non "traditional" drum OH

[Josh Scott]

I am seeing more and more people not using over head mics but putting mics in front of the kit. Anyone ever tried it? Just looking for something new to try. Read one person the does a MS set up just in front of the drums. I know part of the motivation is site lines for cameras. I have also seen people putting mics under the cymbals but I don't have that many mics.

[Frank DeWitt]

I get a good sound with two mics, one next to the drummers left ear (It picks up what he hears) and one in front of the kick.

Frank

[bbrunskill]

In our room, we don't need OH's, the cymbals are plenty loud enough on their own. But we use IEM, and the band needs some cymbals. So I mic the hats and ride from underneath with a pair of Shure SM94's.

[bobbycito]

with IEMS and aviom i mic the entire kit with overheads in the church setting howerver i do not use mics under the cymbals but when i have done studio or some large events i will do it under them (mainly the ride) one thing i like is double mic (in and out) on the kick and top and bottom of the snare. 1 thing i do find is if the kit is out of tune or the heads are old you will never get a good sound.

[pdc]

One mic in front of the kit is not the way to do it IMO. You have to listen with your ears and not use your eyes to place the mics.

Most people that use overheads in a live situation mic for what they think will be "stereo". This is silly, because there is no stereo image with a phantom center in sound reinforcement, or large rooms with more than a few listeners. So the only reason to do a stereo overhead set-up is for recording (which most people get that placement wrong as well, as they put the mics over the kit, with the snare and hi-hat off center.

When using two overheads, remember the string method. Cut a piece of string, hold one end on the snare, and the other end to the overhead mics. The overhead mics should be equidistant from the snare. They should be placed so that the snare and hi-hat are in the center of the image, not to the side.

Here is one example: http://youtu.be/IiFOD1EeKhQ

In a live set-up, you can mic the sections of cymbals, or mic the cymbals underneath. There are a few decent cymbal mic'ing systems that clip to the drum hardware. They are not perfect, but they make work for you. They make for a cleaner appearance, which is important to some.

One mic over the kit may work, depending upon the mic and where the cymbals are. If I only had a couple of mics and channels, I would put a mic between the hat and the snare, and then one just over the right shoulder of the right handed drummer. Phase coherency is important. So I would listen for cancellations and tweak the placement.

[Mikey]

I prefer to use a pair of overheads on a stereo bar. Keep them at 90 degrees and very close to each other. Of course I still mic the toms, kick and snare, but the OH's do great on the hat and cymbals.

Our typical mic setup.

Kick: Heil PR140 inside about 2" from the beater. (I like a little attack)
Snare: Shure SM57
Rack toms: Sennheiser e904
Floor tom: Audix D6
OH: stereo pair of Rode NT5

If I had enough channels and mics I would also put a second mic on the snare bottom and outside of the kick.
We run Avioms and to date this setup has worked quite well. Just mix all of the above down to an aux and sent it out.

[[Admin] osborn4]

He he. It's simple for us.

We just plug the box that mades the drum sounds into a DI box into the sound board.

[cmchamp]

I've used a Mid-Side set above the set when recording a jazz combo in studio before with really great results.
Live is another story.

[partsmanba]

Originally Posted by pdc

One mic in front of the kit is not the way to do it IMO. You have to listen with your ears and not use your eyes to place the mics.

Most people that use overheads in a live situation mic for what they think will be "stereo". This is silly, because there is no stereo image with a phantom center in sound reinforcement, or large rooms with more than a few listeners. So the only reason to do a stereo overhead set-up is for recording (which most people get that placement wrong as well, as they put the mics over the kit, with the snare and hi-hat off center.

When using two overheads, remember the string method. Cut a piece of string, hold one end on the snare, and the other end to the overhead mics. The overhead mics should be equidistant from the snare. They should be placed so that the snare and hi-hat are in the center of the image, not to the side.

Here is one example: http://youtu.be/IiFOD1EeKhQ

In a live set-up, you can mic the sections of cymbals, or mic the cymbals underneath. There are a few decent cymbal mic'ing systems that clip to the drum hardware. They are not perfect, but they make work for you. They make for a cleaner appearance, which is important to some.

One mic over the kit may work, depending upon the mic and where the cymbals are. If I only had a couple of mics and channels, I would put a mic between the hat and the snare, and then one just over the right shoulder of the right handed drummer. Phase coherency is important. So I would listen for cancellations and tweak the placement.

If you are only miking the drums for recording/IEM, definitely try the Recorderman technique in the above video. It sounds awesome when panned out just below the point the image breaks up (easy to hear in the cans.) I use it when I do sound, but our other sound person always changes the forward overhead to a close-mic of the snare and kick, which of course screws up the imaging.

[liko81]

Recorderman is excellent for general drum pickup, and is the way to go when you have to economize on mics. RM + Kick, if you have a nice large-diaphragm high-SPL mic, adds that nice sub-bass thump (and allows you to emphasize the kick in monitor feeds or in the subs separately from the higher-frequency kit stuff).

I also can't really see any fault with an XY in front of the kit, if you have space in front and appropriately-controlled reverb time in the room. The XY-pattern gives you a nice listener-perspective ambient mix of the drums, similar to just about anything you'd want to mic. The one concern would be isolation; you'll get bleed-over from other stage sources with the XY at an appropriate distance from the kit to get a good mix of everything.

[Gracetech]

It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your OH mic/s. It also depends on where your mix is going.

Here is my churches current Main Sanctuary setup.
Kick mic
Snare mic
tom1 mic
tom2 mic
tom3 mic
Cymbal overhead M/S mic

The OH mic in this setup is place just over the drummers head. This allows me to get a good stereo representation of what the drummer would be hearing if he didn't have IEM's in. I can then take the stereo signal and feed it to our IEM system and Recording system. The stereo mics are also summed, phase coherent because they are M/S, to provide me with house sound and local video broadcast.

I've setup all sorts of different mic configurations for drums over the years. If you trust your ears you should be good.

One thing i don't suggest except for use as effect. That would be putting a mic level with the edge of a cymbal. Try it some time and you'll hear why.

BTW a good method for experimenting with mic placement for drums is to get some good IEM's and then get some shooting cans to put over the IEM's to further isolate. That way you can hear the exact sound the mic is picking up.

crt