continuing in my series of recording
technique videos this is from my pro
drum recording techniques video one
thing concerning this is that people
talked about in the original video about
the overhead mics the type of overhead
mics now any overhead mics can work any
stereo pair can be condensers small
diaphragms these happen to be large
diaphragm tube condensers but you can
really use
anything and the mic placements will be
roughly about the same so here it is
on the overheads we have u47s as a
spaced pair they're pretty much equally
distant in height from the snare drum
the snare drum is close to being in the
center of the image but not exactly it's
pretty much
like it actually looks behind the drum
kit
on the kick drum the outer kick drum mic
is a wonder u-47 fat mic
and then the inside pointing slightly at
an angle to the head is a electro voice
re20 on the tops we have a single
sennheiser md 421
place just a couple inches above each of
the toms that's the rat tom let me come
around to the floor tom
as you can see they're just placed a
couple inches above
on the snare i'm using two
transformerless sm57s they've been
modified i got them at zen pro audio by
my good friend warren dent i like
transformerless 57s because they have a
little bit more bottom end this is
really
subtle stuff that people like me notice
but most people probably wouldn't notice
so you can use a regular 57. anyway so
the distance i'm going to go to this
video here
distance is about three finger widths
away from the snare on the top
and the same thing with the bottom mic
is about the same distance away
from the bottom head of the snare you
want to have the mics the same distance
away and you want to flip the polarity
on one or the other mic depending on
what they sound like in the overheads
before we go any further i want to talk
about the phase relationships between
the microphones because you have
microphones placed at different
distances from the drums and you have
all these open microphones
the time delay for example from the
snare to the overheads is different than
the time delay
of the snare to the kick drum because
you're going to get some bleed in these
microphones the microphone in front of
the kick is not only going to pick up
that but it's going to pick up the toms
it's going to pick up the snare
so all these relationships need to be
balanced let's head over the white board
for a really quick discussion on what
phase is to begin we need to actually
look at the components of a sound wave
so i drew out a sine wave here amplitude
is how far above or below the center
line is that's x-axis which is
time the peak of the
sound wave above the x-axis is called
the crest and the lowest point is called
the trough okay makes sense
okay so the amplitude is the distance
above or below the center line
and the frequency is the number of
cycles per second now to go one cycle
here for example from here to here
that's that that is wavelength it really
can be anywhere that is the wave
length
but you can measure it
only in
there we go
or you can go from here
to here
that is one complete
cycle through the waveform where it goes
above it below it and back to the
x-axis again the most important thing
you need to know about phase is when you
have a particular source like a kick
drum bass drum that has two mics on it
or a snare drum or a tom that those mics
are in phase with each other which
usually
involves flipping the polarity on one of
the mics and then the phase relationship
between those mics and the overheads
here's a little clip from a video i did
about two years ago on phase i do a
quick demonstration of what close miced
in and out of phase drums sound like
let's check it out okay i want to hear
the snare now
now i'm going to flip the phase on the
snare bottom
okay again
it's very obvious when the snare is out
of phase it sounds incredibly thin
next let's go into pro tools and see
what the waveforms look like when it's
in phase versus out of phase okay here's
the snare top
and this is the snare bottom see how
they're perfectly in phase
the crests are happening right at the
same time
you know this is once again this is time
time delayed a little bit because
you have the width of the snare
or the depth however you want to think
of it so it's going to be a few you know
it's going to be a few samples behind it
here if i had to look at it it's 12
samples behind that's how long it takes
for that
for it to get from one mic to the next
so
if i move to my
out of phase sample you're going to
notice once again that they are
perfectly out of phase here you have a
crest there you have a trough there
this waveform actually goes down as a
trough first because
it's moving away from the microphone
okay
and the air is moving towards the
microphone there
that is an out-of-phase snare let me
talk about the mic pres that we're using
for the drums we're using all these neve
style mic pres these are all bae two of
these are 1066s two or 1073s two or ten
32s which is a 1073 with an expanded mid
range that bae makes and i also have
these neve 1081s down here
the only other extra mic pre is a
is an electrodyne 501 that i'm using for
the hi-hat now i'm using the onboard eqs
here except for the kick out i'll talk
about that in a second so in the kick in
the only thing that's being taken out on
the eq is some 360 hertz that takes out
the boxiness
the kick out
is being routed over here to this
560 api uh graphic eq and i'm dumping
out 500 and 250 hertz to once again take
out the boxiness of it it's just gonna
give it a tighter sound and take out
some of the muddiness uh the snare top
is going through a neve 1066
snare bottom is going through the 1073.
on the on the snare top i'm adding some
7k which gives me the sound of the snare
wires
adding a little bit of 220 to give it a
little bit of bottom end on the snare
top
snare bottom the polarity is reversed so
it sounds like it's in phase with each
other the overheads which have the u47s
are going through these uh 1032s and
then the toms
are going through the neve 1081s they
have a little bit of eq on them taking
out a little bit of mid-range but we'll
talk about those when we get to them
next we're going to have jack play a
couple different beats now what i've
done is i've balanced all the mics
into a mix that sounds good to me so
i've taken it there's no eq there is no
compression nothing on the drums this is
the straight drum sound with the eqs
that i just talked about the couple
little things that i did
single mic toms double mic snare
double mic kick let's check it out
[Music]
all right let me play that same take now
i've got no effects on anything here
there's no nothing on the sends there's
no eq this is just the balance that i
came up with i'm gonna isolate the
individual instruments and show you what
they look like and what they sound like
soloed here we go
[Music]
let's look at the kick drum i'm going to
zoom in as you can see what the phase
looks like see how the two
humps are
in phase with each other here they go up
here they go down here
this one's a little bit behind now a lot
of people will drag these things over to
make them in phase like this
don't do that you don't need to do that
that's close enough there if it sounds
good it is good next i'm going to have
jack play a mid tempo groove let's check
it out
[Music]
let's check that groove out in pro tools
[Music]
they kick out really makes that kick
drum sound huge and puffy
[Music]
next we're gonna do a third groove at a
faster tempo let's check it out
[Music]
let's check that take out in pro tools
[Music]
you guys know from watching my videos i
like all different biking techniques i
just did a video on the glen john's four
mic or three mic technique
this is more of a modern drum recording
approach what we've been doing in this
video
now many times
you have the bass drum and snare drum
double mic'd i like to have on the snare
drum many times to have two mics on the
top of the snare one mic in the bottom i
guess triple mite i'll have a 57 along
with a small diaphragm condenser mic
here's a mic clip that actually holds
the two mics the sm57 and the akg 451 as
you can see the capsules are right next
to each other so the phase will be dead
on another thing i like to do is to
double mic the toms let me show you that
on the top of the tom i have an akg 414
facing the center of the drum and then
on the bottom of the tom
is a sennheiser md
421 about the same distance away
same thing
on the floor tom so on the top of the
floor tom
i have the akg 414
and on the bottom way down here
i have the
sennheiser
421
let's check that out
[Music]
let's check that take out in pro tools
i'll solo the top and bottom mics on the
tom so you can actually hear what they
sound like isolated
[Music]
let's just take a look at those toms by
themselves the top and bottom let's look
at the rack here
play this
solo it
here's with the top
when i add the bottom let me play the
bottom by itself
then together
if i zoom in you can see that they're
perfectly in phase with each other you
see here
perfectly lined up i mean that perfectly
i could move it but you don't want to do
that it's always going to be delayed a
little bit right just it's time
traveling here let me loop a single hit
and i'll turn the rack bottom on and off
here we go
[Music]
way bigger with that bottom end just
sounds much fuller with no eq or
anything let's do the floor time here
first of all let's look at the floor tom
zoom in once again
oops
so here we go let's look here
you can see they're perfectly in phase
with each other let's listen what that
sounds like
here's the
floor tom by itself
[Music]
it sounds good by itself here it is with
the floor bottom
here's the floor bottom by itself
see how much tone there is listen to the
single hit
let me loop it so you can hear your with
and without
[Music]
when i add that bottom mic in
yeah it does get louder but it gets
fatter you can hear the entire
roundness of the drum it sounds like the
drum
like you're hearing both sides because
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[Music]
you