All language subtitles for Recording Drums, Part I Overhead Mic Placements Compared

hi this is Justin with sonic scoop today

we're going deep into drum miking

fundamentals this time we'll be looking

at over Hamlet how to place them and

what each of the main method sounds like

we're here at strange weather recording

we've got some great mics from our

sponsors and Sennheiser and really

killer drummer Parker kindred behind the

kit alright let's get started

all right so we're going to start by

looking at X Y and O RTF - kind of

similar positions where the mics are

going to stay fairly close together the

idea about keeping your mics fairly

close together see it phase coherence so

XY you want to line up your capsules so

they're pretty much touching ideally

they'd occupy the same space in the air

but they can't so you want your capsules

pretty much touching at a 90 degree

angle almost like corner of a rectangle

that's XY a lot of focus decent stereo

spread the next pattern we're going to

look at after that is ort f + 4 o our TF

the mics are actually about six and a

half inches apart at the capsule so you

can measure the capsule pointing

outwards by about a hundred and ten

degrees and this gives us a little bit

of a wider stereo spread stereo Bar can

make that pretty easy both of the mics

can sit on the stereo bar and they're

usually markings that allow you to

figure out just how far you can move

your mics to get the distance you can

get a ruler which is what we're going to

do today or you can kind of eyeball it

if you don't have a stereo bar again XY

pretty easy or TF you can kind of line

up the back of the mics 90 degrees then

just cheat them out a little bit to 110

get some extra distance and you're

pretty much there a common approach for

XY o RTF is to come in like this but you

could plausibly come behind the

drummer's head if you were to do that

you might get a little bit less cymbal

sound a little bit more of the skins and

resonance of the drum and that can be

good if you have a real basher

on the symbols which when you're

starting out you'll deal with a lot of

symbol bashers only issue if you're

coming from this angle you might get a

lot more bleed from the rest of the band

if your tracking group together what

we're going to do is start with XY from

a front of Kate position and then move

into our ort f1 last disclaimer I want

to add the difference between the two

takes you're going to hear could be

almost as significant as the difference

between these two mic placements they

really are pretty similar so make sure

you're listening on good pair of

headphones or good set of speakers and

you might want to go ahead and put this

in high definition if you're watching in

YouTube over on the bottom right-hand

side of your screen you can set this

video to HD so you can make sure you're

going to hear the differences all right

let's go

the next two overhead patterns we're

going to look at our space pair and

Glenn Jones if you want to get more

spread more spaciousness space pair for

a space pair technique you're spacing

them out left and right over the kit

there's a million different approaches

to space pair the way that I'm going to

do it now is my kind of default approach

but some people will spay some kind of

close together pointing outwards I tend

to like to go pretty wide because for me

half the point of space pair is to get

kind of exaggerated stereo spread that

kind of sound is not going to be right

for every record but in records where it

does work it really works if you want

spread in your cymbals if you want some

kind of spread in your Tom fills a space

pair can really help accent that the

biggest thing for me though is centering

the kick drum now you might say Justin

if you said hit a kick drum the snare

drum is going to be off to one side to

which I say your point uh that's kind of

how the kit sounds and I don't mind it

if you want to Center your snare and

have your kick off center that's your

prerogative some people prefer it that

way

that's fine there's really no right and

wrong way with space pair other than

watch out for phase meaning if you're

too far away and too close together

higher likelihood of phase issues on any

one piece of the kit if you're further

apart lower down less likelihood of

phase issues on any one piece of the kit

especially pieces that are centered in

between the two mics another good method

is Glyn John's and Glyn John's is a nice

compromise between the space pair which

can get you a lot of spread for some

people too much spring and those more

focused biking options for Glyn John's

you're going to put a microphone

directly over the snare drum maybe three

to four feet up your second microphone

looks in over the shoulder of the tom

drum towards the heavier snare here's

the big catch

it wants to be exactly equal distant

from your top mic there's a couple ways

to do this you can again get a tape

measure a lot of folks don't have a tape

measure in the studio it's never carry

one but you can take a microphone cable

mark off the distance and check the

distance to your Tom mic with just those

two mics and kick and snare you're

pretty good shape got the whole kit

covered lot of records have been made

with just those four mics let's hear how

these two send

who is to say you need to overhead mics

at all we're going to try one overhead a

lot of great records have been made this

way in the past and now it's a really

classic approach this is annoy Minh m269

kind of like annoy Minh u67 we've got an

ointment FET 47 out in front of the kick

right now these are some pretty nice

vintage mics from strange weather but

you can get newer versions of these

kinds of mics distributing the US now

through San Howser let's hear what this

sounds like

thanks for tuning in to this episode on

overhead mics stay tuned for the next

episodes on closed miking Andrew miking

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thanks see you next time