Drum Room Mics - How to Get MORE Drums, and LESS Cymbals

[@autumnfurtak-cole8161]

thanks for explaining this. Iv'e seen a lot of steve albini videos where he placed a room mic close to the floor but I didnt realize how much of an effect it had on cymbal wash

[@Martin-kn6vc]

This is something I contend with where I record drums. I record in a long and narrow brick-walled room with hard wood floors. It sounds great, but it's really bright, and there's always a tonne of cymbal wash in the room mic(s). I loved examples 2 and 3 - I think they worked best with the other mics, and harder compression would be more forgiving. I've always wanted to try re-amping the drum shells, and maybe a little bit of overheads, through a keyboard amp (or something that's really flat sounding) and seeing what that would sound like for a room mic recording.

[@ChadAnthonyTheReaper]

Simple and genius. Loved the demo. Seems like right in between the top of the snare and the middle of the bass drum sounds perfect for my tast.

[@christopherknox1124]

Dang, such a good tool. Great video as always brother!

[@creativesoundlab]

Thanks Christopher!

[@pezmoz2835]

Great video Ryan. This has really made me think. As with most of us, we just put the mics "where we always did" and then fight the bleed. This has planted a seed in my head ... try something else and listen to it. Cheers mate.

[@creativesoundlab]

Nice, and glad you got a lot out of it.

[@ryandoody2670]

another option that also takes a lot of skill from the drummer is doing a take of just drums, then doing a take with just cymbals so the drums and cymbals are never in the same room and you just turn down the room mic on the cymbals

[@leviathon90]

Hi Ryan, I really appreciate your videos. Have you done a video on boundary mics? It would be great to see some experiments with omni or PZM mics placed against the walls or floor. The theory being you get a boost to the low frequencies (could be good for kick and toms?), and a more accurate pickup of the room because you reduce the amount of short reflections going into the mic.

[@clintonmaher6930]

This is awesome and also great timing for me. My brother and I spent a full day recently just micing up the kit and room and testing all our mics with different placements and configurations. Didn't get to test everything yet but I have a Fathead II that I'm going to test in this position and see how it goes. So far for stereo room mics a pair of Rode NT1's are sounding really good (new black one not NT1A) and I'm hoping to blend the Fathead in with those so will try out your positions!

[@creativesoundlab]

Very cool. Let me know how it works out!

[@RS-pp7ng]

love your videos dude, you're really creative and really give some good advices.

[@malcolmpalm]

Great vid, thanks Ryan. I'm going to try this in my studio with my R121

[@josephhanna7028]

sorry for that late comment, but have you tried put the mic on the floor with a half padded tunnel around it or a half cone

[@Nicksmix97]

Another great concept to try out! Thanks Ryan!

[@creativesoundlab]

Sure thing!

[@AdamRainStopper]

I love positions 3, 4, 5. I would take a track like that and distort the hell out of it, round out the extreme highs and lows, maybe even re-amp it through a small guitar combo and use the controls on the amp and positioning different mics in different places to tweak it after the fact. It could make a good parallel track to compress and add whatever effects like reverb as well, then mix it in with dry or almost dry close-mics and overheads. I find it useful to take a complete mix (for me that usually just means kick, snare and two overheads) and creating a new single mono track out of all 4 mics and compressing it until it's totally flat, then blending it in with the original tracks, but it seems like it would be better this way, starting with a separate track from its own separate room mic.

[@creativesoundlab]

Nice, cool technique. I'll have to give that a shot.

[@AdamRainStopper]

Yeah, it's a nice way to dial in just enough "glue" to hold the kit together as one piece while still allowing you to have the punch and attack of your close-mics.

[@sideoutside]

Hey! Blue Broomstick guy!!! I keep seeing you everywhere man!

[@mortr8007]

I recently was re-mixing some old adats I had . the guitar and bass bled into the room mic more than I preferred so I compressed the room mic and ran the guitar and bass into the side chain , and it significantly reduced their presence in in the room channel. I also used a high pass filter and rolled off some of the eq mids around 500 hz and then used separate compressor to compress the overall and it made it quite usable . I wonder if running the ovhs into a side - chain might help ?

[@nicknovak5514]

I heard that tilting ribbons (especially long ribbons like the N8) is bad because it puts uneven tension across the corrugations. Making one side of the ribbon horizontally tighter and the other side looser.

[@creativesoundlab]

I don't know how much of that I believe. I've watched engineers I respect be much rougher on ribbon mics then I would be, and we all use ribbons as overheads that lay flat.

[@nicknovak5514]

Creative Sound Lab yea I don't know if it makes a realistic difference to the sound or the integrity of the ribbon. Possibly more so for older ribbons, as we were talking specifically about an RCA 44 when I was told this.

[@nicknovak5514]

Also laying flat facing downwards is fine, it's specifically tilting them sideways.

[@creativesoundlab]

Ah ok, so like if I were to point the ribbon at the kit, one edge of the ribbon would be pointing up, and the other pointing to the ground?

[@nicknovak5514]

Creative Sound Lab No, like if the mic was horizontal with one pole of the magnet above the ribbon, and the pole below the ribbon.

[@charlierodgers7637]

Your videos are awesome man! Thanks from New Zealand.

[@majkl9978]

Is one room mic (ribbon) enough or do you have to place a pair?

[@perpetualgrimace]

Holy shit, this is huge. Definitely going to experiment with it at some point.

[@creativesoundlab]

Haha, thanks man. I thought it was a great experiment. I'm going to follow up this video with another one that shows some of the differences of ribbons vs LDCs in this technique.

[@nikky_styx]

This inspired me to mess with my ribbon mic placement and I saw some interesting results!

[@creativesoundlab]

Awesome. Go for it. We all have lots of experimenting to do!

[@akela1]

You are the best... love watching your videos!

[@hoborec]

Damn, I really have to take some time and try this out.

[@creativesoundlab]

Thanks man!

[@JulianFernandez]

Good one

[@christopherknox1124]

Do you have the null pointing at the drums or one of the Figure 8's?

[@creativesoundlab]

Yep, you caught that. Good eye. I wanna explore this more in a video soon. Null is at the drums, but mic is facing the floor. This way we don't null out the reflections! I think I was able to double down on those floor reflections so that the direct and reflect sound was a more effective balance between the two.

[@christopherknox1124]

Ah, cool! I've seriously been more interested in grabbing a pair of ribbons since finding your channel. What do you like to work with? Is there one that doesn't really work for you?

[@creativesoundlab]

I've always liked ribbons when I try them. I think the AEA ribbons are fastest out of the ones I have, which is what you want.

[@stereohangar5328]

Ryan, how high is your ceiling? Do you think the reflections coming from the ceiling versus the floor may have contributed to why you got mostly cymbals in position 6? Have you tried this with a more directional ribbon like the Beyer M160's? I have been using the 160's pointed at my floor and away from my kit somewhat close to my kick and I have gotten pretty good results but I haven't experimented with too many heights. Maybe raising them up a foot or 2 will kill even more of the cymbal wash. Great vids man, keep them coming.

[@djabthrash]

Great video, thanks !

[@creativesoundlab]

Thanks!

[@FVDaudio]

mmmm with a gobo separation maybe for the video part 2 ¿?

[@proartservices]

4:36 "funnily enough" ... priceless.

[@drummerjeroensimons]

Great experiment, I like the 3rd the best....:)

[@creativesoundlab]

Nice. Yeah 3 and 4 for me. Kick was loudest in 1.

[@ronnysrecords]

Did not like 5 and 6.

[@creativesoundlab]

I agree.

[@hypersonicvipclub]

Brilliant!