Quote:
Originally Posted by
crestifer
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cool setup, jj.
i've always done similar with a coles over the center of the kit and then another coles out front of the bass drum. i started using a little labs IBP on the front mic and found i could get it where i wanted it to be to get the ambience and low end of the kick that i wanted, and then use the IBP to adjust the phase of that coles to feel right with the rest of the kit.
do you ever do anything like that or are you just getting moving that mic to where it sits well for you ?
in other words, is it a specific distance or ratio based on how high the overhead coles is ?
or are you just putting them up, moving them until it sounds cool ?
i assume you are getting a big part of the overall kit sound from those two mics. at least that's always my goal. then i use a stereo pair of overheads or close mics on hat and ride to get some stereo spread or more articulation from those cymbals.
usually a aea r88 stereo room mic gives me the widest stereo picture that i can blend in depending on the song and other elements....but i always have that strong center mono image from the coles.
many times i'll just use a little bit of a close snare to drive a reverb or for more snare sound, and a little of a close kick mic for more low end or punch from the kick.
75% of my drum sound is usually the mono overhead and mono "front of kit" mic.
just curious your thoughts and process when you mic a kit this way.
So, when I do my 4038 in front, it's for a little thump and one layer of dimension. I give it a little 1176 love, and it helps things be chesty, but it's not the heart of my sound. It's just my mono room. That 4038 OH is sometimes a 77DX, or a U47 or some weird mic. That's my character mic. Gets a stiff EQ, and when it's up to me, a bunch of compression. The producer, who's mixing this, decided to go with no compression.
The majority of my sound is the Glynn Johns type OH, and the close mics fill in the presence. This OH set up was focused on the cymbals instead of the overall kit, so having that 4038 OH helped fill in the kit. Hey, it worked for the Beatles.
But I'm very reliant on my close kick and snare sounds, and really makes a point of dialing those in to sounds like a record on the way in. The longer I do this job, the more important it is to me to have a strong kick and snare game. And when I listen to records I made years ago, I hear that I wasn't on point in that area. It's been an important ingredient for so many hit records, and the careers of guys mixing them. The fact that I gave some songs to Clearmountain to mix this year, and he didn't have to use a snare sample, gave me immense pride, especially since that thing is way up in the mix, driving it. Hard to do that with distant mics.