One of my favorite drum mic techniques

Jay Barracato said:
I have been meaning to get a pr31bw for exactly this technique. I think it should work great. I have also done this with an ev re320 or nd468 as dynamics.

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I am trying it right now on a 13 piece big band. I decided to use the PR31BW.
It is working great. I aimed it a little to the space between the snare and the floor Tom.
I used a second mic on the hat as I usually need to balance it for these sorts of gigs (swing dance). Next time I will use a shorter stand so it shows less :-)



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Re: One of my favorite drum mic techniques

Rob Spence said:
I am trying it right now on a 13 piece big band. I decided to use the PR31BW.
It is working great. I aimed it a little to the space between the snare and the floor Tom.
I used a second mic on the hat as I usually need to balance it for these sorts of gigs (swing dance). Next time I will use a shorter stand so it shows less :-)

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You can also try an omni dynamic placed by the drummers right knee.
 
Re: One of my favorite drum mic techniques

Jay Barracato said:
I work with a jazz trained drummer in a rock setting. He wants his kit to sound like a single instrument and rarely needs any drum at all in monitors. I am not fond of gated drums anyways. So here is how I usually mic his kit. This is simply using the principle of "loudest source at the mic wins" and the pattern of the mic to get an even sound that matches what he hears when playing. On a larger stage, I will also add a single overhead.
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Nice stuff Jay.
I have not messed much with this live (a "natural" picture of the drum sound is not usually suitable for the types of gigs I am doing), but in the studio I sometimes like to do something similar (although using an SM27 condenser a little closer to the bass drum), give it a healthy LF boost, compress it heavily, and then blend it in with the rest of the kit mics. It adds a flavor that is really nice, and IMHO can really take the drum mix to the next level.

Here is an example of this being done: Into The Lair #56 - Tracking Drums with Greg Wells and Ian MacGregor [FULL] - YouTube

In the clip, this is discussed at about 8mins, but then jump to 14mins where Greg starts talking about using this in more detail.
 
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Re: One of my favorite drum mic techniques

Since the SM27 took over from the KSM27, I picked up a pair and have been using them quite a bit on drums. It's not the answer for everything, but they work really really well when I place them close in, under the cymbals and pointed towards the drummer (I've been using Mic Claw mounts attached to the cymbal stands to get the positioning I want, which has worked perfectly too. I do use a sennheiser e902 for kick, but the rest of the kit sounds great with just the two mics.

Obviously, you've gotta have the right drummer, with a reasonably small kit, which must be properly tuned etc etc etc. A rock/blues band I've been working with a lot recently has loved the sound both live and recorded that we get with this setup for their Jazzy (Mitch Mitchell) style drummer. The recorded sound I've been getting with these has honestly blown me away. I'll dig up some photos and maybe a sound clip or two to post here from the most recent studio session... I've got them on a drive or SD card around here somewhere!
 
Steve Milner said:
Since the SM27 took over from the KSM27, I picked up a pair and have been using them quite a bit on drums. It's not the answer for everything, but they work really really well when I place them close in, under the cymbals and pointed towards the drummer (I've been using Mic Claw mounts attached to the cymbal stands to get the positioning I want, which has worked perfectly too. I do use a sennheiser e902 for kick, but the rest of the kit sounds great with just the two mics.

Obviously, you've gotta have the right drummer, with a reasonably small kit, which must be properly tuned etc etc etc. A rock/blues band I've been working with a lot recently has loved the sound both live and recorded that we get with this setup for their Jazzy (Mitch Mitchell) style drummer. The recorded sound I've been getting with these has honestly blown me away. I'll dig up some photos and maybe a sound clip or two to post here from the most recent studio session... I've got them on a drive or SD card around here somewhere!
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Steve,

Sounds like you are on the same path as me. Must be a D.C. thing.

I have added the kick mic on occasion but I found that too much was getting an unnatural sound and I wasn't including as much in the mix. Once again this is for a live band using wedges so a big part of my choice of placement is rejecting the wedges which is why I think this trumps any placement with the mic facing forward.

Although I did try taping the mic elements of a pair is at pro35's to a beanie cap. But i couldn't convince any of the drummers to wear it while playing .
 
Jay Barracato said:
Sounds like you are on the same path as me. Must be a D.C. thing.
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Not necessarily a DC thing. I used the underhead setup on tour last summer (band was from TX) and although the rest of the kit was close mic'd as well and everybody was on IEMs, it reduced setup time and allowed me to single out the ride and main crash on the kit (time and punctuation, respectively). I had used a similar approach years ago, but as a MON engineer with IEMs, it allowed me to be a little more surgical with the "cymbal wash" in the ears.

To me, the proximity of the mics to the cymbals made and improvement in an IEM situation vs a standard OH setup. I have not yet used the VP88/single OH model, but I suspect for IEM use it would respond similarly to standard OHs due to distance alone.
 
Brian Bolly said:
Not necessarily a DC thing. I used the underhead setup on tour last summer (band was from TX) and although the rest of the kit was close mic'd as well and everybody was on IEMs, it reduced setup time and allowed me to single out the ride and main crash on the kit (time and punctuation, respectively). I had used a similar approach years ago, but as a MON engineer with IEMs, it allowed me to be a little more surgical with the "cymbal wash" in the ears.

To me, the proximity of the mics to the cymbals made and improvement in an IEM situation vs a standard OH setup. I have not yet used the VP88/single OH model, but I suspect for IEM use it would respond similarly to standard OHs due to distance alone.
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I just picked up a pair of atm450's to use as "under heads".

Brian, you have played with the guitarist and bassist (Forte and Mitchell).
 
Jay Barracato said:
Steve,

Sounds like you are on the same path as me. Must be a D.C. thing.

I have added the kick mic on occasion but I found that too much was getting an unnatural sound and I wasn't including as much in the mix. Once again this is for a live band using wedges so a big part of my choice of placement is rejecting the wedges which is why I think this trumps any placement with the mic facing forward.

Although I did try taping the mic elements of a pair is at pro35's to a beanie cap. But i couldn't convince any of the drummers to wear it while playing .
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Jay,
If DC is held responsible for better drum micing techniques, I won't argue that at all!
I think Brian nailed it though with his comments about distance w/ overheads. I see so many guys cranking overhead mics way up over the drummer... I personally find that placement to be mostly useless in a live band situation, on all but the largest of stages. I'm not looking for complete isolation of my sources, but choosing a mic & placement that gives me a reasonable amount of separation, using the mics pickup pattern to your advantage, really makes a huge difference for me.
 
Re: One of my favorite drum mic techniques

Steve Milner said:
Jay,
If DC is held responsible for better drum micing techniques, I won't argue that at all!
I think Brian nailed it though with his comments about distance w/ overheads. I see so many guys cranking overhead mics way up over the drummer... I personally find that placement to be mostly useless in a live band situation, on all but the largest of stages. I'm not looking for complete isolation of my sources, but choosing a mic & placement that gives me a reasonable amount of separation, using the mics pickup pattern to your advantage, really makes a huge difference for me.
Click to expand...

Understanding patterns of the mics you use is definitely a key point when trying new techniques or working with instruments you have never seen before.

And if you can't get rid of bleed, use it to your advantage.
 
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