I think it sounds fairly lovely, myself.

Put up 4 mics right quick, as I just acquired the MXL2001s. So I threw down the 57 and D112 on the snare and kick respectively. 990 is micing the room multiple feet out and way up in ze airz. My living room has mondo fucking ceilings, even higher than my room. Like, 15 feet up maybe. Turned the room mic up a lot in the mix, the only reason I did this was to give me a reason to move my drums out into this big room and do a quick bit of shit. As it is getting too late for anything too smart.


http://soundcloud.com/cameron-heck/the- ... iving-room

I forgot to include that it's the 2001 as a mono overhead. I don't have enough mic stands, but I will eventually get a couple more so I can run stereo OHs with a room mic.

i like it- but i fear it might be a little too spacious in a rock mix to be super practical. but if you find a happy place with your overheads? holy cow.. super zeppelin drums!

mebbe try yanking 'em in a little closer-- you'll still get all the room's benefits, but your fundamental'd be stronger.. regardless.. envious!

That sounds like a big fucking room!

In such an environment, where you put the mic and how you tune and hit the drums(and especially: the cymbals) become very important.

To make the most out of the space, you want to lay back on the cymbals and hi-hats as much as possible and make sure that your snare and toms are tuned for as much volume projection as possible.

Anyhow, the high frequencies bounce around the most in big untreated rooms for drums, and so can quickly get to the point where they are drowning out the rest of the kit. You need to balance things on the playing end, so that there is less cymbal, and as much kick and snare and tom as you can work. In general this is true of recording drums, but it is ESPECIALLY true of recording drums in big open spaces (or just generally with a lot of reverb), with minimal mics.

I know one dood, who actually plays one stick forward and one stick backwards to help with the effect. Backwards stick in his left hand to hammer the snare, forwards stick to give lighter treatment to the hi-hats and other brass. Throws off the balance a little for fills, but you can adjust to it, and it can help some folks because it takes away some of the otherwise necessary mental focus on playing one hand lightly and the other hand hard, which can be kind of tricky.

Personally what i find in that sort of space, is that i also tend to simplify my playing a lot. I will tend to stick to more basic beats, and i will often do fills and stuff at like half the speed that i normally would(normally i play all my fills too fast anyhow, but i mean like 8th notes instead of 16ths). The idea being, to give each individual sound, a little more time to get away from the source and bounce around the room before the next sound comes in behind it.

Anyhow, that does sound like a nice ass room. Like Dan says, another thing to do would be to move the overhead around and make note of how it changes the room vs. cymbal vs. snare/tom balance. There is some counterintuitive stuff that happens with regards to how those things change with the overhead height. For instance, sometimes, moving the overhead closer to the cymbals, will actually reduce how much of the cymbals come across in the mix.

But you have to play with it to find out how far/close is best, because it is also a matter of ratios: 1. between mic and cymbals, 2. between mic and snare/toms, 3. between mic and walls/ceilings, 4. between drums and walls/ceilings. And also of just how lively/reflective/undamped the room itself is.

Personally of late, i have started to go for smaller room sounds for my own drums, but the big rooms definitely have some awesomeness in them.

The room: Big fucking, it is.

And I am indeed going to have some fun tomorrow with messing about with positioning mics and whatnot. I shall also have to take into account this cymbals dealie, as I like to wail on them. Especially the crash. When I am playing soft, simple stuff I am sure I could do a decent job of laying off. Probably quicker rock beats too. The blasting however is out of control/sloppy and in there just so I can keep myself entertained while recording these.

But I did one more real quick today, didn't feel like fucking with it more than once as I will be leaving before long and tomorrow will be the real fun day.

http://soundcloud.com/cameron-heck/more ... ic-testing

This is with both as OHs, but they are still getting some room for sure, but it's much more focused. I think it sounds pretty alright, getting more of where I want to be. This is both the 990 and 2001. I'll try just 2001s tomorrow.

With time..

Good god, why does your living room sound so good?!

Sounds good.

http://soundcloud.com/cameron-heck/yet- ... m-mic-test

One more test I did, this is the best I have got them to sound so far, IMO. Snare sounds especially crack-alicious as I tried a slightly different micing technique. Aiming more at the end of the farside of the snare rim rather than the middle of the head. I also dig the overhead sound I got. It is the 990 on the right and low-ish, aimed at the floor tom/ride. The 2001 is the left and a couple feet higher. Aimed at the center of the kit.

Also: I think I was a pretty baked giving my first estimate about the ceiling height. Something like 13 feet might be closer. But it remains a pretty large room.

The snare is awesome in both of those. I suppose in general I like the slightly brighter snare on the first, but whatever- it sounds good!

No doubt the hardwood helps a tiny slight little bit...

Is there a corner available the drums could be positioned vaguely in? Also, are you familiar with the Glyn Johns overhead setup?

I see you full on raped the kick drum head.

Sounds good. And we haven't even started messing with compression and stuff yet? Man, it gets from pretty fun to fucking fun once you started cramming some of the mics...

Yarp, that is a good sounding roomyo.

I would probably spend a bit more time moving the kick mic around though. In a very general sense, what i like to do, is to start at the outer edge on the snare side of the kick. The further the mic is from the beater inside the kick, the more boom, but the less click. But there are tricks to this also.

If you start at the snare side with the mic almost out of the kick, you can do a few things:

1. The mic is off center, so if you aim it at the beater, it is aiming AWAY from the snare and will have less snare bleed.
2. If you aim it to the corner instead of the beater, you can adjust the mix of attack from the beater.

If you start too close, you only get one sort of sound, mostly beater, some attack, but also you get extra low end from proximity effect that can actually make the kick sound duller.

Usually, i wind up with the mic about halfway or less into the kick, on the right side(looking at it like your picture is), with the microphone aimed more or less halfway between the beater and the left edge of the kick head, maybe a little more to the beater, but not directly pointing at it, usually. You have to move it around to see what works though. It is possibly, especially with an actually good kick mic, to get 90% of the kick sound just by moving the mic around, and that is: not just in our out, but side to side, and angled also.

No real corners to be had.. To the left of the drum kit and back a few feet is a little nook area with a desk, it is square shaped, but provides corners as well as the sound of the rest of the room.

I have indeed read about it, but have not used it since I have acquired a secondary OH.



NO FUCKS GIVEN. But in reality, I just am not very patient and don't care about the aesthetics of my kick drum. I haven't really messed with any processing yet as these have not been monitored recordings besides a quick check afterwards through my stereo downstairs due to the weak ass headphone amp. So not a lot of hands on tweaking time. And today I plan on recording some guitars for Dev and I's stuff, so it might have to wait a little.

The kick mic has been something I have been having a harder time with than anything else, so this helps. I have used the fucker sideways, backwards and forwards. I haven't found anything that I really dig yet, mostly just things that don't sound like useless shit.

i'd seriously recommend throwing some damping in the shell like a pillow or a blanket to get a better sound out of your kick. i've met VERY few kicks that record super well for rock music that have nothing in 'em. too much ring.

I shall try just that.

I'm a fan of the pillow. I probably muffle the kick more than most of us here would like. Totally kills the mids, so you're free to hear the impact and the lows better.

I get as close to no damping as i can with my setup:



The only part of the towel that is touching the head is that little bit on the farside, about a single layer of towel, and only touching it partly. The rest is there to cushion the PZM from picking up vibration noise.

In general, i think folks tend to use too much stuffing in their kicks. In general though, most folks need to because either: 1. they don't know how to tune their kicks. or 2. they play a style that needs a brick hard beater head(like geoff with his slammz.) to give the precise bounce response at the quickyquicks.

Playing an actually correctly tuned kick can even be a little bit difficult, because it tends to be: a little looser than you might expect. I actually usually pretty much have my kick tuned as low as it can go before the lugs rattle from no tension(meaning they rattle, and then the head falls off).

Indeed, an unmuffled kick just feels weird to me. It's all jiggly wiggly. Nothing feels better to my feet than the kick double pillowed, but I single pillow it for sound purposes. Double pillow just if I'm recording with triggers.