The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

Mixing drums in stereo and keeping it anchored in the middle.

I shouldn't say that it's "incorrect" (I hope I didn't, anyway)... More that it's unrealistic and difficult to get it to sound natural. Some engineer's get it down very easily - Others complain that they want that sound, but they don't want it to sound like the kit goes clear around them. There really aren't any guidelines to stick to except to do what sounds right.

That being said - If you're in a DAW and you want the toms panned across hard, try something...

Set up a compressor on an aux - Make it mono - Roll off the highs down to maybe 1.5kHz or so - Scoop some lower mids out maybe centered around 400Hz. Send the toms into this and squash it "reasonably" hard - medium attack, medium release, etc.

You should hear fairly squishy, mono, scooped sounding toms if it's solo'd. Mix in in gently under the toms.

This is basically a modified parallel compression - Like this, you can pan the toms very wide, but have an "anchor" in the center. The apparent direction comes from the highs, so we've cut them on the aux. The tubbiness gets multiplied in the mids, so we've scooped them on the aux. You can probably roll off a little lows out of the toms so all that energy stays more centered - Like you'd hear it in a room.

It takes a LOT of tweaking to get it right, but it works well in a lot of situations where you need a nice spread, but you don't want the power to move around.


John Scrip - http://www.massivemastering.com

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Refusing to make waves is not an indicator of a life well lived. Refusing to
make waves is the state that precedes drowning. - Paul Coughlin author

Typical Mono Drums Mic Setup: 1 Overhead, 1 Kick, 1 Snare. Recorded on 3 channels during tracking and summed to mono at mixdown.

Typical Stereo Drums Mic Setup: 1 or 2 Kick drum mics, 1 mic on snare top, one mic on snare bottom, 1 mic per tom, 2 or 3 overheads, 1 HH mic, and one or two room mics. During mixdown, the mics are panned as follows:
Kick - Centered
Snare - Centered, or slightly to one side.
HH - Slightly to one side.
O/H Crash - Hard left or right.
O/H Ride - Hard the other way.
O/H Splash - Centered, if used.
Toms - Panned from one side to the other.
Room mics - Panned if two, centered if one.

From Harvey Gerst

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Refusing to make waves is not an indicator of a life well lived. Refusing to
make waves is the state that precedes drowning. - Paul Coughlin author

I've been able to get what IMHO is a very decent stereo drum sound with 4 mics. It sounds "centered", yet "fills" move nicely through the stereo field (without sounding like the drummer is playing from one side of the room to the other), and cymbals separate cleanly from one side of the kit to the other.

I put an dynamic mic on the snare, and one on or in the kick. I put a condenser mic on each side of the kit, close in, about 2 to 3 feet above the cymbals. In the mix the kick goes in the center, the snare slightly off center to the right (unless the drummer plays a left handed kit, which hasn't happened to me yet), and the overheads hard left and right.

You can hear mp3 samples of this on the Stovebolt Six website (http://www.stoveboltsix.com). Go to the "Music" page.

If the drummer is particularly busy on the cymbals, I pan the overheads about 9:00 - 3:00. This helps to keep the listener from getting fatigued or distracted by excessive left right drum movement.

I don't pretend to be any kind of great recording engineer, just a local guy recording local bands in a home studio. I've had some great advice from some really talented and experienced folks, though, and feel compled to share with others what my mentors have been kind enough to share with me.

CJ

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CJ the Radiatorman

Sounds like some more good techniques and a little easier than the above post.

Who submitted that one anyway?

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Refusing to make waves is not an indicator of a life well lived. Refusing to
make waves is the state that precedes drowning. - Paul Coughlin author

radiatorman - that's exactly the way i did it last time. the good news for me was i only used preamps on the small condensor overheads. i plugged in a sure 57 and an akg 112 strait into the xlrs and ended up with a very phat signal with plenty of head room. so no need to buy more stuff. yippee.

That's surely a sure way to be sure you sure have gotten a Shure knock-off, when they were sure to leave the "h" out of Shure.

I'm working on my first recording on the 4416 with all real drums. I went with the three mic set-up, similar to what we used at Texastock. AKG kick mic, SM-57 on snare, MXL Mogami wired condenser for overhead - positioned behind/above my right shoulder to cut down on snare bleed.

So far so good, though I'm still up to my ass in editing.

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You can choose your friends. You can choose your line. But never let your friends choose your line.

shure enough

It that MXL Mogami, the V69? And if so, what do you think of that mic in general. I'm looking at the V69 and the V6 Silicone Valve model, and keep going back and forth, as they cost about the same.

I Shure cain't speel too good. My apologeees. Yikes!

Another drum sound I like is the very roomy drums on Glen Phillips' 2001 CD, "Abulum" (more bad spelling? Glen's fault this time). It sound like one mic in the room set some distance from the drums. Very low fi, yet in this case it complements the music well. Talk about centered! Stick the mono drum mix smack dab in the middle.

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CJ the Radiatorman

No Corey, V63M, el cheapo condenser.

I imagine the wire is very nice though....

_________________
You can choose your friends. You can choose your line. But never let your friends choose your line.

Ok, I'm coming in in the middle of this but I've heard pretty good things about the MXL V69 Mogami

http://www.digitalprosound.com/2003/07_ ... xl_v69.htm