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Post by klauth on Apr 6, 2018 13:24:40 GMT -6
I know Steve Albini says 2 toms is the perfect # but, What's the max number of toms you'll double mic on a kit before, you start to see problems?
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Post by jeremygillespie on Apr 6, 2018 13:30:02 GMT -6
If I'm setting up to do a few songs that all have the same dynamics, each Tom gets 1 mic on top (or none depending on the material/musician)
If I'm setting up to track a group of songs that are all over the place dynamically, I'll put 2 mics on top with different preamp settings so I cover my bases. Easier for me to deal with a drummer switching between sticks and brushes or hands etc.
I'm not terribly interested in telling a drummer how many Toms they can have. If the drummer shows up with a kit that doesn't match the material, obviously somebody hasn't done their job before the session starts.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 6, 2018 14:53:17 GMT -6
I know Steve Albini says 2 toms is the perfect # but, What's the max number of toms you'll double mic on a kit before, you start to see problems? I've already given you the setup I currently use in that other thread, but back when I was using a more "conventional" setup I would generally use one mic per drum, given enough mics. If the toms had only 1 head I would generally mic inside from the bottom if possible, especially on large kits - it really cuts down on interference and cymbal bleed. Remember to reverse polarity. I favored Beyer M201s for that. On large, busy kits with cymbals down close over the toms (with two heads) I generally favored Sennheiser MD409 style mics because the flat package sneaks in snugly under the cymbal that the idiot drummer refuses to move out of the way. The current models would be the e906 and the budget e609. They're not like real 409s, though. I used to have to deal with a lot of very large kits back when I was working at a club that was the Northern California nexus for "The New Wave Of Heavy Metal" - bands like Testament, Exodus, Megadeth. BIG kits. |
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 6, 2018 15:20:42 GMT -6
I'm not terribly interested in telling a drummer how many Toms they can have. If the drummer shows up with a kit that doesn't match the material, obviously somebody hasn't done their job before the session starts. With a certain type of drummer the number of toms they can have (financially or whatever) is generally about two less than the number of toms they want! |
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 6, 2018 19:29:49 GMT -6
I know Steve Albini says 2 toms is the perfect # but, What's the max number of toms you'll double mic on a kit before, you start to see problems? What does he know?.....    |
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Post by klauth on Apr 6, 2018 22:02:59 GMT -6
I've often taken considerable time to experiment with the toms, as many as 10, at times. to me, toms ARE the drums. THEN, there is kik and snare. I've even got into the MAY micing system which, I got turned onto by Vinnie Paul. although, I was never a fan of his tom sounds. I started getting more into double micing the toms when I spent some time with Joe Barresi, I guess I've fallen into the joy of surfing the phase waves. I appreciate all your feed back.
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Post by Ward on Apr 8, 2018 8:03:23 GMT -6
I'll double-mic up to 4 toms. U89s or CAD179s on tops, 421s on bottoms. After that, high toms get top mics only
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Post by thehightenor on Apr 8, 2018 13:07:56 GMT -6
I've often taken considerable time to experiment with the toms, as many as 10, at times. to me, toms ARE the drums. THEN, there is kik and snare. I always say when I'm on the toms - I'm off the groove, so I tend to limit my fills. .... until I'm on my own playing to a Genesis song .... then toms ARE the drums :-) |
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Post by svart on Apr 9, 2018 10:25:29 GMT -6
Tuning and head choice make a much bigger impact for me than double micing. I used to do doubles for a while, but found that I liked single micing better with more focus on pre-production stuff like head choice.
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Post by schmalzy on Apr 9, 2018 14:55:51 GMT -6
I'm normally a top-only guy but I've got a session coming up where I'm going to have a couple extra inputs so I think I'm going to do some experimenting.
The drummer has two toms and plays a lot of groove on 'em. But, they're a hardcore-ish band so there's a lot of cymbal that gets bashed about during those grooves. I'm going to raise the cymbals as much as the drummer will let me and put a utility LDC on the bottom of each. We'll see what happens!
If I report back with some samples, it probably went better than expected! If not...
...shit.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,011 
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Post by ericn on Apr 11, 2018 9:15:19 GMT -6
In my time where I was mostly mixing others tracks I appreciated another Tom sound option but these were unfortunately the 3 most common situations
1 second set was dialed in to sund like first set making them utterly redundant!
2 they just didn’t work well with overheads because they were an afterthought.
3 The thought pattern was totally different tone than primary mics and each was chosen and set up for a completely different sound so yeah awesome Tom tones just sound nothing like a kit!
In mid level FOH Touring days it was very common to set 2 sets of Tom mics because hey you had at least 40 inputs, got to use them right? Here it’s about having a second drum sound by doing the mute dance rather than resetting A bunch of EQ or rack gear in seconds.
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Post by adamjbrass on Apr 11, 2018 12:02:44 GMT -6
josephson e22s', with the bottom flipped out of polarity, sounds like cannons
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Post by schmalzy on Apr 13, 2018 15:17:11 GMT -6
I'm normally a top-only guy but I've got a session coming up where I'm going to have a couple extra inputs so I think I'm going to do some experimenting. The drummer has two toms and plays a lot of groove on 'em. But, they're a hardcore-ish band so there's a lot of cymbal that gets bashed about during those grooves. I'm going to raise the cymbals as much as the drummer will let me and put a utility LDC on the bottom of each. We'll see what happens! If I report back with some samples, it probably went better than expected! If not... ...shit. Well, I ran out of inputs. We ended up with more musicians live than originally expected. It was for the better, though. Some good stuff happened in the tracks because of it! I'll take a musician adding extra love to their performance over a gravy mic any day of the week! |
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