Overheads, Cymbal Wash and Room Mics... Thoughts? Suggestions? Spot Micing Cymbals...

[Blizzy-Blim]

So, long story short: I'm micing drums in my home. Doing pretty well thus far. Have got a lot of nice mics and have done quite the many experiments. Basically, the best thing I've found to do with my cymbals is to spot mic them with 57's -No conventional overheads. I tired just about everything else a freakin' hundred times and I keep on coming back to this setup. I know it sounds silly, but it works... The oooonly thing i'm missing is a little bit of that "blend". Like, just that layer of wash. The sound is 85-90% there, but i'm just stumped as to how to get that little extra bit of blend. The cymbals sounds great and are nice and pronounced, but they're just a tad bit "pokey" sometimes...

I've tried putting up LDC's, mono, stereo, SDC's up high (gonna tape some in the corner next) down low, behind paintings, facing away from the kit, facing towards the kit -Some of the things I'm doing sound nice, but overall they just end up diluting the sound and that's no bueno... So far, the best luck I've had was doing stuff in post -Just making a cymbals bus and plastering it with reverb and stuff. Although, that didn't quite get me there either -I've got quite enough reverb in my room as it is. I tried this with saturation as well. Have got console fader emulation thing, and although I liked what it did to the high end of the cymbals, I didn't like what it did to the attack of the snare -lost all the attack. Softened it too much... Is there a saturation plugin with a sidechain, perhaps?

Any thoughts to get that last bit of "gel"/ "wash"? I remember hearing that someone mic'd up the drum mix coming through their monitors and then blended that in...

Thanks.

[Septimon]

Does the room sound good? Maybe the reason why you don‘t like the sound of the overhead mics is because the room is not perfect for recording. Maybe you can optimize the acoustic Situation of the room and use overheads and place a decent LDC about 1 meter away from the set.
Can you upload some examples?

[Blizzy-Blim]

Does the room sound good? Maybe the reason why you don‘t like the sound of the overhead mics is because the room is not perfect for recording. Maybe you can optimize the acoustic Situation of the room and use overheads and place a decent LDC about 1 meter away from the set.
Can you upload some examples?

Great idea on the LDC -I'm gonna try that tomorrow...

The room is not all that bad sounding, in my opinion. I moved the drum kit all around my basement until I found what I thought sounded like the best spot. It has a pretty pleasant natural reverb and I have taken some lengths to treat it acoustically. I went overboard with acoustic treatment earlier and have peeled some of it back. I like where it's sitting right now...

I think the main reason conventional overheads don't work too well is because I only have 8 foot ceilings and I play with my cymbals rather high. The spot micing thing just works. I'd be happy to upload some samples -How do I go about doing that?

Maybe if I get a good LDC room sound I could just pan that up the middle and that would be enough?

[Septimon]

Yes, just pan it in the middle and put the mic stand rather low (Not much higher than the snare) The farer away from the snare you put That mic, the more natural „reverb“ you will get from the distance. (A Rode NT1a did the job for me).
And: just use a file Hoster like Dropbox or Microsofts OneDrive to upload and share the link.

[Blizzy-Blim]

Yes, just pan it in the middle and put the mic stand rather low (Not much higher than the snare) The farer away from the snare you put That mic, the more natural „reverb“ you will get from the distance. (A Rode NT1a did the job for me).
And: just use a file Hoster like Dropbox or Microsofts OneDrive to upload and share the link.

Really? Put the mic down low? Interesting...

I was thinking I'd want to put the mic up high since I'm after cymbal wash mostly and not the shells...?

Just set up some experiments this morning. Hopefully record this afternoon...

[Watchful]

Really? Put the mic down low?

Yep, and as Septimon said, experiment with distance to your rig. The closer you put the floor mic, the drier the sound. Since you want some ambience, try several feet away to start.

[Blizzy-Blim]

Really? Put the mic down low?

Yep, and as Septimon said, experiment with distance to your rig. The closer you put the floor mic, the drier the sound. Since you want some ambience, try several feet away to start.

Ran some tests today and had some good success with pointing a matched sdc pair straight up at the ceiling about 6 inches away behind the kit, and an sdc about 15 ft away rather high up pointing straight into a corner...

Gonna try lower tomorrow, but my theory was that by sticking them higher up I'd get more of the cymbals and less of the shells...

[Blizzy-Blim]

Really? Put the mic down low?

Yep, and as Septimon said, experiment with distance to your rig. The closer you put the floor mic, the drier the sound. Since you want some ambience, try several feet away to start.

My thing with these room mics is that no matter how much you highpass or low shelf, you can ALWAYS hear the snare in them and that delayed sound of the snare conflicting with my "overheads" (cymbal close mics) which are equidistant from the snare, takes away from the impact of the snare and bothers me a bit... Trying to figure out some way to remedy that...

[Septimon]

That delayed sound is exactly what you‘d expect from that technique. Ist’s not a bug, ist’s a feature. Just add it gently to the mix. Maybe you want to put the mic closer to the snare if the delay is too big.
About the question of how high to put the mic: the cymbals are loud enough to still be present if you put the mic lower.

[vurt]

pita doing it alone, needs 3 of you at least, one to play, one to listen, one to move the mics.

in the end, you will be high passing quite high anyway, if you only want sizzle! then as septimon says, mix it low, it shouldn't take over the mix, but be missed if muted.

[vurt]

or you can try shielding the main kit somehow, with just the cymbals higher than the screens, much of the kit sound will be dulled maybe enough to eq the worst of the rest out.

[Blizzy-Blim]

or you can try shielding the main kit somehow, with just the cymbals higher than the screens, much of the kit sound will be dulled maybe enough to eq the worst of the rest out.

Great idea. Gonna give this a shot. Maybe even put some foam covers over the mics...