Hey guys,

I'm trying to record my drum kit for hard rock purposes, and I'm getting into a spot of bother with my overheads. I've got two decent Rode pencil condensors that I'm trying to space so that I get a wide stereo field. I have to place them really wide to get each on of my L & R crashes in their own speaker when I hard pan. It's so wide that there isn't much of the drum kit under one of the microphones, I'm recording in a cabin so there's only so much height I have to play with.

I'm trying to keep the microphones an equal distance from the snare to keep the snare in phase with the overheads but.... does this really matter?!
If both overheads were at different distances from the snare, could I just nudge one of the tracks up to be in phase with the other? Would this effect the stereo field?...

If anyone has any tips to get nice wide overheads for rock I'd really appreciate it. I've heard some many recordings with really wide sounding overheads, almost as though someone has added a few Milliseconds of delay to one of the channels. I've done that as couple of times, sounds awesome, but then cymbals disappear due to being out of phase when collapsing to mono!!!

How do they get such nice wide overheads?!

Thanks guys

I think it does. I don't have too many 'rules' when I record drums, but that's one that I usually stick to.

where are they pointing? If they are wide and pointing back "in", that would get more of the drum kit, than if they are wide and pointing straight down, for example.

In my experience, nudging will always change 'something else' but only you can judge what is worth the costs. I think you should just try it and see. Maybe you could pan the snare close mic off-center in the opposite direction to compensate. Experiment.

One idea would be to add a third overhead (directly over the snare?). This would give you better coverage of the kit as a whole, but might 'bring in' the width. So then maybe you could take your pair of mics and set them up more like "cymbal spot mics" - i.e get them really close to the crash cymbals in question so that is what they focus on.

"in phase" -- highly unlikely with two mics at a distance unless you expect the drummer to play from one spot on the drum head every. single. time.
The point to having the overheads equidistant from the snare (and usually the snare/kick line) is to center the drumkit in the stereo image -- not phase.

As for wide-spacing overheads, how wide are we talking? Like what is the distance of cymbal to cymbal on the kit and the distance of overhead mic to overhead mic? And it sounds like you are using cardioid condensers (there are other patterns that can help! omni if really wide), so, as asked above, where are the mics pointing? You can also use room mics to widen an image.

It's hard to say without knowing your full setup but given the style of music you are playing...perhaps you would be better off close miking your cymbals and pan them where you like.

I assume since you are doing hard rock that you are mostly close miking toms and everything else.

Then maybe use some room mics rather than overheads for a whole kit tone to blend in and keep things from sounding overly isolated.

But yes...keeping overheads in phase matters.

But keep in mind that the more mics you have on a single instrument the more phase cancelation you will have in general. You will never get a drum kit that has every single drum in phase with every other mic on the kit.

Another tip for what you are trying is to remember that there are other ways to get the mic equal distanced to the snare. Not only moving it further left or right of the snare, but backwards as well. Often times people create an imaginary line that goes straight through the middle of the kit from left to right and they keep their overheads on that line. But they do not need to.

As usual, excellent advice by knowledgeable people has already been given.

You said hard rock purposes, but that can mean different things regarding the wanted drum sounds. While stuff like AC/DC sounds like a drum kit, more "modern" stuff often tends to sound like big shells with layered samples and just some cymbals.
To me, that is the difference between overheads that capture the whole kit or cymbal spot mics. With the latter, keeping the snare center doesn't matter that much, with the former, it's really important.

If you want the whole kit - seems you do, make sure you try something different than a spaced pair. People usually think that's the way to go if you want wide, but with it can come lots of compromises as you experienced.

Especially with low ceilings, try ORTF. It's pretty mono compatible, but can sound very wide especially when close to the kit. In small rooms, "underheads" can often work well, too.

For more specific advice, we would need to know how your drums are set up, how many cymbals, toms etc...