comb filtering showdown: Overheads vs. Close Mics

[DLChuckles]

yesterday I recorded some drums for some stupid blues ditty I slapped together. While I was getting the placement for the snare top, it occurred to me for the first time that I should see how each close mic was interacting with the overheads. I was pretty surprised by how thin it sounded when I unmuted the snare as the OHs were playing. After moving the mic around a few times with nothing else in mind other than getting it to sound fuller with the OHs (and with no success), I just flipped the phase and moved on as it almost fixed the problem. Next I moved onto toms and I found that each of my tom mics was helping to kill the overall sound of the snare. At that point I just said "F*** it" , quickly got sounds for the rest of the mics (ignoring their interrelationships) and started tracking. So a few questions...

1 How the hell did I not think to check for these phase issues before now (how did I not hear it, for that matter)?

2 Is there any method for getting close mics to be better in phase with the overheads? I'm assuming there isn't a whole lot that can be done since the distances are so different.

3 How much time do you guys normally spend worrying about this? I don't remember hearing this mentioned before, which I find weird since I feel like discovering this problem just made the time I'll be spending getting sounds a whole lot longer, which really sucks (though it will likely lead me to getting sounds I actually like, for once ) You'd think that something as seemingly time consuming as this would get some discussion time. maybe it's not as big a deal as I'm thinking now? Or maybe everyone just takes it for granted.

[paul999]

My drum setups tend to be pretty minimal which avoids a ton of phase issues. Often 6 or 7 mics on drums and I'm golden. With overheads about 3 feet over the drummers head I've never had phase issue's. If I start adding in a ton of room mics the story can change rapidly into getting a pretty small sound. If the individual mics are going to have samples used on them I don't even think about this. I've spent time dragging tracks around to align phase after recording. I'm not partial to the tone of it.

Can you post a clip soloing the over heads and then adding in a snare that phases on you?

[bozmillar]

The only thing keeping your close snare from not being phase aligned with your overheads is timing. You can easily fix this issue by just dragging the close mic track back a bit. You can see the wave form and it's pretty obvious when it matches up with the overheads.

This is one of those cases where your eyes are much more useful than your ears.

[DLChuckles]

Well now I feel stupid. Now that I listen to the tracks again I'm not hearing nearly as much thinning going on. almost none, in fact. Right now I'm listening on $40 (i think) sony on-ears, whereas I was using my ATH M50s while tracking. I definitely heard major thinning while I was getting the sounds. The problems are at a lower freq than these cans can produce well. let me go grab my M50s.

listening... just a second... aaaaaand done.

yup definitely hearing it again. I was thinking for a second that it might just be that I didn't like the sound coming from the close mic and it was overpowering the snare in the OHs. I think I've ruled that out as I level matched them and flipped the phase button on the snare a few time. With it set normally, there's too little low mid and with the phase flipped, there's too much, which seems to me to indicate that it is, in fact, a phasing problem.

You can hear for yourself in the attached file. The first four hits are just the overheads (which were in phase with each other, relative to the snare, btw), The next four are with the close mic and the last four are with the close mic phase flipped.

I'll screw around with track moving soon, but I feel like there's a more old fashioned way to do it and I'd like to know what that is. I'm not opposed to using the modern fix, but I don't want to be limited to it. I want to know all solutions.

[garageband]

Yeah, I f-in' hate that. I'm no drum tracking expert but I hate it. First and foremost: TUNE THAT THING. I'm hearing almost no snare action at all. I think the heads are way too tight. It's all "diihnkh" and nothing else. This ain't a mic or phase problem. That's what the drum sounds like. Make the drum sound better.

[Dahla]

Yeah, I f-in' hate that. I'm no drum tracking expert but I hate it. First and foremost: TUNE THAT THING. I'm hearing almost no snare action at all. I think the heads are way too tight. It's all "diihnkh" and nothing else. This ain't a mic or phase problem. That's what the drum sounds like. Make the drum sound better.

St. Anger syndrom?

[garageband]

St. Anger syndrom?

I'm allowed to hate a drum sound if I'm allowed to love another, right?

[Dahla]

I'm allowed to hate a drum sound if I'm allowed to love another, right?

Of course you are! St. Anger is not a compliment from a drummers point of view.

[DLChuckles]

Yeah, I f-in' hate that. I'm no drum tracking expert but I hate it. First and foremost: TUNE THAT THING. I'm hearing almost no snare action at all. I think the heads are way too tight. It's all "diihnkh" and nothing else. This ain't a mic or phase problem. That's what the drum sounds like. Make the drum sound better.

You don't have to tell me. I've looked up a dozen tuts on drum tuning and spent AT LEAST 9 hours trying to tune these new heads. This is the closest I've come to something I like. Tuning is it's own problem that I'll come back to as soon as I'm no longer so frustrated with it that I risk just stabbing holes in my heads in a fit of rage.

There's definitely some phasing happening and that's what I'm curious about at the moment. It's probably not nearly as big a deal as I'm thinking right now, but I guess that's what I'd like to get a consensus on.

[garageband]

You don't have to tell me. I've looked up a dozen tuts on drum tuning and spent AT LEAST 9 hours trying to tune these new heads. This is the closest I've come to something I like. Tuning is it's own problem that I'll come back to as soon as I'm no longer so frustrated with it that I risk just stabbing holes in my heads in a fit of rage.

There's definitely some phasing happening and that's what I'm curious about at the moment. It's probably not nearly as big a deal as I'm thinking right now, but I guess that's what I'd like to get a consensus on.

Been there, done this. I have a big metal snare that is ultra-squirrely in terms of tuning. Nothing makes you feel like a more incompetent idiot (an angry stick-throwing idiot, at that) that chasing the tuning of a drum around for an hour or so. Even better is when you get close to something you like and you make "just one more" small adjustment and it all goes out the window, sounds like poo and you can't even get it back to where it was before.

More hints on dealing with the slight phasing issue? Yes, please.