Recording With Overheads

wordword

Senior Member
Ok, i need to get my recording of my drum kit down solid, and i've got a 4-piece mic kit. obviously one of these will be placed in my bass drum. but with the other three, everythign i'm reading is leading me to believe that i'm going to want overheads.

now i'm broke, like FLAT BROKE, and i want to try out this overhead recording technique but i don't have the means to buy two microphone stands for overhead placement.

the question is, is there a good alternative some of you have found works in terms of mic placement as overheads without using a traditional mic stand??

theres gotta be some way i can set up these mics as overheads without spending money that isn't there on these mic stands. even if i WERE to shell out money for drum gear, it wouldn't be microphone stands.

lets get a custom setup goin!!
i'm thinking maybe turning a cymbal stand into a mic stand. if you know how that can be done. either that or dangling 2 mics from the ceiling from some sort of device
 
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Well, there are alternatives of course. You could place them on chairs and record with them heading the front of your kit. I did this when I forgot a stand at home and wanted to record a rehearsal. Though this is not a proper solution.

Let me put it like this: When you have the opportunity to get stands, get them. If you havn`t got the tools to place overheads right, you will have a hard time to get some acceptable recordings. Sound-wise, these guys make the overall stereo sound of the kit. In studio things are even more determined, there the producer would simply take his yellow steel rule and measure the height and the distance between the two mics and between the mics and various parts of the set. If you record in XY, ORTF etc. it might get as far as it can get...measuring the angle.

Millimetres decide whether the sound represents a proper stereo picture or not. Even if you`re just at home: Afford some mic stands when you can. With a mic in or in front of the bass drum, a snare mic and the two overheads set well you can achieve much.

Karl
 
You could just about anything. A tall lamp, a hat-rack, all sorts. Just tape the rear end of the mic to whatever tall thing you can find.
 
For anyone who wants to know what i'm using, i just went to lowes and bought 2 of those hook hanger things (like you hang plants from) and am going to dangle a few feet of a thin rope (also bought at lowes) and tie the end to the end/edge of the microphones.

if the setup works, it was a darn good 5 dollars spent
 
if you don't mind a nail mark in your ceiling, a pair of cable clips nailed to the ceiling will hold your mics in the desired position by the cable. cheap and quick with no standing obstructions...
 
I think this should work nicely.

Only thing i'm worried about is that recording the drums with overheads (instead of directly on the drums) might pick up some interference with the guitars and such as we're all going to be recording together.

think the loud guitar amps would mess up the mix if i'm recording w/ overheads on the drums????
 
think the loud guitar amps would mess up the mix if i'm recording w/ overheads on the drums????

Yes, you'll get bleed from the other intstruments. How much is down to the size and acoustics of the room, how close the amps are, how you position the mics. OH mic positioning is something of an art, have a look around youtube, and learn about noise gates if you haven't already.

About the stands - is there noone to borrow from? I fear when you start to try and improvise a set up, things might get frustrating. Stands are an excellent investment as they allow for accurate placement which is important here.
 
Budget recording is tough. It's even tougher when the folks involved have no idea about recording. Recording isn't the same thing as live performance. Really never has been. First thing to go is loud guitar amps. Your guitar players (and I am one too) need to go to the rock and roll hall of fame and look at the little Supro Jimmy Page recorded Led Zeppelin with. Or read the latest guitar player interview with Jeff Beck where he talks about having the same tweed Fender Champ in the studio that he's used for so many years. Try to talk to some session folks and find out what they do so you can try to get the same effect with some budget set up. Read up on old recordings and how they were done.

Specific to your drums, if you are doing an entire band recording where the emphasis is on the songs and not necessarily the drums, you may not need stereo overheads. The more mics you put around a drumset, the more critical their positioning and response becomes. When you mix them together, they are going to have interferences. e.g. the mic on one tom is going to pick up the sound of another tom a foot away. That distance will cause a slight delay in the wave form from other tom. When you mix this together with the mic that is near the 2nd tom the waveforms won't line up and add. At certain frequencies they will cancel. Instead of the toms sounding bigger and better, they can easily sound thinner or pinched sounding. There is an art to circumventing this and it's one of the reasons setting up drums in a studio takes longer than anything else.

One of the things you need to do with stereo overheads is position them equally distant from the snare. Or the difference in distance will create a blur that muddies up the all important backbeat. For this reason, It often works really well to have a single overhead directly over the snare. This also kind of resembles the drummers perspective in balance. This will become your primary microphone. Then you "touch up" with additional microphones where needed. Probably on the kick and snare to get a cleaner sound on those. The fourth will often go somewhere close to your floor tom where it can pick up the ride and things on that side of the kit. There is a production technique with one mic directly in front of the kit pointed at the snare and another coming in over the floor tom that was used a lot in the early days before a million channels were available for recording.

Years ago I did a recording of the Rascal's Good Loving where I put a single SM 57 just over my head pointing at the snare (on an old Ludwig "Ringo" kit). The balance and vibe was perfect for that song. I ended up leaving out the touch up mics.

Good luck.
 
the guys over at Tweakheadz tell me i should be fine recording with overheads. just gotta keep the guitar's at a desirable volume so that theres not too much finding its way into the drum's territory on the track
 
What are your goals?

"How do we really sound?" That'll be fine. I've gotten plenty of decent representations of performances, even when playing at fairly absurd volumes. Yes, there's bleed. Deal.

Demo/self-release: Yeah, turn down everything to the minimum volume that allows a tight performance. The bleed will still be pretty noticeable soloed, but you'll retain the ability decide your own fate in mixing, and be able to treat the OH tracks more or less as true overheads, and not room mics for the band.

"Pro" sound: Eh. Probably not, but you should already realize this is not a realistic expectation at this point.

I'd suggest running bass and one guitar (or other melody instrument) through a software sim, headphone amp, itty practice amp miced and monitored through 'phones, etc. Unless you need the "everybody in the room" vibe, it'll be easier to overdub each part.
 
You'll need a couple of deepish coffee mugs and some duct tape. First, place the mugs on the floor and insert the overhead mics inside the mugs, capsules facing up. Then use duct tape to attach your drum kit to the ceiling. Voílà -- easy overhead micing without expensive stands!
 
A few dry wall/wood screws for the ceiling, fishing line and rubber bands should 'work'.
 
Hey Guys,

Here's something i have tried over the weekend. Hope it would be something you might find useful as a demo. It has been recorded with a single Rode NT1-A as an overhead. Could have been much better if I were using sufficient amounts and types of cable but it was just to see how it would turn out with only one mic. Anyway comments and questions are greatly appreciated.

A few notes about the audio:
Basically the reverb was inevitable as the room is as empty as it is and I wasn't able to change that condition at the very moment so i just went for it. Actually I think it is a pretty good room sound if I were to use a drum mic set and miced the drums individually and using my Rode a little further from the set to acquire room sound. I will do that soon and post the results as well.

Hope you like it.

Here are some pics of my setup:
l_a262b2a09de74a029f70c9333491f695.jpg

l_059bf17c5ee34dcbb06363d5ae202f05.jpg

l_20d3de0f4256492e9c9c5b0977f066df.jpg

l_f44076c00cf84a79bcd55b2d7914401b.jpg
 

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Hey Guys,

Here's something i have tried over the weekend. Hope it would be something you might find useful as a demo. It has been recorded with a single Rode NT1-A as an overhead. Could have been much better if I were using sufficient amounts and types of cable but it was just to see how it would turn out with only one mic. Anyway comments and questions are greatly appreciated.

A few notes about the audio:
Basically the reverb was inevitable as the room is as empty as it is and I wasn't able to change that condition at the very moment so i just went for it. Actually I think it is a pretty good room sound if I were to use a drum mic set and miced the drums individually and using my Rode a little further from the set to acquire room sound. I will do that soon and post the results as well.

Hope you like it.

Here are some pics of my setup:
l_a262b2a09de74a029f70c9333491f695.jpg

l_059bf17c5ee34dcbb06363d5ae202f05.jpg

l_20d3de0f4256492e9c9c5b0977f066df.jpg

l_f44076c00cf84a79bcd55b2d7914401b.jpg

You sort of took the words right out of my mouth, the room is extremely alive. A bit of room treatment would do well. Also get the overhead a bit closer to your kit, this will also get you more direct sound from your kit while eliminating some of the room's sound. Your snare is most predominant in the audio sample, maybe move your overhead down and to the front of your kit a little more. This will pick up the bass drum without affecting the snare or cymbals in a negative way. Also looking at your photos, it looks as if the overhead is looking more to the drummer's head, position it it looking more directly at your rack toms.

Dennis
 
You sort of took the words right out of my mouth, the room is extremely alive. A bit of room treatment would do well. Also get the overhead a bit closer to your kit, this will also get you more direct sound from your kit while eliminating some of the room's sound. Your snare is most predominant in the audio sample, maybe move your overhead down and to the front of your kit a little more. This will pick up the bass drum without affecting the snare or cymbals in a negative way. Also looking at your photos, it looks as if the overhead is looking more to the drummer's head, position it it looking more directly at your rack toms.

Dennis

hello dennis,

you are absolutely right. as this room is one of the storage rooms is the -1 level parking lot of my company, i wasn't in liberty to make any modifications. to be perfectly honest it was only to experiment on whether it would be possible to get a clear sound of the entire kit with only one overhead condenser mic.

i sort of am happy with my initial results and surely be taking into consideration of what you have recommended. it was recorded in a very short timeframe so my main focus was to get the sound somewhat decent, so i wasn't able neither to experiment on different mic positioning, nor to pay attention to my performance. it is a very crude mix but i am sure with separate micing (3 toms, snare, 2 pencil overheads, 1 kick and the Rode for the overall room as it is supposed to be) and more delicate tuning of the set, i am guessing the results would be more prominent.

i wasn't aware the mic is directed towards my head until after you have pointed out this detail in the pics. heh good point.

many thanks for your comments.

cheers.
tolga
 
That room looks almost square. Which means that there will be some very predominate modes in there. You might try killing the far wall and one side wall. Conventional wisdom would be to kill the wall behind the kit, but I kind of like a bit of life reflecting the drums. The easiest thing would be to hang a moving blanket a couple of inches off the walls. This won't provide any "soundproofing" but will help reduce reflections and the degree of the primary axial modes. Then try to make up something absorbant to put in the corners. Even a frame with acoustical ceiling tile from a drop ceiling (no middle supports so the panel can flex) and 6"fiberglass insulation on the back (with the rest of the corner being dead air) will help.

Whatever you do, don't put mattress topper or packing foam up on the walls as those are fire traps. Burns like hell and the smoke will asphyxiate you before you get out of the room. Hopefully (and unfortunately), enough people have been lost in recent nightclub fires for people to get this.

That and something on the floor or ceiling (probably the shortest dimension with an axial mode somewhere in the 139Hz (right in the mid bass) region. Not much you can do low down low without making clouds similar to the corner traps and hanging them a few inches from the ceiling.

Of course these are all very ghetto solutions compared to proper acoustical treatments. If you can afford it, shop the Auralex website and tune the room as best you can.

Then, moving your mic down a bit, I think you'd be surprised at how well the kit records. I also think you'll be surprised at what a hassle micing every drum is and how much harder it is that first appears to get a fully modern produced drum sound.
 
That room looks almost square. Which means that there will be some very predominate modes in there. You might try killing the far wall and one side wall. Conventional wisdom would be to kill the wall behind the kit, but I kind of like a bit of life reflecting the drums. The easiest thing would be to hang a moving blanket a couple of inches off the walls. This won't provide any "soundproofing" but will help reduce reflections and the degree of the primary axial modes. Then try to make up something absorbant to put in the corners. Even a frame with acoustical ceiling tile from a drop ceiling (no middle supports so the panel can flex) and 6"fiberglass insulation on the back (with the rest of the corner being dead air) will help.

Whatever you do, don't put mattress topper or packing foam up on the walls as those are fire traps. Burns like hell and the smoke will asphyxiate you before you get out of the room. Hopefully (and unfortunately), enough people have been lost in recent nightclub fires for people to get this.

That and something on the floor or ceiling (probably the shortest dimension with an axial mode somewhere in the 139Hz (right in the mid bass) region. Not much you can do low down low without making clouds similar to the corner traps and hanging them a few inches from the ceiling.

Of course these are all very ghetto solutions compared to proper acoustical treatments. If you can afford it, shop the Auralex website and tune the room as best you can.

Then, moving your mic down a bit, I think you'd be surprised at how well the kit records. I also think you'll be surprised at what a hassle micing every drum is and how much harder it is that first appears to get a fully modern produced drum sound.

many thanks for the tips. those are really helpful insights. well i imagine micing the drum separately would be whole lot difficult and would be a serious hassle then recording like this with a mic that is basically receiving(in ideal conditions of course) as close to what your ears hear. so i fully agree on what i did was nothing of a chalenge. :) the ceiling above looks something like the btw:

20090713havel1.jpg


this is not the actual photo but something i've found over the net but looks pretty similar to the ceiling of the room. modular block concrete

so i am guessing this would eliminate some of that reflection from up above by breaking the angularity of the axial modes i suppose. hope i get that right.and thanks also for the tip of foam plates. i hate those and i don't believe they do any good then holding the packaging of goods as shock absorbers. they are definitely not acoustic elements and besides the building fire code would not allow me to use any crap like that even if ı wanted to.

free hanging thick fabric curtain was also something I was thinking of.

so thanks for all the help and recommendations.

cheers.
tolga
 
+ 1 for the moving blanket idea. My band rehearses (and records) in a 15' x 15' storage unit and it sounds very good considering such a modest investment, and everything is easily removable. I hung the moving blankets (get the thickest ones you can find) by stapling the top edge to a 1 x 2 piece of wood and then hanging them from the ceiling using picture hanging wire. My guitar player had some acoustic foam leftover from his old home recording studio, so we used that around the base and in the corners as bass traps.

The unit is corrugated steel on two sides, cinder block on 1 1/2 sides and a metal roll up door. I also put down a piece of cheap commercial carpet to keep us off the bare concrete. All told I have about $150 in supplies. Not too bad!
 

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