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Mercenary Audio - Three Microphone Drum Stuff by Fletcher from the
rec.audio.pro Usenet Group Professional Audio Recording Equipment and
Advice (API, Apogee, TAB-Funkenwerk, Amtec, Horch, Gefell, RADAR,
Focal, Portico, Toft Audio, Telefunken-USA, Vintage Design, Weiss,
Thermionic Culture, Brauner Microphones)"> Professional Audio
Recording Equipment and Advice">The following is a response to a
question asked on rec.audio.pro. The question asked about "Mic'ing a
drum kit with 3 microphones"...this isn't 'Gospel' by any stretch of
the imagination, nor was I in any way an 'inventor' of these
techniques, merely a practitioner.These techniques were pioneered
http://www.chinese-microphone.com/Drum-Microphones.html by the real
'heroes/legends' of our industry, guys like Glynn and Andy Johns,
Geoff Emmerick, etc. Over the years I managed to stumble across the
techniques, and in my own inept way have attempted to implement
them.The session talked about in this piece is from a 'local record'
called "Autobiotics" by the Boston band "El Camino"...since the
original was written, I've also taken the liberty to add a couple of
things.Enjoy [but take it all with a big grain of salt]....How do you
do this with the overheads(where should they be in height, distance,
aimed at?), and are KM84 usually good tools for the OH pair? Will
there be any polarity problems if I throw in a snare and room mic?
There a half a dozen "3 mic drum techniques" that I'm familiar with.Is
there any particular one to which you refer?Here are a few of them:I
usually start with a mic in front of the kit. It could be 6 feet or
one foot off the bass drum. The object of this mic is usually to get
the "front of the kit". I look for a good bass drum sound, but also
the bottom of the toms and a bit of snare...cymbals will also exist
here. The tuning of the kit, the proficiency of the drummer, the mic
selection and placement are all pretty damn important...you can do a
little EQ to this, but not a whole hell of a lot. When you use
equalizers on this mic, you will find that you often mess up the
balance of the drums within the context of the kit. Depending on the
tone you're looking for, a ribbon, lg. diaphragm condenser or dynamic
might be the most appropriate.For ribbons my choices are usually Royer
121's, RCA-77's...for lg. diaphragm condensers, Neumann 47 FET's,
M-147's; Soundelux U-195抯/U-95S抯 and/or U-99抯; dynamics MD-421抯; AKG
D-30's often work pretty well, but they're a bitch to find and I don't
own one. Sometimes [rarely] a Shure 57.Now, in mono, one speaker, I
put up a second mic. This can go anywhere from directly over the snare
to over the drummers right shoulder...or anywhere in the arc in
between. The key here is to add that mic so you get the snare, hat,
top of the toms and cymbals without the cymbals being out of balance
with the rest of the kit. If the drummer can't control this balance,
you're pretty much fucked and should revert back to the close mic'ed
SR methods they teach at the recording schools.The reason I do this in
mono-1 speaker is to insure that I'm not going to fuck with the bottom
of the bass drum because of an inconsistent phase relationship with
the front mic. For this I will often use a ribbon, like a Coles 4038,
or a condenser. U-67's often work. I find that as I get closer to
'behind the drummer', a small diaphragm co
ndenser, like a KM-54 will often work a bit better.Mic #3 is often
placed next to the floor tom, just peeking over the rim of the drum at
the snare. It's usually placed equidistant from the over mic as it
relates to 'ground zero' [where the drummer actually hits the snare
drum, not the center of it]. As always, one speaker mono is your
friend.Another set of fun ones...a pair of small diaphragm condensers
[I usually like an SM-2 Neumann for this] about 4-5 feet over the
front mic, aimed at the outer edges of the crash cymbals. I like an
SM-2 because I have to worry about the phase relationships of the two
mics less, but still worry about that relationship as it relates to
the 'FOK' [front of the kit] mic. Lately I抳e been using a Royer SF-12
in this application, and absolutely loving it. Big , clear, open, not
too brash, yet no shortage of high end "silk". Absolutely my first
choice these days.There's another I've done where I use two lg.
diaphragm condensers [like 47's] and spread them out. Like one in
front of each rack tom [on the side of the toms. When I do this one,
it seems that if all three mics are equidistant from 'ground zero' my
setup time is pretty well reduced. Don't forget mono one speaker, or
you may end up http://www.chinese-microphone.com/Drum-Microphones.html
wanting to drink Drano when it comes time to mix.Adding room mics is
often cool, it kinda depends on how you're tracking. I hate musicians
performing with headphones, so I like to get everyone set up in the
same area so they can hear themselves. Like the old record said...'Let
It Bleed'. The biggest problem with doing this is the bottom of the
bass bleeding into the FOK mic and causing the bottom of the bass to
get really smeary sounding. You may have to move the bass amp around
for a while until you can get clear audio and the drummer can still
hear and lock up with the bass player.Sometimes a small speaker like a
10" or a 12" done as a satellite speaker placed in the null of the
pickup pattern of the mics will work wonders getting the drummer to
lock with the bass player while you move the bass amp farther away
from the drum kit...gobos will often come in pretty handy too.I find I
get a lot of my guitar reverb/ambiance, at least on the basic track,
by moving the guitar amp so the little bit of bleed in the drum mics
makes it a cool ambiance for the guitars...but doesn't overpower the
drum kit.You will be surprised [I know I was] the first few times you
do these tricks how little bleed there actually is between
instruments. If there are two guitar players, I recommend setting them
up on opposite sides of the kit, that way you'll get a better stereo
picture when you disengage the mono button.So...room mics...now that
you have the whole band set up in a room...mic the room. You should
get a reasonable balance of all the instruments...it should sound like
a band in a room [fancy that!!]...the mono button is still in until
you're positive that you're not totally fucking up the clarity of the
bottom of the track.Need more snare you think [first of all, if you
really do, the drummers a pussy and should learn how to hit the
fuckin' things]...but in those applications...a Shure 57 aimed about a
foot off the side of the center of the shell of the snare drum usually
will add all you need without complicating the rest of the balance.A
few other notes...first, the drummer *must* be competent...second, the
kit should sound good, and be well tuned or you're screwed. There will
be damn little EQ that can be applied to any of this without totally
screwing up the whole picture, so it's gotta be right the first
time.You will also find that a large room, or at least a room with a
high ceiling comes in damn handy or this can start to sound boxy in a
hurry. I usually try to get soft things around the drum kit. I
actually carry an 8' high, 20' wide [in the back], and 10' long
[sides] that descend from 8' high in the back to 4' high in the front
soft [4" insulation, cloth covered] booth. Front gobos as needed,
usually just a gobo between the amps and the kit will work pretty well
at helping you control the bleed.This usually alleviates the bounce
and splatter that will be caused by reflections off of hard walls.
Depending on where you position the kit, these reflections [especially
on the cymbals] will come back to haunt you as "Haas effect"
shit...There are times when you're artist is going to need to play
loud. Often, this means that the other players won't be able to hear
the drummer when they're playing. This is when you really need a great
big room...because you go to the old phone book/Rolodex and call the
local SR company. Now, mic the kit as if it were a barroom, with those
mics only going to the SR speakers, the mics to the tape are still the
original mics you set up earlier. You can run the SR mics to the tape
if you want...most times I don't have enough desk to bother, sometimes
I'll just take an extra stereo feed off the SR desk, thought I find
it's the first
shit to go if I run out of overdub tracks, or perhaps I'll add a
little in and do a drum bounce if I need more tracks...Last one I did
like this, we used 4x EAW KF-852T & BH-852's a side [about enough
system to do a 1500 seater with some headroom]. I also use this system
if you're having the band play to loops. For larger acts that are
already using "in-ear" monitor stuff...you can bring their monitor
engineer along to set this kind of thing up [saves you beau coup
hassle], but rather than treating it like a headphone system [which it
actually is], I still try to maintain "gig"/stage levels.If you don't
need to get loud, then the musicians will usually balance themselves.
Scratch vocal? Yeah, sometimes they are needed aren't they...well, if
you're using an SR system, that's where it goes, if you have the 'ear
monitor' option...a little in there too...if they're playing
relatively quietly, like they don't need any of the SR stuff...often
the singer can just belt it out over the band, other times a little
guitar amp on a stool will work nicely [the mic being a hand-
held...record it just for shits and giggles, sometimes you even get on
the bonus plan and get a performance].At times, a floor monitor [like
at a bar gig] will work well...make sure you can EQ the monitor so the
little bit of bleed you get from the scratch vocal track can be used
as a vocal reverb when it's time to mix. Sometimes it's a way, way
cool thing to have the reverb of the scra http://www.chinese-microphone.com/Drum-Microphones.html
tch track be the main vocal reverb...not only are there always
performance variations, but if you're trying to place the singer in
the same room with the band...it works like a charm. Just like the
guitar and bass amps...you may need to move it around for balance.Most
of the time the singer will actually gravitate to the spot in the room
where the band's balance is best...sometimes using a stereo mic like
an SM-69 [or on the last one I just did...Guysonic's Mr. Liteguy
stereo head] at that spot works like a dream. With Mr. Liteguy, we got
a doo-rag on him, a pair of shades and a cigarette hanging out of his
mouth pretty quickly. We called him 'Curtis'...that way everyone
pretty much forgot he was hangin' around...he was just another dude on
the venue [that didn't cut in front of you on the dinner line...most
excellent of him].Tracking my basics like this I find I use fewer
effect overall...that the overdubs require fewer effects, and the
overall outcome is usually 'larger' sounding than when I do use a
bunch of effect. The downside is that you have less control over the
individual tones. You can't really do a lot of "muscling it around"
engineering. I know a lot of brothers feel it's their god given
purpose in life to move a whole shit load of knobs and stuff...so
these methods will often cause a whole bunch of stress as knobs become
less involved in the process...but you can use compressors to really
make the whole thing come alive...so there are some knobs that can be
turned.Other problems: if you're working with shitty musicians, there
is a bit less you can do to obscure the fact that they suck. Fixing
individual mistakes in the basics becomes more difficult depending on
the level of separation achieved, and how bad the clam is. This mostly
applies to bass players, but depending on how much guitar is in the
drum mics...and again, how bad the clam is...it can be a bitch. This,
from my experience, happens rarely.I've also found that more often
than not when someone makes a clam, it drags down the groove for a bar
or two. If they're performing to a loop, then you can often cut in
that section from another performance...if the drummer/band is really
tight, they might have even done multiple performances at the same
tempo...cutting takes together I guess is kind of an old school
thing...I still work analog, so this is relatively easy to accomplish
in my world...it's probably pretty workable if you're working to hard
disk as well...but might, as in probably, will be a bitch and a half
to deal with if you're using VCR's.Good luck...oh yeah...don't get
discouraged...the first half dozen or so times you fuck with this
stuff, it gets really overwhelming...practice on stuff that really
doesn't matter that much. The first time I gave myself over to 3 mics
on the drums, I was up all night the night before sweating it, puked
before I left the house, and wasn't sure if I wanted to continue with
th
e program all the way into the second day of the session.Once I got
past the anxiety and the 'everything I know is wrong' phase of the
mental part...it started to get easier.At this point I doubt I'll ever
go back to the "too many mics" thing...but it took a while to get
there. Another bonus...last project I recorded, I had three full
setups, 3 drum kits, 3 guitar rigs, 3 bass rigs all set up in
different environments, all coming up on a 40 input desk. All three
setups were bussed to identical tracks, and I used the automation
grouping to select which environment I was going to record. We had the
"Mainstage" [the one with the big PA] a http://www.chinese-microphone.com/Drum-Microphones.html
s group one, the "Memphis Room" [small amplifiers in a smaller, walled
off dead area] as group two, and the "Iggy Room" [big ass room what
was finished in barnboard with hard floors and a high ceiling...we
called it the Iggy room because the tone of the room reminded me of
'Lust for Life']...it was group 3.We also fed the loops off the main
recording console to each of the environments where they were
required. There were a couple of songs where I had "turn off the loop"
cues. These were either in like one bar breaks within the song, or to
let the band take the out of the song without the loop keeping
time.Being terminally lazy, muting the loops from the control room
became much easier. Now, another consideration... because there were
no headphones involved...I was monitoring the band off the machine in
repro...when I had a mute cue, I had to return the deck to 'input' or
I'd be tardy on the cue. Because the band wasn't monitoring off the
deck, I could switch back and forth at my leisure. We used the "loop
send lines" if the musician needed to monitor the track to do a fix
punch.We could try any of the songs in any of the environments simply
by selecting them with the automation group masters, and moving the
musicians to that room and having them play. I think it made the
record pretty interesting and diverse sounding, it also seemed to aid
in getting some pretty bitchin' performances from the musicians[which
after all is said and done, what this sport is really all about].Back
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