the questions I understand both.

Making sure that when I record the signal that it only gets laid down in the track but.. Not to have a sound coming out of the channel or any pre Daw input channels perhaps being split off. Basically saying no audio out from the DAW or headphone monitor mixes. At least thats what i needed to get out of it.

"the signal being recorded (the mics picking up the PA/speakers in the room) should not be sent through the foldback that feeds the PA/speakers in the room!"

I pretty much answered that by mentioning I would Mute the incoming channel being recorded. I know some DAWs will let you do this while still recording the signal... you know what I mean? Then that would pretty much make sure that the signal coming from the mic won't loop through. You did mention you werent sure what DAWs may do that but I do believe PTs does that (PT Le is what i'm using).

the reflected sound... yes that is what we're going for any how. So that means that the reflections from the walls is the only reason we're doing this in the first place.
But... when you're recording using Room mics you are getting some of the direct signal... am I wrong? The whole point is to get more of the reflections and such but also getting some of the actual drums isn't a bad idea is it?

[otek]

But... when you're recording using Room mics you are getting some of the direct signal... am I wrong? The whole point is to get more of the reflections and such but also getting some of the actual drums isn't a bad idea is it?

Of course not, you would get that with ambience mics on a kit, too.

My point was that the direct sound from the PA will likely sound less natural than the direct sound from a kit acoustically in the room. So maximizing the ratio of reflected sound would be away of masking that somewhat.


otek

[damionhill]

PERFECT!

Yeah since I've never tried it i had never run into that. But I guess that would make perfect sense.

[Brendo]

damion, there's a chapter in the mixerman diaries that i think you should read...

http://www.mixerman.net/diaries1.php

Day 2.

[damionhill]

Wow this is a great article! I haven't finished it yet but I've glued to it all day here at work. lol. He's a good writer and freakin funny as shit.