Snare Drum Micing and Compression.

[engineroom]

Lately I have been using JUST a bottom 57 and I have been letting my overheads pick up any input from the top snare. I do tons of metal/hardcore stuff and it has been sounding great. Tons of that "crack" comes through the mix... great work on the samples!!!

[brandondrury]

Lately I have been using JUST a bottom 57 and I have been letting my overheads pick up any input from the top snare. I do tons of metal/hardcore stuff and it has been sounding great. Tons of that "crack" comes through the mix... great work on the samples!!!

This will work on certain "genres" of snares but not all of them. If the snares really rattle you'll end up with a damn mess for metal drums. However, I could see this working on the right drum.

Brandon

[eternalbard]

Actually I'm just using the top mic on the mix, a SM57 on top of a Tama Metalworks Snare with Evans Genera Dry. The sound is really enought and bottom mic is just getting more noise, nothing positive to the crack close snare mic... This snare is loud... brilliant it self... I think it´s my phase of no botton mic... But with the old Pearl Export snare that came with the drum kit, bottom mic + top mic was the thing.

BTW, if put a mic inside a tom... so the bottom of the tom is without the drumhead? What about the mic point to up, directly to cymbals, it don´t get many more cymbal sound than pointing to bottom like traditional mc placement, letting the cardiod form take care about cymbal reduction from behind? Ok there are a headdrum between the mic and cymbals when it´s inside a tom, but this headdrum can´t absorve do many considerable db from cymbals..

(Sorry for my english)

[brandondrury]

I've only done the mic inside the tom thing once. I didn't like it, but I should probably try it a few more times before I make my decision. It was a really dead sound.

As for the bleed, it certainly knocked the top off the cymbals, but they still got in there quite a bit.

It's my experience that when a drummer does his sound check, he has no problem crushing the toms to get plenty of attack out of them and to make them cut through a mix with plenty of volume and power.

The untrained drummer then either attemps to play overly complex parts or simply chooses to play their times without this same power in a real mix. In those cases, the bleed can get excessive. In other words, if the drummer wants his toms big he should play his toms big.

Brandon

[Bob Mack]

For my setup the best snare sound comes from stereo overhead mics.
These pick-up the entire kit and requires that the drummer control
the relative volume between the various drums and cymbals. The better the drummer the better the sound. High quality Tube mics work best ---
the cymbals are less shrill and and the snare has more snap with the tube
mic. As with any tracks a hi end mic pre and comp really help get the job done. The composite sound of the drums is most important. I do mic the
snare drum seperatly but this is mostly to add reverb and do some EQ
adjustment. A big advantage with this minimalistc approach is it keeps
the number of tracks down and far less risk of phase problems.
I am currently recording MS stereo--vintage Russian tube mic in cardoid
with an AKG 414 in fiq 8. Telefunken MS matrix. This is a new method for
me and the results are dramatically improving as I tweak the sound.
I have never tried ribbon mics, but I think they would be a great alternative choice for the fiq 8 mic. The Telefunken matrix handles X/Y and MS
stereo and seems to eliminate peak overloads. Compressor is optional
with the Matrix. Highly recommended-- even if you only use it for X/Y stereo.
Hard to find item--but truely a great studio tool.
B ob Mc

[brandondrury]

I am currently recording MS stereo--vintage Russian tube mic

What mic would that be? I'm intrigued!

Brandon

[challman]

Originally Posted by thesilentdrummer

Whenever you have two mics pointing at each other, or if they are pointing at the same source and are in close proximity to each other, the mics are said to be "out of phase". This means that if you look at the nice old sine waves for each of the clips, one wave is going up while the other is going down. This kinda "cancels out" the sound, making it thin and undesireable. But all you need to know ios that in your recording software, tjere should be a tool that says "Invert Phase" or "Invert Polarity" or soemthing like that. That will flip the phase.

Polarity and Phase are things that I barely understand, so hopefully someone can explain more about when you need to use it besides combinedtop and bottom snare micing.

Sorry, but I must correct this statement. 2 mics close to each other but pointing at the same side of the same sound source may be slightly out of phase but usually close enough that flipping phase won't help. In this case if you really want them in exactly the same phase you must nudge one track slightly. If you look at the waves from 2 different mics on the same source they always look slightly different because of transient response and positioning, and sometimes that is a good thing.

you always flip phase when you mic both ends of a drum because on the batter side when you hit it draws air away from the mic making a negative excursion. The one on the resonant side goes away toward the mic since it is being pushed by compressed air. This creates a positive excursion.

The taller the snare drum and higher pitched the further away from exactly 180 out they are. this is because of the speed of sound and the short wavelength of hi frequencies. It is possible to again nudge. But you will always be in phase at only certain frequencies.

and then you have phasing issues with other mics you are using for other drums, thus Gating to eliminate the drums not being recorded by a given mic.

This phasing issue is why many recording engineers like the minimalistic approach. IE 2 overheads equidistant from the snare positioned so they can pick up all the other drums and all cymbols in the right proportions, and one on the Kick. (which will never have as many real phasing problems unless you put a mic at least 8 feet away, or 1 on each side (cause of the wavelength being so long).

This minimalistic micing causes a problem however because you loose the ability to adjust levels on each drum independently, or to use effects independantly. But, properly placed, with a good kit and great drummer who is using a good set of isolation headphones, and knows what he wants it to sound like can really get some Kick Ass drum sounds

Phasing is the bane of a drum recorders existance....... and don't forget room phasing issues. you can't make up for a great room. It must be not dead but not too lively either...

I am kind of a scientific type and I cut my teeth recording drums. It is always a huge challenge.

[brandondrury]

don't forget room phasing issues

This is one that many home recorders over look. The early reflections can cause comb filtering as well and that becomes a fundamental part of the source if not dealt with.

Brandon