Old 06-02-2014, 03:29 AM   #1
Stone21
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Default Blending overheads with room

Hi there,

Soon I'll be recording drums in a reasonably large, acoustically treated live room. I am looking for a roomy sound with a natural spread, with the drums panning 20-30% max left/right.

I want to use 2 AKG C414's for a Blumlein set-up for the room sound. I want this to be the main sound, so the drummer's play has to be very dynamic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vRl...tu.be&t=13m49s

In addition, Sennheiser MD421's will be used on the snare and toms, with a Shure Beta 52a on the kick. Maybe these will not be needed in the end.

What would be a good overhead set-up to blend with the room sound? Two Schoeps MK4's in an ORTF set-up sound very natural to me, although I do not know how they will blend with the room sound.
http://recordinghacks.com/2010/04/03...ue-comparison/

Has anyone got experience combining Blumlein room with ORTF overheads (or maybe some other combination)? Examples with recordings would be great.


Thanks for reading, greets.
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Old 06-02-2014, 08:02 PM   #2
yep
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stone21 View Post
Hi there,

Soon I'll be recording drums in a reasonably large, acoustically treated live room. I am looking for a roomy sound with a natural spread, with the drums panning 20-30% max left/right.

I want to use 2 AKG C414's for a Blumlein set-up for the room sound. I want this to be the main sound, so the drummer's play has to be very dynamic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vRl...tu.be&t=13m49s

In addition, Sennheiser MD421's will be used on the snare and toms, with a Shure Beta 52a on the kick. Maybe these will not be needed in the end.

What would be a good overhead set-up to blend with the room sound? Two Schoeps MK4's in an ORTF set-up sound very natural to me, although I do not know how they will blend with the room sound.
http://recordinghacks.com/2010/04/03...ue-comparison/

Has anyone got experience combining Blumlein room with ORTF overheads (or maybe some other combination)? Examples with recordings would be great.


Thanks for reading, greets.
I think you might be over-thinking this.

Unless you have an unlimited budget, the best way to approach drums is to pick one of two approaches:

1. Room sound "plus", or;
2. Close-sound "plus"

The better your room and kit sounds, the more you should generally lean towards (1). The worse your room/kit sounds, the more you should focus on (2) for individual control.

In either case, phase-coherence is most important consideration, after basic kit-sound.

If you can set up two mics in a room, and get a good basic drum sound, that's what you want to work from. It doesn't much matter whether those mics are in front of, behind, or above the drums. The idea is to get the first two mics more or less sounding the way you want the kit to sound. Everything else is there for additional control.

To put this more bluntly, why do you want both room mics and overhead mics? Why not floor mics, or a behind-the-drummer dummy-head mic, or over-the shoulder mics? God knows some people do all of these, plus top-and-bottom mics on every kit piece, and triggers, and so on. If you have the budget to spend a week miking drums, more power to you.

But every mic you add, especially with distance-mics like OHs and room-mics, is going to add more mush and phase-smeary stuff, and dilute the tight, natural, focused sound of the blumein pair in the video you linked. That guy had a great drum-sound, and adding a pair of OHs would be very difficult without smooshing/phasing the sound.

I'll never object to spot-mics on the kick and snare, but why start with the presumption that you need more than one pair of kit-mics? Neither your drummer nor her audience hears the sound from above the kit, so why do you need overheads? OHs are a live-sound technique that has filtered into studio use to enable greater control over cymbal volume and artificial reverb in dead drum-rooms, or to isolate in "band in a room" recording scenarios. If your kit and room sound the way you want, why do you need OHs?

My advice is to set up the blumein pair, and then see how it sounds. Add spot-mics to the kick and snare for more control. If you need more cymbal-detail, try moving the blumein pair: one of the cool things is that doesn't have to be centered, if you want more ride, you can shift the whole thing to the side, and nobody cares, it will still sound centered as long as it focuses on the kick/snare.

Add mics if you need to, as time and budget allows (including OHs, if necessary). But the fewer mics you use, the better your "kit in a room" will sound, and the fewer headaches you will have come mixdown. Most people who spend weeks setting up and phase-aligning a hundred drum-mics do so just because they can, and mostly end up using only a small number of them on any given song.
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Old 06-03-2014, 07:42 AM   #3
Stone21
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Thanks a lot for your insightful response.

After reading, I cannot think of a reason I would want to combine overheads with the main room sound. I guess I am so used to setting them up, I forgot I can simply discard them when using this room approach.

I definitely like to use as few mics as possible, exactly for reasons you described. I will add close mics and see which of those are actually useful in the mix.
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Old 06-03-2014, 10:07 AM   #4
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I love it when yep chimes in. Very knowledgable and he always makes sense in a very clear manner.
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Old 06-03-2014, 03:03 PM   #5
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He is like Yoda without the speech impediment.
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