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Post by jamiesego on Apr 5, 2018 15:12:50 GMT -6
I'm a big fan of older recording and simple mic setups for sure but I also think some people capture great sounds with complex mic setups. I'm consistently impressed with the sounds on the Shaking Through web series. They use three overheads nearly every time. A Coles 4038 in the middle and Telefunken 260's on the sides.
Also from talking to people here in town who spoke to Rick Hall about recording I think his approach was something like "Just one up top and one on the bottom. It doesn't matter. The drummer is just there to keep time."
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 5, 2018 15:42:16 GMT -6
Ok - let’s keep it on target and talk about the subject at hand. You can schedule your own personal circle jerk for personal attacks. I’m actually mixing some tracks that had a “ride” mic along with OH. My immediate reaction was “great more phasey cymbal noise”. But I actually found it really useful in a track where the ride and Bell were pretty prominent. Strangely, the OHs didn’t seem to have a ton of cymbal...just something I haven’t run into. It’s probably more to do with the style I Mix most often, but I rarely use much if any room, mono room, hall, crouch, saddle - you name it. I’m these dense (less creative) mixes, there’s just not a lot of room for - well - room. Occasionally a spot mic on a cymbal can be useful, depending on context. In my experience such spot mics are less likely to cause phase problems.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 5, 2018 15:47:57 GMT -6
I'm a big fan of older recording and simple mic setups for sure but I also think some people capture great sounds with complex mic setups. I'm consistently impressed with the sounds on the Shaking Through web series. They use three overheads nearly every time. A Coles 4038 in the middle and Telefunken 260's on the sides. Also from talking to people here in town who spoke to Rick Hall about recording I think his approach was something like "Just one up top and one on the bottom. It doesn't matter. The drummer is just there to keep time." Im tempted to post a story about complex drum mic setups, accepting things as "the way it's done" just because a name person does it, and how it can be a really long time before the real lesson of a particular situation sinks in and the lightbulb comes on, but right now I'm getting a soreness in the right wrist that might be incipient carpal tunnel and I don't want to aggravatye it more than necessary. Maybe in a day or two.
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Post by jamiesego on Apr 5, 2018 20:32:56 GMT -6
My point is that there's plenty of room for both ways. Only the results matter. I record mono drums with minimal mics very frequently but I also wouldn't be scared to put up more than two overheads. I totally respect people like Weathervane or Steve Albini as well as the Glyn Johns or "Muscle Shoals" approach. Things would be boring if everyone did things the same way.
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Post by jeremygillespie on Apr 5, 2018 20:37:57 GMT -6
I have fun with big mic setups and limited ones.
One of my favorite sounds was 2 ribbon mics in a room plugged right into a Ba6a and a Gates SA-39
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Post by gouge on Apr 5, 2018 21:12:50 GMT -6
My point is that there's plenty of room for both ways. Only the results matter. I record mono drums with minimal mics very frequently but I also wouldn't be scared to put up more than two overheads. I totally respect people like Weathervane or Steve Albini as well as the Glyn Johns or "Muscle Shoals" approach. Things would be boring if everyone did things the same way. agree completely. it's silly to say anything different.
you do what's needed to get the job and outcome done.
personally i'll use anything from one mic to 14 mics depending on what the session needs. sometimes that will include multiple overhead mics with room mics and some times it's an Omni overhead and an sm57 on kick beater or glyn johns.
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Post by drumhead57 on Apr 5, 2018 22:02:25 GMT -6
I've used two overhead mics in a spaced pair and then an AEA R88 overhead center, slightly out front, but close in. Makes for a great sound.
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Post by gouge on Apr 6, 2018 2:13:04 GMT -6
I've used two overhead mics in a spaced pair and then an AEA R88 overhead center, slightly out front, but close in. Makes for a great sound. When I do 3 mics it reminds me of some of fugazi's work.
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Post by jazznoise on Apr 6, 2018 4:58:21 GMT -6
I've used two overhead mics in a spaced pair and then an AEA R88 overhead center, slightly out front, but close in. Makes for a great sound. When I do 3 mics it reminds me of some of fugazi's work. I'd actually love to know how they did the drums on Red Medicine. Big fan of the sound of that record. RE: Multiple overheads. I guess it makes sense if the stereo pair is more of a spot for the cymbals. I don't tend to find my overheads phase with my close mics, but then they're usually about 5-6 feet away from the snare. 4 if I'm going for something more dry. My 'center mic' would almost always be from a front of kit perspective - these days placed at the far side from the hi hat facing at the kick/snare line.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Apr 19, 2018 16:05:32 GMT -6
It's not a matter of "figuring it out", it's a matter of reluctance to give it away. Hey, if you really want to hear some of it, you can BUY my first album - it's on CD Baby and distributed by Tunecore, so it should be available on a whole bunch of sites, including ITunes. Not everything on that album is representative of what I've been talking about here though, as I started using Weedy's drum technique about halfway through it and didn't get my mic set down completely until it had been released. Also the band (and studio) on that release was a work in progress and doesn't totally represent the sound I was after. Some of the songs on that were tracked by a guy I was working with using "conventional " (That's the way it's done! I'M a professional studio engineer!) mic technique and we really had to jump through hoops come mix time to get something approaching a decent drum sound (after firing him as both tracking engineer and bassist.*) Well, it looks like you're first album is on your YouTube channel (provided by Tunecore). Which track would you recommend checking out? www.youtube.com/channel/UCvx0_cEnP0FfICovkpfSgfA/videos?disable_polymer=1Any recommended listening here? I guess you missed this one...
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 23, 2018 13:52:45 GMT -6
Any recommended listening here? I guess you missed this one... First off, you're not going to hear much there that has anything to do with what I've been talking about here concerning drums. I have mixed feelings about that one. It was something of a work in progress (both in terms of the band and the studio, which were constantly evolving throughout the 3 or 4 years it took to get the album done.) and a lot of the things I've talked about here are not used on much of that album. Tracking on about half the tunes was done by a person who got fired half way through and I frankly don't remember which tracks were done by whom. There's a lot of stuff on there that fell into the category of damage control. I guess I'd recommend Crazy Road Blues, Heart of Stone, G Blues, and maybe Drunkard's Lullaby. Honky Tonk Man isn't too bad - it's a lot closer to the Johnny Horton original than the Dwight Yoakam cover. Heart of Stone has no drums on it at all, just percussion. It's a pretty drastic rearrangement of a tune by Jack Casady's punk band SVT that I kept hearing as a country ballad but I couldn't get the other guys in the band to play it like I heard it in my head. Finally my lead guitarist (Bob Clic) and I sat down and did the whole thing by ourselves and then, much later, after the band had acquired a real steel player had him come in and dub steel on it in place of Bob's lap slide. After we got it out neither Bob nor I could really listen to it for maybe a year and a half. I put it out on Tunecore at the urging of Bob's son after we moved up to Fairfield and had nothing going on, despite the fact that we both think it's not nearly as good as the new one, which will be out as soon as I get the cover art done and get CDs pressed for shows. Over the last month or two I've started listening to it again a bit and concluded that maybe it wasn't QUITE as bad as we'd been thinking when we were totally sick of it after struggling with it for all that time. Wait a minute - Tunecore got me my own Youtube channel?
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Post by Johnkenn on Apr 23, 2018 18:18:06 GMT -6
OK - back on topic. You guys can take that conversation to the parking lot.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 23, 2018 19:27:24 GMT -6
OK - back on topic. You guys can take that conversation to the parking lot. Be glad to - where's the parking lot?
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Post by forgotteng on Apr 29, 2018 18:52:40 GMT -6
I used to always do stereo overheads until recently I was questioning whether I liked the wide image and amount of real estate the stereo overheads took up. About that time I saw that Vance Powell clip where he talked about why he used mono overheads. It clicked for me and I went back to mono. I have a Rode K2 that does the trick for me.
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