How High Should Your Overhead Mics Be? Charlie Waymire: Recording Ninja Workshops

Описание: Charlie discusses how the height of your overheads can change your sound. Charlie's assistant Hao Yang plays on the demos.
http://www.UltimateStudiosInc.com - http://www.RecordingNinjaWorkshops.com

Charlie's new eBook "The Art of Recording Drums Vol. 1 - Minimal Micing Setups" is now available at: http://bit.ly/aord-ebook-fb

Microphones used:
AT4050 - Overhead
Heil PR30 - Inside Kick
AT4047 - Outside Kick

All 3 mics are going straight into the Trident 88 console with no eq or compression.

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Full English Transcript:

Hey everybody Charlie Waymire here from Ultimate Studios, inc and the Recording Ninja Workshops.

I want to talk a little bit about overhead mics today and their proximity to the drum kit and how we an emphasize or de-emphasize parts of the kit to build our drum sound.

I have an Audio-Technica AT4050 large diaphragm condenser set to cardioid about 35 inches above the snare drum. This is going to capture a really nice snare sound because we’re pretty much right over the snare. it’s also going to capture fantastic tom sounds but it will de-emphasize the metal, the cymbals a little bit. So you’ll get this great snare, you’ll get these great toms, you’ll hear the cymbals perfectly well but they won’t be as loud as the snare and toms which can be a great balance.

Now as this mic starts to raise up, we’re actually going to do 35’ and 55’ just to show you the difference, as we start to get a little bit higher we’ll de-emphasize the drums a little bit. They don’t go away but the snare will start to soften up, we’ll lose a little bit of the transient, same thing with the toms, so maybe a touch of the attack goes away. As it gets up here, we’re also going to get a more general picture of the drums so the cymbals will start to come up and kind of match where your toms and snare are.

So you get the mic lower we’re going to emphasize the drums, the attack from the snare and toms but it will de-emphasize the cymbals a little bit. As it raises up we get a more even picture of the drum set, those element start to even out. Now as this mic gets higher we’re also going to introduce more room sound. Now that may or may not be a good thing. It’s going to depend on your music and what you’re trying to record. If you’re doing a minimal micing setup that may be a great thing because you get a little room ambience along with your overhead sound. Whether it’s a mono or stereo pair. If you’re doing a big multi-mic session with room mics and everything you may not want your room mics to be overly room and you may want to try and keep them down.

I encourage you to experiment a little bit with that on the next session you have. The way a drummer plays can also dictate a little bit of how high the overhead can be.
Let’s see how this sounds. I’m going to bring out my trusty assistant Hao, he’s going to do a little drum playing. I’m going to go in the control room and get things ready. Here we go.

So besides choosing the right mics for your music also think about their proximity to the drum set so you can dial in just the sound you need for the songs you’re recording. I also want to encourage you to spend some experimenting with the different mics that you use for overheads so you can see how they react at different heights above the drum set.

If you enjoy these videos please subscribe to the YouTube channel and sign up for the mailing list. Charlie Waymire here signing off from Ultimate Studios, inc. See you in the studio!