Original subtitles

continuing in my series of recording

technique videos this is from my pro

drum recording techniques video one

thing concerning this is that people

talked about in the original video about

the overhead mics the type of overhead

mics now any overhead mics can work any

stereo pair can be condensers small

diaphragms these happen to be large

diaphragm tube condensers but you can

really use

anything and the mic placements will be

roughly about the same so here it is

on the overheads we have u47s as a

spaced pair they're pretty much equally

distant in height from the snare drum

the snare drum is close to being in the

center of the image but not exactly it's

pretty much

like it actually looks behind the drum

kit

on the kick drum the outer kick drum mic

is a wonder u-47 fat mic

and then the inside pointing slightly at

an angle to the head is a electro voice

re20 on the tops we have a single

sennheiser md 421

place just a couple inches above each of

the toms that's the rat tom let me come

around to the floor tom

as you can see they're just placed a

couple inches above

on the snare i'm using two

transformerless sm57s they've been

modified i got them at zen pro audio by

my good friend warren dent i like

transformerless 57s because they have a

little bit more bottom end this is

really

subtle stuff that people like me notice

but most people probably wouldn't notice

so you can use a regular 57. anyway so

the distance i'm going to go to this

video here

distance is about three finger widths

away from the snare on the top

and the same thing with the bottom mic

is about the same distance away

from the bottom head of the snare you

want to have the mics the same distance

away and you want to flip the polarity

on one or the other mic depending on

what they sound like in the overheads

before we go any further i want to talk

about the phase relationships between

the microphones because you have

microphones placed at different

distances from the drums and you have

all these open microphones

the time delay for example from the

snare to the overheads is different than

the time delay

of the snare to the kick drum because

you're going to get some bleed in these

microphones the microphone in front of

the kick is not only going to pick up

that but it's going to pick up the toms

it's going to pick up the snare

so all these relationships need to be

balanced let's head over the white board

for a really quick discussion on what

phase is to begin we need to actually

look at the components of a sound wave

so i drew out a sine wave here amplitude

is how far above or below the center

line is that's x-axis which is

time the peak of the

sound wave above the x-axis is called

the crest and the lowest point is called

the trough okay makes sense

okay so the amplitude is the distance

above or below the center line

and the frequency is the number of

cycles per second now to go one cycle

here for example from here to here

that's that that is wavelength it really

can be anywhere that is the wave

length

but you can measure it

only in

there we go

or you can go from here

to here

that is one complete

cycle through the waveform where it goes

above it below it and back to the

x-axis again the most important thing

you need to know about phase is when you

have a particular source like a kick

drum bass drum that has two mics on it

or a snare drum or a tom that those mics

are in phase with each other which

usually

involves flipping the polarity on one of

the mics and then the phase relationship

between those mics and the overheads

here's a little clip from a video i did

about two years ago on phase i do a

quick demonstration of what close miced

in and out of phase drums sound like

let's check it out okay i want to hear

the snare now

now i'm going to flip the phase on the

snare bottom

okay again

it's very obvious when the snare is out

of phase it sounds incredibly thin

next let's go into pro tools and see

what the waveforms look like when it's

in phase versus out of phase okay here's

the snare top

and this is the snare bottom see how

they're perfectly in phase

the crests are happening right at the

same time

you know this is once again this is time

time delayed a little bit because

you have the width of the snare

or the depth however you want to think

of it so it's going to be a few you know

it's going to be a few samples behind it

here if i had to look at it it's 12

samples behind that's how long it takes

for that

for it to get from one mic to the next

so

if i move to my

out of phase sample you're going to

notice once again that they are

perfectly out of phase here you have a

crest there you have a trough there

this waveform actually goes down as a

trough first because

it's moving away from the microphone

okay

and the air is moving towards the

microphone there

that is an out-of-phase snare let me

talk about the mic pres that we're using

for the drums we're using all these neve

style mic pres these are all bae two of

these are 1066s two or 1073s two or ten

32s which is a 1073 with an expanded mid

range that bae makes and i also have

these neve 1081s down here

the only other extra mic pre is a

is an electrodyne 501 that i'm using for

the hi-hat now i'm using the onboard eqs

here except for the kick out i'll talk

about that in a second so in the kick in

the only thing that's being taken out on

the eq is some 360 hertz that takes out

the boxiness

the kick out

is being routed over here to this

560 api uh graphic eq and i'm dumping

out 500 and 250 hertz to once again take

out the boxiness of it it's just gonna

give it a tighter sound and take out

some of the muddiness uh the snare top

is going through a neve 1066

snare bottom is going through the 1073.

on the on the snare top i'm adding some

7k which gives me the sound of the snare

wires

adding a little bit of 220 to give it a

little bit of bottom end on the snare

top

snare bottom the polarity is reversed so

it sounds like it's in phase with each

other the overheads which have the u47s

are going through these uh 1032s and

then the toms

are going through the neve 1081s they

have a little bit of eq on them taking

out a little bit of mid-range but we'll

talk about those when we get to them

next we're going to have jack play a

couple different beats now what i've

done is i've balanced all the mics

into a mix that sounds good to me so

i've taken it there's no eq there is no

compression nothing on the drums this is

the straight drum sound with the eqs

that i just talked about the couple

little things that i did

single mic toms double mic snare

double mic kick let's check it out

[Music]

all right let me play that same take now

i've got no effects on anything here

there's no nothing on the sends there's

no eq this is just the balance that i

came up with i'm gonna isolate the

individual instruments and show you what

they look like and what they sound like

soloed here we go

[Music]

let's look at the kick drum i'm going to

zoom in as you can see what the phase

looks like see how the two

humps are

in phase with each other here they go up

here they go down here

this one's a little bit behind now a lot

of people will drag these things over to

make them in phase like this

don't do that you don't need to do that

that's close enough there if it sounds

good it is good next i'm going to have

jack play a mid tempo groove let's check

it out

[Music]

let's check that groove out in pro tools

[Music]

they kick out really makes that kick

drum sound huge and puffy

[Music]

next we're gonna do a third groove at a

faster tempo let's check it out

[Music]

let's check that take out in pro tools

[Music]

you guys know from watching my videos i

like all different biking techniques i

just did a video on the glen john's four

mic or three mic technique

this is more of a modern drum recording

approach what we've been doing in this

video

now many times

you have the bass drum and snare drum

double mic'd i like to have on the snare

drum many times to have two mics on the

top of the snare one mic in the bottom i

guess triple mite i'll have a 57 along

with a small diaphragm condenser mic

here's a mic clip that actually holds

the two mics the sm57 and the akg 451 as

you can see the capsules are right next

to each other so the phase will be dead

on another thing i like to do is to

double mic the toms let me show you that

on the top of the tom i have an akg 414

facing the center of the drum and then

on the bottom of the tom

is a sennheiser md

421 about the same distance away

same thing

on the floor tom so on the top of the

floor tom

i have the akg 414

and on the bottom way down here

i have the

sennheiser

421

let's check that out

[Music]

let's check that take out in pro tools

i'll solo the top and bottom mics on the

tom so you can actually hear what they

sound like isolated

[Music]

let's just take a look at those toms by

themselves the top and bottom let's look

at the rack here

play this

solo it

here's with the top

when i add the bottom let me play the

bottom by itself

then together

if i zoom in you can see that they're

perfectly in phase with each other you

see here

perfectly lined up i mean that perfectly

i could move it but you don't want to do

that it's always going to be delayed a

little bit right just it's time

traveling here let me loop a single hit

and i'll turn the rack bottom on and off

here we go

[Music]

way bigger with that bottom end just

sounds much fuller with no eq or

anything let's do the floor time here

first of all let's look at the floor tom

zoom in once again

oops

so here we go let's look here

you can see they're perfectly in phase

with each other let's listen what that

sounds like

here's the

floor tom by itself

[Music]

it sounds good by itself here it is with

the floor bottom

here's the floor bottom by itself

see how much tone there is listen to the

single hit

let me loop it so you can hear your with

and without

[Music]

when i add that bottom mic in

yeah it does get louder but it gets

fatter you can hear the entire

roundness of the drum it sounds like the

drum

like you're hearing both sides because

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[Music]

you