When I mic the bottom of the snare it's actually not so much about getting the wires as much as just filling out the snare. Once you flip the polarity a whole bunch of other frequencies appear and suddenly your snare weighs so much more!

I haven't been mic'ing the bottom head at all lately.

I was finding that i was using it kind of as a crutch so that i wouldn't have to address some of the inherent flaws of my snare+head situation. Lately i have been pretty much mic'ing the shell, and pretty close to it at that, no top, no bottom. Then i spent a while attaching bits of tape to the top head until i got it ringing a little but not too much.

It was way more time-intensive than just using 2-3 mics for the snare, but i am happy enough with the sound, and i feel like it both sits more naturally in the kit mix, and cuts through better as its own element that i can turn up if needed without turning up something else too.

I was also finding before that my use of the bottom mic was actually causing me troubles when i tried to mix it with my top head the way i had it before. I was trying to get too much definition out of a top head that didn't really have enough, and that meant cranking the bottom head mic in comparison. The end result i found for my setup, what that i was thinning out the snare in the mix too much. The ringy top was getting lost, and all that was making it through was the cranked under snare mic, which, for the most part doesn't have a whole lot going on but middsy buzz.

It all depends greatly on what you are using for a snare, for heads, for tunings, and indeed, for snare strainers.

It's Stevie Nicks' vocal mic of choice if I remember right. I was initially predisposed to dislike the thing because I think the first time one was foisted upon me it was just the wrong application. It's a bigass dynamic, and those wind up in a number of unusual spots, at least, the ones that aren't specifically marketed as kick mics. See: SM7, RE20, 421, the Heil stuff... all of which people are inclined to throw on/in front/inside of almost anything at some point. They're also usually a lot cheaper than a real class LDC and just as "respectable" in the snootysnoot-appeal category. The 441 is the most pricey of the lot easily. The rest could be found kicking about in the $3-350 range.

I should have those drums uploaded in a bit, BTW; the FTP upload isn't fast and even sawed-off and downsampled to 44.1 it's like 300 meg. Stuff for people to hear and play with though.

...and what you want out of the close snare mics, and how much of the snare is the overheads/room. And those are usually a compromise 'cause we're guerilla-recording the drums most of the time in whatever space we can stash them in. If we're lucky one of our bandmates has a big living room or something.

I'd like to fool around with the side shell thing more. I got into using a big condenser on the snare some years back and pulling it off pretty far; it sounds more like the drum than the close 57 top head bonk thing. (The i5 has better rejection and a bit more shiny top end, so to those who have one...) Doesn't work for everything though, and I hope you don't mind tons of bleed.

...and my wireless network cut out like 90% into the upload. Grr.

Yarr. Lately i have just been running into the issue of needing a "snare volume" control in the mix. The last couple bands i recorded were the same issue, with pretty different sounding snares. The snare needs to come up, but it needs to leave the hi-hats behind when it does.

I tried the shell mic a ways back and didn't like it, it seemed more like the snare side to me than a mix of the top and bottom. After working with the top head's ring though, and moving the shell mic around some, i found a spot on my snare where it does sound like a better balanced sound with some ring to it, but also some good sharpness. So i will definitely be sticking with the shellmic for a while anyhow.

I am also getting a lot less hi-hat the way i have it now(actually surprising because the thing i am using as a baffle isn't really something that i would expect to block much of anything), which is great because i can just wail on the compression on the snare more. I have also basically been mixing around the snare lately. I used to use the kick more as a starting point, but i was definitely playing with too much low end because of it, everything was dense and muddy and not enough room for the snare to fit. It occurred to me after listening to some random records that do work sonically/mix-wise, that being able to hear the kick clearly, actually isn't always that big a deal. In metal it is, but in rock, not at all a requirement.

That is something i have been trying to pay attention to more lately actually, stuff that is missing from recordings. Like, if i had recorded it, would i want more hi-hat definition, more kick, more ride, snare, whatever? And then, really looking at it, and asking myself if the recording suffers from the element being "under-represented". It has been kind of interesting for me, and was something i needed to look at more for sure. Leaving shit out, burying shit, sometimes, that works. Actually, pretty often that works. But the inclination in writing and recording is to make every little bit and trick as clear as possible, highlight all of the details, etc.

It can be difficult for me to accept that some slick bullshit that i wrote or played, actually doesn't need to be heard for a songthing to function correctly. I am pretty attached to all of those little bullshitteries.

Oh, of course; the natural tendency I think is to turn everything up that sounds cool and only bury something if you kinda want to imply that it's there but don't want anyone to notice you or someone else fucked it up.

What are you using as a hat baffle, anyhoo?

The metal kick thing is sorta idiosyncratic to the genre; it's a wholly unnatural sound and sorta needs to be what it is (to some degree) for the whole thing to make any sense and not just turn into a wall of woof. At least, for fastmetal styles. Not every kick drum sound needs to work on a DM record or a club track though. Getting the kick to make sense is I think more about its relationship to the bass than anything. I honestly don't think a lot of the time it really needs mondo low end; you never hear that in the room anyway, that's a function of being miced up through a PA. Depends on if the bass is actually any good or just hanging out under the guitars (or keys or xylophone or whatever) with nothing better to do though? On denser stuff I've wound up doing some bizarre-ass subtractive EQ to get both to make sense and it's given the really weird impression of actually having more low end because it's clearer and not just a wall o' crap that sounds cool on its own- back to that first point- but turns to crap when the cool sounding bits are getting eaten up by something else and you never hear them anyhow. Some of my favorite biggest rockingest snares are on stuff by Ani Difranco, Charles Mingus and Amorphis in psych-folk-acoustic mode... 'cause there's nothing to step on that snare.

For a snarey baffle, i had some 1" thick gatorboard(the extra dense harder foam core shit) lying about from way back in the day when i would have had some sort of artnerd use for such a thing, so i figured why not try some out on it?

I have not yet actually done a with/without comparison in a scientificish A/B fashion, but i AM getting buttloads less cymbal bleed in the bastard. And the mic is pretty much where it was before, just a little lower, so my initial thought is that the gatorboard might actually be doing something.

Though, like i said, i don't actually expect the material to be able to do much in the way of soundwave redirection/absorption. At some point when i am feeling more geeky i will do a with/without test and see what the haps is proper.

I remember Gatorboard! My pedalboard is actually a piece of 1/2" Sintra I boosted from work a few years ago.

I believe I've mentioned before I have some pieces of hideous yellow foam I'd be more than willing to mail to people if they want them. They are 6 3/16 x 5 7/16" x 1 1/2" and I have a whole bunch.

I would definitely like some hideous yellow foam. I am stuck with my too heavy hi-hats for the foreseeable future. A deeper look into baffling is totally in order.

And when i was living in nyc, the place i worked at sold that Sintra biz, that was the expanded pvc, right? We also sold some shit that i wish i had boosted some of: it was aluminum front and back with high density foam in the middle. I don't remember the name, but that stuff would be swell for goboing and making baffles for cabs and whatnot.

Come to think of it, that place actually had all kinds of stuff i wish i had access to these days... Come to think of it, i wonder if they would let me have that job back, i wouldn't mind having access to a paycheck again, for instance. Indeed, i left that place to come here... and that has obviously worked out brilliantly for me.

I have actually been looking to get out of the two-mic snare setup. I mean I have eight inputs and a five piece kit. And I like my cymbals in stereo. So something's gotta go if I also want a room mic.

Been listening to some recordings, and hearing a very nice snare that sounds to me like it might have been recorded with just one mic, through a nice pre. Yet with plenty of representation of both heads of the snare, and overtone. So some distance must be involved, while getting plenty of help from the more ambient mics. This is a technique I must acquire.

Example:

Listening to that production, it seems unlikely to me that there would only be one mic on that snare.

One mic, plus plenty of help from the overheads and room.

Is that info from the engineer?

Why yes.

I engineered this album... when I was eleven.

It's been a while so I've forgotten how to place the mic, but I can at least tell you that that's what went down.

That is pretty good for eleven. Usually Sony wouldn't let anyone prepubescent engineer one of their productions. Good show!

Tnahks Chris.