slave2indierock wrote:

McNoodles from Josh wrote:simply...
XY : The caps of the mic are together with an angle of about 90°; The back of the microphones are distant from about 17cm...
AB, the microphones are quite parallel... but distant from 30cm to a couple of meters...

For the drums... AB is like one above the crash on the right, the other above the ride on the left..
XY is the couple above the head of the drummer (to stay simple)

Even better answer.

If you decide to go with A/B, there is a trick you can use to make sure that the snare drum (probably the most important element) is well recorded..
use a patch cord or some string or whatever is lying around to measure the distance from the snare drum to each mic. Each mic should be the same distance from the snare drum... that means that sounds from the snare will hit both mics at the same time, and probably with the same intensity, which means you'll get a good solid snare sound.
There's so much to know about recording, and although it may seem overwhelming at first, it becomes second nature after you understand it all. I would continue to read about the different mic setups, how each one works, and the pros and cons of each setup. They all have their applications... and the explanations behind why each setup works is not really as "voodoo" as some people would have you believe.
Try using Google to find more pages on this. For example, you could search: "stereo mic techniques." Wikipedia even mentions some stereo mic techniques on their page for "microphones"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone ... techniques

With minimal mics, I really like a spaced pair with one mic directly above the snare pointed straight down and the other somewhere to the right and somewhat behind the drummer pointed at the right half of the kit. Position the mic above the snare first and then use a string or something like sndo suggested to position the second mic the same distance from the snare (and kick if possible). This with a kick and a snare mic gives me the most realistic picture of a drum kit from only 4 mics.

I found this placement somewhere on this forum a few months ago, and it's changed my drum mic-ing life:
http://www.danalexanderaudio.com/glynjohns.htm
Those two overheads are about 75% of the drum sound.
I'll also throw up a single overhead above the drummer's head to catch any cymbals this set up may miss, but I usually end up not using it much if at all.

I also put a pair across the room to give me some space, because my room is tiny.

Another thing most people don't consider is the stereo placement of each drum in overheads be it xy or ab.

Most of the times I've seen overheads they will be placed based on the assumption the half way point between them will be the point between the two most extremely placed cymbals on the kit but this is rarely how we pan or what we want to hear.

The best way I've found is, assuming the drummer has three toms, imagine the centre line for your overheads to run from the snare through the middle tom and mike either side accordingly. This is especially good with an XY.

Bring up the overheads and get the drummer to hit each drum, check the phase and stereo positioning and pan your close mics accordingly

well.. just to toss another 2 cents in the pot here (anything i'm about to say has allready been said)

for a big drum sound i allways reach for a pair of LD's and space them out... i can tinker with the placement for hours finding just the right spots. i tend to look at the overs and kick as primary drum sound... snare next.. toms last

this is all assuming i'm recording a drummer who is very serious about the way the kit sounds as well as thier own ability to control dynamics. and if you don't have that, is it really worth the effort?

but if you are dead set on adding room mics in your final mix +overheads... seems like a phase nightmare to use anything but a XY setup

evermuse wrote:but if you are dead set on adding room mics in your final mix +overheads... seems like a phase nightmare to use anything but a XY setup

....not if you use the famous Albini 20ms delayed room mic technique. My room isn't so large, so 25-30ms usually sounds right to me. This really reduces/eliminates phase issues with the room mic(s).

Is the albinie-room-mic-20ms-delay-technique works also with spaced room mics taped on the floor (as for don cabalerro...)????

The different mic techniques definitely deliver different sounds. The X/Y arrangement provides a sharp stereo image- the difference between the two capsules becomes mostly 'pressure gradient'. This may or may not be desirable. When you start spacing mics, you introduce phase differences between the two signals, which softens the image, but can provide a more pleasing...ambience?

I use the ORTF style "coincident-spaced pair" a lot. Gives a fairly solid image with some cool phase differences. Been wanting to experiment more with spaced pairs of decent omni-directional mics, but all the rooms I record in are shit.

Does anyone use spaced room mics to great effect on loud rock drummers? If so, I'd love to hear about it...

Drums recorded in the space I've been in for the past 15 months or so are, so far, always A/B. This is done purely because of a floor-spacing issue. One in the front left (from drummer's perspective), pointed at the ride, and one in the front right, pointed at the hihat. It's not particular detailed in the image it produces, and is often quite incoherent as far as the imaging is concerned. But it gets the ambience and the room a bit, which is all I'm really hoping for at this point anyways. I don't even own any omni mics, nor tube mics, nor ribbon mics. It's always the only pair of nice condensors I own, the KSM137's.