omni electrets... potential bleed issues on drums?

i'm planning on building out some pretty typical omni electrets with panasonic wm-61a capsules.  i'm not expecting them to hold up to snare spl levels, but for drums they seem like they should do well pretty much everywhere else sans kick and maybe floor toms (due to frequency response).  my only concern is the amount of bleed inherent in the mics due to their pickup pattern.  the vast majority of the material i'm working on is modern death metal and thus tends to be pretty technical in nature.  most artists want a lot of panning (to a surreal degree), and to make my life easier i'm looking to maximize spot mic placement while minimalizing bleed between sources.  should i be considering different capsules here?

i know from experience that most live theater mic-ing is done via omni electrets so i'm hoping i'll be ok, but speech spl and mic proximity is obviously not nearly that of a drum kit.  more relevant experience would be of infinite help!

Omni mics have their use in recording, in particular when transient response or room ambience are concerned, but they never see considerable use in drum micing, particularly because of their lack of separation, which is the very reason why spot mics are used.
I believe a cardioid capsule would be a better choice, offering performance similar to the offerings by AKG (C411), Audix (MicroD), Beyer (Opus82), Sennheiser (E908)...

what about as a stereo pair for overheads? A spaced omni pair  can work wonders for a drum sound. However you will loose any sense of  real center so add a 3rd mic  cardioid in the middle of the spaced pair.

being born into the daw world has poisoned me against the rationality of concrete decisions :.  on this program material, i've found that precise pans on tom fills are pretty vital to the artists' ears- more reinforcement for the spot mic approach.  agreed on the LCR overhead setup, i've got a pretty decent one already implemented.  i'm just hoping some diy'ed little bastards will make the grade down below for added directivity of the skins.

pucho812 said:

what about as a stereo pair for overheads? A spaced omni pair  can work wonders for a drum sound. However you will loose any sense of  real center so add a 3rd mic  cardioid in the middle of the spaced pair.

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I've seen some engineers record drums purely with DPA omnis on everything and sounding great.

The theory being, you're always going to get bleed, so you may as well have a 'good sounding' bleed rather than a phasey, weird freq response from the back of a cardioid.  On top of that, the sound from the drum that's being mic'ed is so much louder than any bleed anyway.

So unfortunately (or is that fortunately?!) there are no rules as ever!


I'd maybe do a little mod on the capsule to reduce sensitity too.
Like at the bottom of this http://sound.westhost.com/project93.htm

plus what about those drum mic kits from earthworks

onlymeeee said:

I'd maybe do a little mod on the capsule to reduce sensitity too.
Like at the bottom of this http://sound.westhost.com/project93.htm

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agreed, i figure the linkwitz is a no-brainer for drums what with the reduced sensitivity and enhanced spl handling before distortion.  i'll check out that link after i'm done bombing a test  8)

I'm actually a fan of the "omni on the snare shell" technique.

Some talk of drum mic'ing, with an omni or two thrown in:

http://www.kimcheerecords.com/articles/drums/

I do a lot of black/death/thrash in my studio.  9 times out of 10 (for me) I get a guy that hits way too hard and bleed is just un-avoidable.  I usually have dynamics on everything except the overheads and hi-hat (which usually gets thrown out anyway).
112 in the kick(s) 2 57s on snare(top and most important, bottom) usually use a 112 or d12 on floor tom, 421 on mid tom and an audix on the hi tom (if there are more toms, God help you lol) overheads, (here come the strange looks) i use C1000s's wide apart almost on the sides of the kit, (gets a way wider sound if done right as opposed to RCL close together and really helps separate the hat side from the ride side... I only mic the kit like that for that style of music... try it, you'll see why) and if needed 2 larger diaphragm condensers further apart and further away from the kit. (10 feet or so if you got the room)

Also... even with a really well mic'd kit... they want, as you said "surreal" drum panning and sounds.  More often than not, the kick snare and toms wind up being replaced or mixed with original tracks and quantized to the point of inhumanity and non musicality.  which for that style of music is perfectly fine imo. 

If this is the type of thing you're going to be doing a lot of, i would say spend the dough on getting some good triggers and samples with drumagog or sound replacer if you're using PT.  That way when the drummer says, oh you gotta bring the snare on the blast beat up and the fader is already so far up the pin is bent you can just resample without dynamics and it sounds "right".  (and you wont have to say... "well, you played everything else at 10 and the snare on 1 so.....".

Word of suggestion... when they want to record guitars... no matter how bad they want to record the parts with the gain on 10... take it down to 5 or 6 (or less) and layer em... otherwise you'll have a lot of non-tonal white noise during mix down.

If ya wanna hear some samples PM me, ill shoot ya a link.

skipwave said:

I'm actually a fan of the "omni on the snare shell" technique.

Some talk of drum mic'ing, with an omni or two thrown in:

http://www.kimcheerecords.com/articles/drums/

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I've worked with Andy and he's the one that opened my mind to omni's on drum kits.  Particularly the thing there in the picture of the Earthworks on the snare shell.  You don't get much stick definition or thud but you really capture the sound of the drum itself.  In addition to the top and bottom mics, it's a great third option in mixdown.

As far as bleed goes, it's in the eye of the beholder.  I like to capture a good representation of the whole kit.  The forest as well as the trees... Gestalt. If the beholder happens to be looking for the esthetic of black/death/thrash metal, omni's might not be as appropriate.  There are no universal truths. There is no one technique that works for everything.  There are no magic bullets.  

Build the mics.  Whether they do what you are expecting them to do or not, you will not regret the experience of the build.  They may even do things you never dreamed of.

THROW THOSE OMNIS AWAY FOR DRUMS. Sorry new keyboard and caps. A pair of ribbons are used sometimes for overheads. Omni and sucky if you ask me. DEPENDS ON ROOM I guess. Wich is crap actually. The better the room the better a pair of condensers will get it on drums. For overheads. You could just use a bunch of 57's for close mics. I use Cad m179's in hypercardiod for toms. Never use omni mode on any of my mics except vocals or acoustic guitar and some other stuff Like Marshall cabs (sometimes). And you are playing heavy music. You need samples anyway just trigger the drums. Click track and triggers to some heavy samples. Don't waste your time building mics. Spend your time making music!

John

I guess if you are drum replacing then who cares what mics you use....

I've been using one omni electret under the snare, near the kick with this five mic set up

One dynamic on kick, one dynamic on snare,
overheads = two condensers in a 'glynn johns' type arrangement ie one above, one rear right.
Omni under the snare but near the kick too...

You don't need much of this in the mix but it acts a bit like treble eq for the kick/snare as you bring it up.
I have used a 414 on omni for this but having tried a cheap (£100 beyer MM1) electret it sounds loads better, more open and natural and the bleed sounds good.
I'm going to get more!

I guess open and natural may not be what's needed for metal.

tim-burns said:

I guess if you are drum replacing then who cares what mics you use....

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yeah, i've gone about the drum replacement routine many a time... i figured i'd at least give the 'unconventional' route a try.  i'm considering buying a couple of the cheapo chinese 'measurement condensers' and taking a look under the hood (read: gutting).  the stem is a bit longer than that of the earthworks mics, but hopefully the extra inch in capsule leads won't matter much.  got plenty of submini tubes on hand, if i can cram it i think i'll dust off the old naiant msh-4 circuit and give it a whirl.