i am wondering how to get that really nice, crisp sound from the overhead mics when you mix? i am curious if you guys use strip silence on your over heads? also what do you use to eleminate all the bleed from the other instruments? i know compression will bring out the hi hats alot. no verb.
overheads? what do you do with them to get that sound
- Thread starter ZPDRUMMER
- Start date
Sinister Mephisto
1337
- Sep 20, 2005
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good cymbals played by a good player and recorded with some nice mics(km184's for example) in a decent room. yeah and cutting all below 500hz helps too.
egan.
daylightdies.com
Seizure.
Member
i typically have them roughly 7 feet off the ground, and 3 feet apart....give or take a shade. And I try to center them between the snare the best I can.
Then HPfilter.....
align snare with overheads....
done!
Then HPfilter.....
align snare with overheads....
done!
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
As everyone has mentioned, it's about getting things right in the tracking stage. Bad OHs are notoriously hard to fix afterwards. Good cymbals are a must, with good mics in a decent room (doesn't need to be a great room, just can't be live like a concrete basement, otherwise the image will wash everywhere). After that it's usually just a matter of high passing to taste, cutting some mids if you don't like what they're doing to your direct drum tracks, perhaps limiting the snare pops and then brightening them up a little bit to add shimmer. Also, a healthy dose of compression helps, which brings me to a question... what sort of settings do you guys normally use to compress cymbals? I think I've tried everything from 10ms attack 300m release to 30ms attack, 100ms release but I can't settle on anything. Current mix I'm doing is along the lines of 15ms attack and 155ms release, for a pumping rock sound.
jesterroot4
Member
ahh i hate OH's.. i havent been able to play around with them much. on the chances i'v had, i've just gone with the whole OH's being three drumsticks away from the center of the snare and just making sure that the panning on the kit will work with them. making sure the snare in in the middle of them and toms accordingly etc..
I use an exciter on OHs, adding harmonics in the plus 12k range. Tends to change tin to a shimmer. I also compress, and I personally don't put a high pass filter on, I like the OHs to pick up the majority of the kit, including the kick.
But yeah, pay attention to all the advice in this thread. Also, make sure the drum kit is tuned well, and it's very important to check phase. Throw a phase meter on the master output in your DAW, or flip between stereo and mono when you're monitoring, if there is a huge loss in depth, then there is phase cancellation going on. Even the slightest adjustment in mic placement can heal any phase problems. Or, make them worse.
Hmm, but yeah, good drums, good drummer, good room = good recordings, even with "bad" recording gear.
But yeah, pay attention to all the advice in this thread. Also, make sure the drum kit is tuned well, and it's very important to check phase. Throw a phase meter on the master output in your DAW, or flip between stereo and mono when you're monitoring, if there is a huge loss in depth, then there is phase cancellation going on. Even the slightest adjustment in mic placement can heal any phase problems. Or, make them worse.
Hmm, but yeah, good drums, good drummer, good room = good recordings, even with "bad" recording gear.
egan.
daylightdies.com
I try to mic pretty close to cymbals-- generally two cymbals per mic as close as I can get and still capture both while minimizing bleed and not getting that weird phasing thing you get when you are too close to the cymbal. Lately I've been doing the close mics from underneath b/c the drum shells themselves actually block most of the high end bleed from the drums. I mic the ride underneath close to the bell. Then I do a pair of 'regular' OH's wide and high to capture the whole kit. So maybe 7 mics on cymbals once all is said and done. It is kind of excessive. Honestly IMO for modern sounds I think the close mics are the best b/c they are super clean and you can pan them wherever you want. Always check for HH bleed b/c it can really muck up your tracks.
Sloan
Sounds like shit!
If your just using two overheads, the most important things I think is to just get that snare centered.
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
Bad idea for metal. Seriously. For a more "Rock & Roll" type mix, I agree with you, but for the heavy-as-fuck stuff, you're just asking for trouble.
Ok, thanks. Though, I am curious as to why? The session I am referring to is a progressive rock/metal type band, similar to Isis in a lot of ways. So, for these mixes it hasn't presented any problems, unless I am just not hearing them?
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
Because you've got massive low end frequency buildup from the guitars & bass. There simply isn't enough room. Try rolling off your OH at 600hz & watch how it cleans up your mix. (Andy's idea, not mine. Trying to give credit where credit is due.)
Does anybody ever use omni-directional mics for their overheads. I have a pair of CAD e70 condensers and you can switch between cardioid and omni. I've been using the cardioid setting for a while now, but I am curious about messing with the alternative. Does anybody have any experience with or thoughts about cardioid vs. omni for overheads?
Andy Sneap
Metal Guru
ohs are one of the toughest things to get right. Room, make of cymbals, mics and player all combined make such a huge difference. I tend to go about 2 - 2.5 foot above the cymbal, towards the outer edge, probably 2 cymbals per mic, trying to avoid the main hat. I'm liking KM184's alot and will filter 500 - 600 out. Compression....depends on this, I'll limit it a little if the snare is in there alot but I'm careful as I don't want the Hi Hats creeping up. It's always a struggle tho.
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
Cheers Andy. You put up similar thoughts years ago (I think I read it on ilovemetal.co.uk) and it really helped me out when I first started recording drumkits. Aiming the mics towards the outer edges and trying to get the cymbals in pairs really seems to work.
My main beef even now is how high to highpass. In clinical metal productions 600Hz has always been great... but I've been doing a lot of rock stuff lately and I can't help but feel it's overkill. Last mix I went up to about 300 or 350 but found I needed to scoop out some mids after because the OHs were retarding the sound of the snare.
My main beef even now is how high to highpass. In clinical metal productions 600Hz has always been great... but I've been doing a lot of rock stuff lately and I can't help but feel it's overkill. Last mix I went up to about 300 or 350 but found I needed to scoop out some mids after because the OHs were retarding the sound of the snare.
schust
Member
i started recording drums about a year ago. one of the many sources i used for info on how to do it right was Oz's sticky here. in that thread there's a fair amount of discussion at one pt about X-Y vs SPACED PAIR, and it was decided SPACED PAIR won hands-down (due to the separation and just general great sound for metal). i started out using it, but due to phase issues on a few sessions, and just general curiousity, i decided to try the X-Y on the last one. seemed easier and a little more "phase-proof". well, after listening to the recording countless times since then - it's extremely obvious now that SPACED PAIR is indeed light years better. it's everything everyone else has said, but also something else i can't pin down. it's just simply better sounding all the way around. i'm sure there are times when X-Y is usable, but not here. not for me.
i for the longest time did roll-off on the OHs below a reasonable spot (300-600) - but while messing around one afternoon with a mix - decided to roll-off at ~100 and dip in the middle. i was pleastantly surprised how much low-end came back into the mix, especially around the toms. i trigger/sample everything close mic'd on my kit, so i think that's a factor when making this decision. my room, and kit, unfortunately are less than stellar. after reading this post last night - i did take one tune that has notoriously been nasty in the low-end and rolled off again at 600. it did clean things up nicely, but almost too much imo. if left the samples sounding, well, like samples. maybe i'm just not use to a clean mix... totally possible..
i for the longest time did roll-off on the OHs below a reasonable spot (300-600) - but while messing around one afternoon with a mix - decided to roll-off at ~100 and dip in the middle. i was pleastantly surprised how much low-end came back into the mix, especially around the toms. i trigger/sample everything close mic'd on my kit, so i think that's a factor when making this decision. my room, and kit, unfortunately are less than stellar. after reading this post last night - i did take one tune that has notoriously been nasty in the low-end and rolled off again at 600. it did clean things up nicely, but almost too much imo. if left the samples sounding, well, like samples. maybe i'm just not use to a clean mix... totally possible..
