All language subtitles for The ULTIMATE drum overhead mic placement guide (or close enough!) - YouTube - English

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good day

it's constantine today we'll have a look

at some drum overhead techniques

we'll demonstrate a few techniques both

mono and stereo

each one is different and has a

different sonic quality to it

so do not learn just one technique and

always use that

because it will not it might not work on

everything

you need to know a few and it's

important to get a good overhead sound

because sometimes the overheads

are fifty percent of your drum sound now

a few things that if you especially if

you're starting out that you need to pay

attention to

the first one is phase uh let's record

something

check the face and see if you need to

make any adjustments

and the second one is and that could be

a matter of personal preference

is perspective you can there are two

ways of going about it

either record audience perspective or

musician's perspective

i always do audience perspective because

when i listen to music

i like to feel like i'm part of the

audience now let's start with some

stereotechnics first

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okay coincident pair x y

let's use use the ships to demonstrate

this technique

uh the way you set it up is you bring

the mics the capsules

as close as you can without touching and

you have an

angle of 90 degrees the good thing about

this technique

is that it translates almost perfectly

to mono

because the capsules are so close

together now here

i am using the km84 because they have

the attenuation pad

and again audience perspective the

height

it depends i always start with the

height it's high enough to cover the

entire kit

and there are two ways of going about it

you either

center the snare or the kick the way you

look at it is you draw an imaginary line

from where

the mics meet and you go all the way

down in our case

we are centering the kit we'll record

both but i doubt you'll you hear much of

a difference

okay let's have a listen

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okay now for this one we're just going

to move

the overheads over the snare

okay so now the snare is centered

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so

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okay just so you know how it sounds like

i'm gonna bring the mics

down a bit lower

there again i have the the

snare drum as my center and let's have

listen at this one

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okay for this one let's take him all the

way up

that's as far as this tongue will go

over the snare again

after a certain level after a certain

height it will just start sounding mono

again

so you're going to lose that stereo

spread that you want

so play around with it this is

exaggerated i would never use that

but just have a listen see if it sounds

right or not

if it doesn't just bring them down again

again this is exaggerated

but let's see how this sounds

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okay ortf let's use the ships again

to demonstrate this technique the good

thing about this technique is that it

does

both volume difference and time

difference

if you're a bit confused about the terms

i have a video where i go into detail

about all of these

now the way you set this one up is the

mics have an angle

a mutual angle of 110 degrees

and they are exactly 17 centimeters

apart

now if you have a stereo bar like this

one it's easier to set up because this

one is exactly 17 centimeters by design

to help you set this technique up so

again

110 degrees 17 centimeter apart

and with the km i 84

again audience perspective and the

height as the xy it depends go higher or

lower but it's high enough to

at least cover the entire kid

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okay let's go a bit lower

about there

and i forgot to mention that i have

centered my snare for this one

we'll try the kick as well so you know

what it sounds like but let's have a

listen

at this one first

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okay for this one let's exaggerate it

let's go all the way up

there you go over snare and you'll see

that like before in the x y

it starts to lose its stereo image so it

starts to sound mono

okay this is way way too much i would

never do this

but let's have a listen and see how it

sounds all the way up there

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so

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okay now let's move the mics so that the

kick is the center of our overheads

uh draw an imaginary line from the

center exactly where the mics meet

all the way down and make that your

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center

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so spaced pair now another stereo

technique which is basically just

one mic at each side of the kit

now there are many variations of this

one you can just come in close

and point them outwards you can have

this one on each side of the king

pointing

down or another one is to angle them and

just point the snare

now to avoid phase issues you have to

make sure they're equal distance

for either the snare or the kick

whatever your center is

as always i forgot my tape measure but

you can use an xlr

so from the center of the snare we

measure

this mic and then all the way here at

this one

so they're equal distance from the snare

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okay the exact same thing but this time

instead of the mics pointing straight

down

they are pointing to the center of the

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snare

okay spaced pair again let's move them

closer

this is going to give us more of the

symbols

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so

now for this one we've raised the mic as

high as the stun will go

and you'll see in spaced pair

it is a bit more forgiving than ortf and

xy

where you lose some of that stereo image

this one is a bit more forgiving

as before same distance from the snare

yes and yes let's have a listen

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okay recording man which is

based on glen zones now the difference

between these two is that recordman

takes under consideration the phase so

the first mic is placed directly above

the snare

and the starting point and which is

this is the one we're going to try first

is two drumsticks above the snare

and then the exact same distance

so over snare we put the second mic

over solder now the stereo immense is

not as great

as space pair or you know or ortf

but if that's what you can afford to do

just go for it

let's have a listen

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for this one we do the exact same thing

as before but this time our height is

two and a half drumsticks instead of one

um i forgot to mention that this mic

here

can either point the center of the snare

the center of the drum kick

or somewhere in between so play around

with it because the sound changes a bit

now another thing everything i've

recorded so far

i usually just just for convenience just

do a stereo track

but this does hard panning hard left and

hard right

with these ones i'm doing um two mono

tracks because i don't want to punt them

hard left and hard right i usually go a

bit less

so if you want to have a go with it just

try it like that and play around with

the panning

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you