Beta52 and 91 Mixing Styles

[jbaileypro]

Hi all,

 

Most gigs that I engineer at have both a Kick in and Kick out microphone. There are a few recurring themes I see from other engineers when mixing between the two microphones. I just wanted to know how and why people use these different methods and if there are any more. 90% of the time I see a Shure Beta 52 outside the Kick and a Shure Beta 91 inside but the same methods apply with most 2 mic kick drum setups.

 

I've tried a few in the past but still go to my preferred method. Does anyone use any of the following methods. If so why? Are there any other methods that people use?

 

The methods I have observed so far are:

- Beta 91 with Hi Pass. Beta 52 with low pass. Then separate processing on both channels.

- Beta 91 with Hi Pass. Beta 52 with low pass. Then processing them together as one.

- Kin and Kout sent to a single bus to process them together.

- Kin and Kout left separated and processed separately. My personal method.

I like to leave them separate as I use processing separately on each. A faster gate on the Kin to get the click and slower gate on the Kout to get the thumb. I use aggressive EQ on the Kout to take a lot of the click out but keep the Kin quite flat as it still gets a lot of thumb too. Kout usually stays higher in the mix than Kin as I use it to create sub while leaving the click lower so it doesn't mask other instruments/inputs.

 

I have only ever seen a couple of engineers use input delay to try and correctly time align the two microphones. Is there a massive benefit to such a small delay? I always thought that my agressive EQing would mean that I would gain very little compared to the time spent time aligning the mics.

 

Thanks as always,

Jonathan

[azlan]

first of all, do you really need 2 mics? A lot of the time, it can be quicker and easier to single mic the kick, especially on none-rock shows.

It really depends on what you are trying to achieve with the kick sound, and what equipment you have available. One of the most important things with dual mic'ing the kick (same applies to snare, overheads etc..) is getting the mics time aligned, using channel delay if available on a digi desk, polarity where thats not available, or something like a radial phazer.

 

Once the mics are time aligned, I would treat each mic independently to get what you want from each (I'm guessing click from one and thump from the other), set gates etc..., after that you can look at routing the mics through a dedicated bus, in order to chuck some processing over the pair of them (compression and a bit of overall EQ)

[jbaileypro]

first of all, do you really need 2 mics? A lot of the time, it can be quicker and easier to single mic the kick, especially on none-rock shows.

It really depends on what you are trying to achieve with the kick sound, and what equipment you have available. One of the most important things with dual mic'ing the kick (same applies to snare, overheads etc..) is getting the mics time aligned, using channel delay if available on a digi desk, polarity where thats not available, or something like a radial phazer.

 

Once the mics are time aligned, I would treat each mic independently to get what you want from each (I'm guessing click from one and thump from the other), set gates etc..., after that you can look at routing the mics through a dedicated bus, in order to chuck some processing over the pair of them (compression and a bit of overall EQ)

 

Most of the smaller events I do I only use a single microphone but a lot of the larger shows I work on have two down on their riders. I still think the 91 is a brilliant microphone especially if you don't have a PA which can handle real low low frequencies. I personally own a E602 which is my go to mic for a single mic on a kick as it gives me everything I need to work with for most genres.

 

 

Do you time align all your microphones on a drum kit? I do the usual phase invert for snare top/bottom, symbols if being spot mic'd but rarely have enough time to time align anything.

 

I know one method of time aligning inputs by switching the phase of one input. Then adjusting the delay until you hear the most cancelation then flipping the phase back. Is there any other methods that are used?

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

[paulears]

I'm never actually sure that on these big events where people request this it can actually be heard. For most of the audience, time alignment measured in millimetres is totally destroyed by distances much greater in the travel from two sound sources. I have a strong feeling all that happens is the two mics give two very different sounds, which get selected or blended to make eq easier. So somebody wanting huge bottom end thud and a click can have quick changes between songs. Two very different sounds on two faders, for pick and mix. Fading in the bottom mic on the snare is the same. The tighter hollow thwack happens at some point on the fader. In the studio it's very different. The two mics on each drum give very wide ranges of tone, but out there with big messy PA's? In a field? Turn a knob and wait to hear the change after the wind has messed with it? I think it's brown M&Ms stuff. Great to put on a rider but a bit pointless.

[Alec]

I'm never actually sure that on these big events where people request this it can actually be heard. For most of the audience, time alignment measured in millimetres is totally destroyed by distances much greater in the travel from two sound sources. I have a strong feeling all that happens is the two mics give two very different sounds, which get selected or blended to make eq easier. So somebody wanting huge bottom end thud and a click can have quick changes between songs. Two very different sounds on two faders, for pick and mix. Fading in the bottom mic on the snare is the same. The tighter hollow thwack happens at some point on the fader. In the studio it's very different. The two mics on each drum give very wide ranges of tone, but out there with big messy PA's? In a field? Turn a knob and wait to hear the change after the wind has messed with it? I think it's brown M&Ms stuff. Great to put on a rider but a bit pointless.

Yes to double micing for me - for exactly that benefit - really easy to balance out and get the sound you want. I use a D6 and an e901, and it's the biggest piece of cake to work with. Quicker to set up both than to fiddle around getting one just right.

 

But no time alignment gubbins for me, just polarity reverse and I'm in!

[i_hate_fisicks]

Great to put on a rider but a bit pointless.

 

I used to think that, but now I think that having 2 can help. Actually, I think it's more important on a festival say than a tour. If you're doing a tour, chances are you should be able to pick and choose microphones, and you'd probably be able to come up with a mic and position that work well for the particular drum you've got and sound you want. Where you're out in a field doing quick and dirty gigs with lots of different bands, then having 2 mics can help make the best out of whatever is thrown at you.