drum mic postioning

[ian hatch]

Hi all

I know this subject has come up a million times before, but I'm going to ask anyway.

Question One:

Is it best to mic a snare from the top or bottom, if one mic is all that is available for the snare?

Question Two:

I'm going to mic the Hats with a condenser, same sort of question as before, and also will there be large bleed issues between hats and snare mics.

Suggestions welcome.

Ian

PS: I forgot a little question.

Has anyone encountered a problem with a Sennheiser 901 not fitting through the hole in a kick drum.

I was thinking of getting one, but don't really want to encounter issues with none fitting drum holes, I overheard the subject at a recent gig and it got me thinking.

[Rob_Beech]

Hi,

 

There is no right and wrong for putting mics on any instrument, and of course, all mics are different, all instruments are different, and all people playing the instruments are different. When we look at putting mics on drums we have to take a few things into account. The obvious ones are, what will it sound like if I put the mic HERE. Less obvious is will this pick up other unwanted noise, and strangely least obvious of them all, are you going to p*ss the drummer off by putting it there and is the drummer going to hit the mic every 5 seconds if you DO put it there.

 

I'd always mic snare top before snare bottom, but if upon listening it needs changing, I'll change it. The same would apply to hats. Yes there will be bleed between the 2, there always is, you can go some way to minimise this but it's not normally a major issue. The drum mics will bleed into every other mic in a 4 mile radius aswell anyway.

 

Finally, the 901's and Shure Beta91's and similar mics GENERALLY fit into most holes, but there certainly ARE some that they don't go through. This is sadly one of the things we have to live with. I wouldn't be using JUST a 901 or Beta91 etc anyway, I'd go for a D6 / Beta52 or whatever you wish first, and ADD the 91 / 901 as a second mic where necessary. Remember if you are doing this as a second kick drum mic, you can get more than useable results from an SM57 inside pointing at the beater.

 

 

HTH

 

Rob

[Kevin Ross]

I 2^nd what rob said about the drummer hitting them. The first thing I do after I have finished micing the kit is to ask the drummer if he/she is happy with the position of all the mics. Sometimes it is necessary to move things around to accommodate different drum setups and sometimes this might compromise the sound.

 

 

 

As with everything in audio it’s a balancing act but at the end of the day a snare miced up from bellow still sounds better than a snare mic that is hit every time the drummer launches into a tom fill from the snare!

 

 

 

A separate note about the kick mic, I have often come across port holes that are too small to mic a mic through (some sonar kits etc) in these cases I tend to try to get some kind of mic inside the drum to capture the click and then my normal kick mic on the outside for the lower end and then mix to taste depending on the style of music. For a completely sealed drum I might mic up from behind and in front and then mix to taste, not forgetting to flip the polarity on one of the mics!

[ian hatch]

I 2^nd what rob said about the drummer hitting them. The first thing I do after I have finished micing the kit is to ask the drummer if he/she is happy with the position of all the mics. Sometimes it is necessary to move things around to accommodate different drum setups and sometimes this might compromise the sound.

 

 

 

As with everything in audio it’s a balancing act but at the end of the day a snare miced up from bellow still sounds better than a snare mic that is hit every time the drummer launches into a tom fill from the snare!

 

 

 

A separate note about the kick mic, I have often come across port holes that are too small to mic a mic through (some sonar kits etc) in these cases I tend to try to get some kind of mic inside the drum to capture the click and then my normal kick mic on the outside for the lower end and then mix to taste depending on the style of music. For a completely sealed drum I might mic up from behind and in front and then mix to taste, not forgetting to flip the polarity on one of the mics!

Thanks kevin for the reply

Why would I have to change the polarity on one of the mics, is it a distance thing, if so will I run into problems with my snare/hats set-up?

Also thanks to Rob

[Russ83]

To put this very basically, think in slow motion.

As the beater hits the drum the skin moves AWAY from the microphone next to the beater however for a mic on the other side the skin is moving TOWARDS it. If you were to combine these two feeds they would cancel each other out to some extent and you would loose your 'thump'. Changing the polarity of one of the mics minimises this effect.

[Rob_Beech]

But remember, when you mic inside the drum (say a beta 91 or a 901, or whatever), and then outside the drum on the front skin* with your 52 D6 or heaven forbid a D112, both are going the SAME WAY. So we don't need to do it then.

 

Snare top and bottom also need polarity inverting as a rule. Of course this is never set in stone, try both and use which sounds best. You won't get any real problems with phasing between mics in a live scenario.

 

 

*as someone who actually plays drums, it concerns me that I don't really know which I'd call the front skin and the back skin, if front and back are suitable terms at all. Here I refer to the one you'd put the mic infront of, not hit.

[DangerMouse]

*as someone who actually plays drums, it concerns me that I don't really know which I'd call the front skin and the back skin, if front and back are suitable terms at all. Here I refer to the one you'd put the mic infront of, not hit.

 

I believe the correct terminology with regard to drum heads is...

 

Batter head - the head which the drummer hits

Resonant head - the one that doesn't get hit

 

But I'm sure there are loads of other names for them too...

[Kevin Ross]

But remember, when you mic inside the drum (say a beta 91 or a 901, or whatever), and then outside the drum on the front skin* with your 52 D6 or heaven forbid a D112, both are going the SAME WAY. So we don't need to do it then.

 

Sorry I ment to add that this would apply if you had one mic pointing at the beater from the outside of the drum and another mic inside the drum facing the other way.

 

 

Kev (Uses a D112 until he can get round to buying a D6)!

[TimmyP1955]

Micing the snare bottom will give you a lot of crack and sizzle, and not much pop. I've never had to mic the bottom live (especially in small venues, where it often has too much crack even w/o being mic'd - especially once the vocal mics come up - even if they are OM7s).

 

Micing the hat from the bottom will give you less stick attack (which may be good if the drummer's hat hand is not so smooth).

 

I've used the e901 on only one kick, but it sounded better than any of the 91s I've heard on kick - I was quite pleased with the sound as compared to most any other kick on which I used a D6 or B52.

 

If the kick is too ringy (99% of them IME - for rock anyway) the D6 requires less gating than the B52.

 

Audix D4, Audix ADX-20D (Micro-D) e604, e904, and Beta98 are all nice tom and snare mics (though I don't know how well the any but the Audix do on floor tom - the D4 is great, the ADX stinks).

[drummerrhys]

Question One:

Is it best to mic a snare from the top or bottom, if one mic is all that is available for the snare?

It really depends on what the drummer wants. For example if I'm playing a rock gig with my regular band then I always have it mic'd from the top in order to get a fairly even sound, however if I am playing at a rap/hip-hop style show I will mic it from the bottom in order to get a 'snap' type of sound.

Question Two:

I'm going to mic the Hats with a condenser, same sort of question as before, and also will there be large bleed issues between hats and snare mics.

Suggestions welcome.

I always find it best to leave my Hi-hats to an overhead mic along with the rest of the cymbals. This is because there are often other things which will also bleed into a high-hat mic in the close area (eg snare, splash cymbals etc) and I usually have 2 overhead condensers open, about 4 foot above my head.

PS: I forgot a little question.

Has anyone encountered a problem with a Sennheiser 901 not fitting through the hole in a kick drum.

I was thinking of getting one, but don't really want to encounter issues with none fitting drum holes, I overheard the subject at a recent gig and it got me thinking.

I have never had this issue but the port hole on the front of bass drums can differ by size so you may have a problem with some drums and no problem at all with others.

 

Cheers,

Rhys

[Bobbsy]

One thing that needs to be said in any topic about drum mic positioning is....

 

....get down on your hands and knees and use your ears! You'll be amazed at how much the sound changes with even a small position change of your head...and how quickly you can identify the "sweet spots" that sound the way you want things to. Put your mics in the sweet spots and that's three quarters of the job done.

 

You'll get some strange looks as you crawl around the drummer of course...but the sound will be worth it. Well, unless the drummer drools.

 

Bob

[ian hatch]

One thing that needs to be said in any topic about drum mic positioning is....

 

....get down on your hands and knees and use your ears! You'll be amazed at how much the sound changes with even a small position change of your head...and how quickly you can identify the "sweet spots" that sound the way you want things to. Put your mics in the sweet spots and that's three quarters of the job done.

 

You'll get some strange looks as you crawl around the drummer of course...but the sound will be worth it. Well, unless the drummer drools.

 

Bob

Thanks Bob & Rhys some great tips and advice.

Little bit scared about the drummer ref.

[MarkPAman]

Well, unless the drummer drools.

But how else do we check the riser is level?

[Matt Pengelly]

This thread has reminded me of a brilliant little tip that was introduced to me a few months back when I was lucky enough to be doing a show with Steev Toth mixing FOH.

 

The 57 he used for snare had a fork taped along one side of it with the prongs curling down just over the end of the mic. 'What on Earth is going on here?' I asked. 'Have you ever had to replace the basket on a 57?' says he. 'Sure have, it's a right pain in the bloody ne... aahhh... great idea!'.

[Bill Keown]

I'd beg to differ on Rob's point about the polarity between kick 'in' and kick 'out' mics. 90% of the time I'll run the inside mic opposite polarity to the outside mic. I often notice a substansial gain in bottom end when running them out of phase. Normal positioning for my set ups would be e901 laid dead centre on base of kick drum, beta 52 with it's blue ring about 10mm outside of the hole.

 

Polarity flipping can add a whole new dimension on a double mic'd kick, think 'death by sub' and you'll be somewhere near:)

 

Also yeah there is a certain 'evans'? kick drum head that an e901 won't fit through, I've normally got the b91 out in this case because it's a shade smaller.

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

And slightly more in tune with the original post. As a general rule, snare top is the way to go, that way you'll get the 'tone' of the drum, rather that flappy bits of metal smashing into the bottom head.

 

If you find just snare top alone to be too dull, try mic'ing the hats from the underneath, those pretty condensers will pick up the snare slap quite well and could make it sound just right..