Members roroboat33 Posted January 23, 2011 Members Share Posted January 23, 2011 Hello all I am a student in my second year of engineering school. My final project starts this week with a semester of recording an entire album. I have three sessions 10hr sessions booked for drums alone on an ssl duality. I am recording the band three guitars and bass in seperate rooms and playing through cue mix to completely isolate the drums in an awesome environment. I just finished reading MIxing with your mind and will probably use that approach to find the sweet spot in the room. My question is if you had an arsenal of microphone choices and an ssl duality at your disposal with outboard gear galore what would you use for your drum mics. I can't decide if i want to use standards or ribbons or large diaphragm as overheads. My goal is to get a sound where each song can take it's own direction in the mixing phase as this project is a through composition piece in the style of pink floyd the drummer is a beast with time signatures of 9/11 and he bangs the crap out of them. I would love to get opinions and thanks for helping on this learning experience the ro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted January 23, 2011 Members Share Posted January 23, 2011 My question is if you had an arsenal of microphone choices and an ssl duality at your disposal with outboard gear galore what would you use for your drum mics. I can't decide if i want to use standards or ribbons or large diaphragm as overheads. My goal is to get a sound where each song can take it's own direction in the mixing phase as this project is a through composition piece in the style of pink floyd the drummer is a beast with time signatures of 9/11 and he bangs the crap out of them. By "standards" I am guessing you mean small diaphragm condensers? What's far more important than the choice of microphones for overheads is you stopping the drummer from bangin' the crap out of the drums. But sure, getting back to your question, since I'm sure you want an answer...the best answer is to set up the drums, listen to him drum, and then make your choice accordingly. YOU know best, and you'd know far better than any of us would because YOU'VE heard the drummer, the kit, and the room already...and if you are a second-year recording engineering student, you already know the characteristics of each kind of microphone you've listed. Don'tcha love it when you already know the answer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nerol1st Posted January 23, 2011 Members Share Posted January 23, 2011 While all that gear is great, it doesn't mean anything if the sources are bad or the songs are mediocre. The old adage applies, {censored} in--->{censored} out. It's just in the case of nice gear you can hear the {censored} clearer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted January 23, 2011 Members Share Posted January 23, 2011 And if someone's banging away at the drums - particularly if it's a Pink Floyd sort of song - that's "{censored} in". Stopping your drummer from doing this will be BY FAR the biggest thing you can do., certainly much more than whether you are using LDCs or SDCs or ribbons (or dynamics) for overheads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 I get the feeling we're not giving you the answer you want to hear here... and I'm going to just make it worse. I can't imagine any studio with a limitless supply of microphones; everything known to man... so us suggesting particular models (which again, without knowing the sound of the kit, the drummer and the room is somewhat pointless) isn't going to help if the studio doesn't have them available. For example, if I suggest a pair of Neumann U67's as room mikes, and they're not available, I fail to see how that is going to help you. Ditto that if I suggest Beyer M160's or Neumann KM84's for overheads and they don't have any, etc. Now if you have a clip of the drummer playing that we could hear, pics of his / her kit, and maybe a gear list of the studio that you'll be using, we might be able to give you some suggestions - but at best, those would just be starting points. If you want flexibility, and you have a ton of mics and outboard available, I'd suggest going for more mics as opposed to fewer. Start with a basic three mic (Glyn Johns) setup, and then close mic the toms. Get two mikes on the kick, mic the snare, do spot mikes on they cymbals if there's any question about not getting enough of them via the overheads, use overheads AND room mikes, etc. That way, you can select what you want to use on each song in the mix phase. Get good basic tones "to tape" (disc, whatever...) and save the heavy processing for later... resist the temptation to do heavy compression and EQ on individual microphones when tracking - you don't have the time or experience to try to do that IMO. The only exception to that I might make would maybe be putting some compression on your room mic if the room is juicy sounding and you have a great compressor available... but even that can be saved for the mix if you're uncertain. I like the idea of making decisions as you go along, but IMO, when you're unsure (and relatively inexperienced) and you have limited access to the tracking room, it's best to play it safe and make job #1 your main priority - and that is to accurately and competently capture what's going on in the room. Save the fun and creative aspects of it for later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stevesherbert Posted January 31, 2011 Members Share Posted January 31, 2011 i'm more interested to hear what an eleventh note sounds like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted February 1, 2011 Members Share Posted February 1, 2011 Doesn't seem like roroboat22 liked our advice. Oh well, it seemed like good advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Eddie Posted February 1, 2011 Members Share Posted February 1, 2011 i'm more interested to hear what an eleventh note sounds like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Nick Posted February 6, 2011 Members Share Posted February 6, 2011 I'm going to play the devil's advocate to Phil and say print sounds to tape/DAW/disk. As a fellow student, (I'm a junior) I can say that learning how to commit to sounds has been one of the most liberating changes to my workflow - you start to commit to the sound of the tunes you're working on. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to end up with a generic mess of 48 channels for a tune that has no direction 'til you get to the mix. Of course, you're going to need to know what an 1176 sounds like if you want to print, say, a vocal mic through it. This is your chance to experiment and {censored} things up royally without the expense of losing a client, or to get something brilliantly right that you never knew what was possible. You're not at MTSU by any chance are you? I just wagered a guess 'cos you mentioned the Duality. I'm up at the University of Michigan, working on an API Vision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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