Drum panning

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

1 overhead above the snare and the other equidistant but placed just over the floor tom pointed at the snare?

 

Basically... although "above the snare" is a general description - it can be moved out a little towards the rack tom, or over towards the hat a bit if needed. Same with the floor tom position - It's going to be over in that general area, and it's going to be aiming across a large part of the kit, but not always placed directly over the floor tom, or aimed straight at the snare or hi hat. Part of it is going to be dependent on the quirks of the player's individual setup preferences. The important things are to make sure you're getting good coverage of as much of the kit as possible (so angles and placement positions are important) and that you keep the snare and kick equi-distant, which can be a bit tricky.

 

[Tom Hicks]

For overheads I prefer Glyn Johns to XY or spaced pair.

 

Phil if you use the overheads for your primary picture of the drums you also time-allign the snare and kick to be in phase coherence?

 

if so would you mind saying a few words to the home recordists in our community here about the importance specifically on drums with all the many microphones to get everything in phase coherence.

 

 

[Tom Hicks]

And here's a picture to help you guys visualize the arrangement.

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

For overheads I prefer Glyn Johns to XY or spaced pair.

 

Phil if you use the overheads for your primary picture of the drums you also time-allign the snare and kick to be in phase coherence?

 

if so would you mind saying a few words to the home recordists in our community here about the importance specifically on drums with all the many microphones to get everything in phase coherence.

 

 

Any time you put up two or more microphones on a source, phase coherence is crucial. The more mics you put up, the more likely you are to have issues with polarity. Being aware of and trying to follow the three to one rule can help, although you might not always be able to follow it religiously when close-miking drums.

 

Coincidentally, we've got an article from Craig Anderton in the issue of Make Better Music (our bi-weekly e-zine) that goes out today on the importance of phase / polarity.

 

http://www.harmonycentral.com/articles/checking-phase-polarity-integrity

 

If you don't already subscribe to MBM, you might want to consider it. It's free, and we don't spam you or sell our mailing list to anyone else...

 

https://www.harmonycentral.com/newsletter_signup

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Red Ant]

For overheads I prefer Glyn Johns to XY or spaced pair.

 

Phil if you use the overheads for your primary picture of the drums you also time-allign the snare and kick to be in phase coherence?

 

if so would you mind saying a few words to the home recordists in our community here about the importance specifically on drums with all the many microphones to get everything in phase coherence.

 

 

I've always preferred the spaced pair, as I've never really got results that I was 100% with doing the Glyn Johns spacing.

 

Its very rare that the kick or snare mics need to be time-aligned with the spaced pair method, but I always check phase on EVERYTHING before I hit "record". Especially given that I almost always use 2 mics for both kick and snare.

 

My "standard" setup:

 

Kick In: Sennheiser MD421

Kick Out: AKG D-12VR

Sn Top: Shure SM57

Sn Bot. Sennheiser MD441

HH: AKG 451b

Toms: MD421 Each

OH: Neumann KM-84s (matched pair)

Room: Either my 1963 Neumann U-67 Tube for Mono, or a matched pair of David Perlman TM-1s for stereo.

[Tom Hicks]

And it's the same thing with multiple mics on a guitar cab for example. Hey, where did all my bass frequencies go!

 

and I just noticed something rather fascinating about the kick mic on the Glyn Johns illustration. It appears to be micing the shell instead of the head or the beater.

 

not in this context but I have heard about guys doing that before. I think they said that there's a pressure wave that runs along the inside of the shell maybe a half inch or so in distance that's killer for micing. Haven't tried that yet.

[Phil O'Keefe]

My "standard" setup:

 

Kick In: Sennheiser MD421

Kick Out: AKG D-12VR

Sn Top: Shure SM57

Sn Bot. Sennheiser MD441

HH: AKG 451b

Toms: MD421 Each

OH: Neumann KM-84s (matched pair)

Room: Either my 1963 Neumann U-67 Tube for Mono, or a matched pair of David Perlman TM-1s for stereo.

 

 

Mine:

 

Kick In: E/V RE20 or RE320

Kick Out: Yamaha Subkick, or occasionally a LDC - U47 FET if the studio has one.

Snare Side: Varies - Often a Audix i5 or a Granelli Audio Labs G5790 (a right-angle SM57), occasionally an old AKG D1000E. More often than not I mic the side of the shell and don't run separate top and bottom snare mics.

HH: Audio Technica ATM450, occasionally an Oktava MC012 with a hypercardioid capsule. Ditto for a spot mic on the ride, if needed.

Toms: Audix D2's for the smaller toms, Audix D4's or Audio Technica ATM25's or ATM250's for the larger toms. Occasionally 421's, but I only own one.

OH: Varies - I love AKG 451EB's for stereo overheads when printing to analog tape; ditto that for pre-P48 C414EB's. If the studio has a pair of good AKG C12's, that's heaven. I also use Audio Technica 4041's, Blue Hummingbirds and Oktava MC012's quite a bit, a pair of Beyerdynamic M160 ribbons occasionally, or KM84's if the studio has a pair. I just received a pair of Warm Audio WA-84's for review, and I'm looking forward to trying them on overheads too. Depending on how well they do that KM84 thing, they may be the budget OH mics to beat...

Room mics: 251's. Occasionally a pair of U67's if the studio has a good pair.

[Zooey]

I'll do player's perspective or audience perspective - whichever one the producer wants.

 

I was thinking more about this. In my rehearsal space, we only put vocals through the PA. I am facing the kick drum standing about 12-15 feet away from the drummer, and from that "audience" vantage point, I don't really hear the hi-hat on the right and the floor tom on the left. Those two instruments are just a few feet away from each other and it's not easy to localize where the drums are coming from.

 

I listened to a few tracks from Kind of Blue to see if I could hear how the kit is spread through the stereo spectrum on an album without close micing. It's interesting, the ride cymbal sounds like it is pretty hard right, but then the whole kit is kind of on the right, opposite the piano.

 

I just listed to a Glenn Gould recording from the seventies, and you can clearly hear the piano from the player's perspective with low notes in the left hand and high notes on the right, as if you were looking over his shoulder at the keyboard. If you had actually seen Glenn Gould in a concert hall in the seventies, you wouldn't hear it that way, all the notes would appear to be coming from the same place.

 

 

[Red Ant]

 

 

Mine:

 

Kick In: E/V RE20 or RE320

Kick Out: Yamaha Subkick, or occasionally a LDC - U47 FET if the studio has one.

Snare Side: Varies - Often a Audix i5 or a Granelli Audio Labs G5790 (a right-angle SM57), occasionally an old AKG D1000E. More often than not I mic the side of the shell and don't run separate top and bottom snare mics.

HH: Audio Technica ATM450, occasionally an Oktava MC012 with a hypercardioid capsule. Ditto for a spot mic on the ride, if needed.

Toms: Audix D2's for the smaller toms, Audix D4's or Audio Technica ATM25's or ATM250's for the larger toms. Occasionally 421's, but I only own one.

OH: Varies - I love AKG 451EB's for stereo overheads when printing to analog tape; ditto that for pre-P48 C414EB's. If the studio has a pair of good AKG C12's, that's heaven. I also use Audio Technica 4041's, Blue Hummingbirds and Oktava MC012's quite a bit, a pair of Beyerdynamic M160 ribbons occasionally, or KM84's if the studio has a pair. I just received a pair of Warm Audio WA-84's for review, and I'm looking forward to trying them on overheads too. Depending on how well they do that KM84 thing, they may be the budget OH mics to beat...

Room mics: 251's. Occasionally a pair of U67's if the studio has a good pair.

 

I often use my matched pair of Oktava MK-12s in place of the km-84s, they sound almost identical, but slightly brighter, so they work great for a darker room.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

I often use my matched pair of Oktava MK-12s in place of the km-84s, they sound almost identical, but slightly brighter, so they work great for a darker room.

 

I wish I had a good pair of KM84's here so I could do some direct comparisons between them and the WA-84's. I do have a handful of the Oktavas though, and I'll definitely do some comparisons with those. It's going to be interesting to see how close Warm got to the classic KM84 sound.

 

I also have one of the RTT M3 "LOMO" style 33mm heads for the Oktavas - I wish I had a second one. Great sounding LDC IMO.

 

Personally, I'd much rather have a pair of MK or MC012's than the Neumann KM184's, which I've never particularly been crazy about. And I generally LIKE bright mics - at least the stuff in the 251 / C12 / C414EB / C451EB family... not the over-bright and harsh sounding inexpensive stuff that seemed to dominate much of the M.I.C. mic market over the past twenty years or so. While the KM184 isn't that bad IMO, there's still something about it that hits me the wrong way - probably the name and the fact that it's just NOT a KM84...

 

The one "modern" or fairly recent Neumann release that I really like a lot is the TLM102. I was really impressed with those, and wouldn't mind having a pair of them. I really can't say that about a lot of the other stuff they've released in the past twenty or thirty years.

 

[Red Ant]

 

I wish I had a good pair of KM84's here so I could do some direct comparisons between them and the WA-84's. I do have a handful of the Oktavas though, and I'll definitely do some comparisons with those. It's going to be interesting to see how close Warm got to the classic KM84 sound.

 

I also have one of the RTT M3 "LOMO" style 33mm heads for the Oktavas - I wish I had a second one. Great sounding LDC IMO.

 

Personally, I'd much rather have a pair of MK or MC012's than the Neumann KM184's, which I've never particularly been crazy about. And I generally LIKE bright mics - at least the stuff in the 251 / C12 / C414EB / C451EB family... not the over-bright and harsh sounding inexpensive stuff that seemed to dominate much of the M.I.C. mic market over the past twenty years or so. While the KM184 isn't that bad IMO, there's still something about it that hits me the wrong way - probably the name and the fact that it's just NOT a KM84...

 

The one "modern" or fairly recent Neumann release that I really like a lot is the TLM102. I was really impressed with those, and wouldn't mind having a pair of them. I really can't say that about a lot of the other stuff they've released in the past twenty or thirty years.

 

I dislike the 184s intensely... they just sound harsh and brittle to me. Only used the TLM102 once, on vocals (it was the only option available) and was less than impressed, tbh... had no warmth to it whatsoever.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Zooey, as you're no doubt aware, there's two different approaches - conservative, no overdubs or edits, and going for as much realism as possible (often what is "expected" with Jazz and Classical - both of which I've probably recorded more of than the average pop/rock engineer of my age) or you can throw that out and go for whatever you want. Hyper-panned, distorted, scooped, boosted to the moon, layering samples - a "no rules" approach - I know and appreciate both, and am willing to go either way, depending on the nature of the project.

 

Fred Plaut was definitely going more for the former IMO when he waxed Kind of Blue in 1959.... but even then, there's some creative license taken. For example, listen to what happens to the stereo image of the drums at around 1:30 on the opening track (So What)... pay attention to the hi hats and ride before and after that point... what? Did that hi hat and ride cymbal just move???

 

[video=youtube;0fC1qSxpmKo]

 

Fred also recorded the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Take Five that same year (1959) and in the same studio; that track, which is equally brilliant IMO, has its own quirks that will reveal themselves with careful listening... for example, listen to what the reverb does (and where it's panned) during the drum solo...

 

[video=youtube;vmDDOFXSgAs]

 

I can't listen to those records without lamenting the fact that The Church (Columbia's 30th Street Studios in NYC) is no more. I never got to work in that room, but I can tell from some of the records that were recorded there that it must have had incredible acoustics.

 

They tore it down. Now there's an apartment building in its place.

 

 

[Red Ant]

Zooey, as you're no doubt aware, there's two different approaches - conservative, no overdubs or edits, and going for as much realism as possible (often what is "expected" with Jazz and Classical - both of which I've probably recorded more of than the average pop/rock engineer of my age) or you can throw that out and go for whatever you want. Hyper-panned, distorted, scooped, boosted to the moon, layering samples - a "no rules" approach - I know and appreciate both, and am willing to go either way, depending on the nature of the project.

 

Fred Plaut was definitely going more for the former IMO when he waxed Kind of Blue in 1959.... but even then, there's some creative license taken. For example, listen to what happens to the stereo image of the drums at around 1:30 on the opening track (So What)... pay attention to the hi hats and ride before and after that point... what? Did that hi hat and ride cymbal just move???

 

[video=youtube;0fC1qSxpmKo]

 

Fred also recorded the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Take Five that same year (1959) and in the same studio; that track, which is equally brilliant IMO, has its own quirks that will reveal themselves with careful listening... for example, listen to what the reverb does (and where it's panned) during the drum solo...

 

[video=youtube;vmDDOFXSgAs]

 

I can't listen to those records without lamenting the fact that The Church (Columbia's 30th Street Studios in NYC) is no more. I never got to work in that room, but I can tell from some of the records that were recorded there that it must have had incredible acoustics.

 

They tore it down. Now there's an apartment building in its place.

 

 

I never got to work there either... but I did get to do a couple of projects at Media Sound, which was another converted church on w. 57th street, lots of legendary records were done there, like Imagine. Amazing room and experience.

 

Juat about every legendary room in NYC has closed... Media Sound, The Hit Factory, RCA, Battery, Magic Shop, etc... and Power Station (now Avatar) only survived due to the good offices of Berklee... for which I'm grateful.

[redEL34]

 

Yeah, "think and hear like a drummer".

 

That`s exactly right. Nobody(well, no drummer I`ve seen) has 3 arms and it`s obvious when people are sloppy and do stuff like that. The high hat never stops for nothing, etc.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

I never got to work there either... but I did get to do a couple of projects at Media Sound, which was another converted church on w. 57th street, lots of legendary records were done there, like Imagine. Amazing room and experience.

 

I'm very familiar with Media Sound. It was a great studio.

 

Just about every legendary room in NYC has closed... Media Sound, The Hit Factory, RCA, Battery, Magic Shop, etc... and Power Station (now Avatar) only survived due to the good offices of Berklee... for which I'm grateful.

 

Yeah, more's the pity - I hate it when legendary studios close down and get turned into shopping malls and apartment buildings.

 

[jorhay1]

1st decision: Drummers' perspective or audience perspective? I prefer Audience, myself.

 

Kick & Snare: up the middle.

HH: 45-50% to the right

Toms: spread right to left from about 20-25% right to about 60-75% left.

Overheads: Stereo

Room mics: Stereo (or up the middle for a mono room mic)

 

Make certain that the L-R orientation of the Overheads and Room mics matches your chosen perspective.

 

For that matter, when I mix drums I will bring up the OH and Room to find as precisely as I can where the toms show up in the stereo image, and then place my direct tom mics to match. Hi-hat as well.

 

Drummers perspective is a pet peeve of mine. I hate it. Lots of classic recordings use it though, so I happily tolerate it, with my best fake smile, if a client wants it.

[Red Ant]

 

Drummers perspective is a pet peeve of mine. I hate it. Lots of classic recordings use it though, so I happily tolerate it, with my best fake smile, if a client wants it.

 

This. Soooooo much this.

[Zooey]

 

This. Soooooo much this.

 

Do you also avoid player's perspective on other percussion instruments like vibraphone or piano?

[E-money]

 

Do you also avoid player's perspective on other percussion instruments like vibraphone or piano?

 

Or steel drum?

[Zooey]

 

Or steel drum?

 

Well, that's a pretty weird one. I think the low notes are on the upper edge of the concave surface, and higher notes are further toward the bottom of the "bowl." So at least on a single drum, all the notes would come from pretty much the same part of the stereo spectrum. Maybe close miced someone would be able to tell the difference but only if they know what it is supposed to sound like.

[Red Ant]

 

Do you also avoid player's perspective on other percussion instruments like vibraphone or piano?

 

All of those instruments are perceived by the audience as a point source in the stereo field, not as having a stereo field in and of themselves. Unless specifically directed otherwise by a client I treat them as such. I find that they sit in a mix much better that way.

[Zooey]

 

All of those instruments are perceived by the audience as a point source in the stereo field, not as having a stereo field in and of themselves.

 

I might have misunderstood what you do with drums, I understood your comment to mean you pan the drums opposite of player's perspective.

 

Drums are the same way as what you describe. You don't sit in the audience and hear the hi-hat on the on the right hand side of the drummer's body and the floor tom on the left.

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

Or steel drum?

 

I've had the distinct pleasure of running live sound for, and also recording a steel drum band from Trinidad and Tobago. When you get 20 or so sets of pans going all at once, it's quite a sound!

 

You may decide to pan the individual err, pans, but once you get out into the audience, they're a point source, as Anton was saying. About the only person who gets any kind of stereo perspective is a player who is playing two or three different pans. If a pannist is playing a single pan, then they're hearing it as a point source too.

 

 

[Red Ant]

 

I might have misunderstood what you do with drums, I understood your comment to mean you pan the drums opposite of player's perspective.

 

Drums are the same way as what you describe. You don't sit in the audience and hear the hi-hat on the on the right hand side of the drummer's body and the floor tom on the left.

 

 

You're correct, drums are also perceived as a point source. However, in recording, I almost always use a stereo pair to capture the room, and those mics get panned wide because the drum set being roughly in the center of the image is well represented by the room mics, and will give the recording a "natural" sound that our ears can relate to. For similar reasons, film recordists and mixers will always add "room tone" to any dubbed scene or dialog - it sounds unnatural without.

[onelife]

Reminds me of a keyboard part I played in a song my band did. I was using a tenor sax sample but I played it totally legato with no rests. When I listened back to the recording I realized that there's no way a sax player could play 16 bars straight without taking a breath.

 

I remember hearing a cut from Steve Winwood's Arc of a Diver solo album in a mall somewhere. The music was off in the distance and I really believed I was hearing a saxophone.

 

When I listen to it up close it sounds more like a Mini Moog...

 

 

The phrasing and the choice of notes - especially the bit that starts around 3:26 - had a more profound impact than the actual sound of the waveform.