losthighway wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:03 pm Yeah, those cymbals and overall image work just fine. I wouldn't say the toms are terrible, but I imagine you probably want a little more oomph.

Just a little more tone. it is top mics only, I imagine when we do it for real I'll put up bottoms as well.

Oktava MC-012s with Omni capsules and a jecklin disc. A bit unorthodox for overheads but seems to work ok in my room, which is small but has 10.5’ ceiling. Spaced pair sounded weird and XY wasn’t imaging as well as I want. The mics are as low as possible, and oriented in a slightly skewed way, like if there was an imaginary like between the rack and floor. I like the image better than the conventional way of aligning to the plane of the kick head.

Wish I had some samples but I’ve been working more with typewriters lately.

I've been using ortf pointing straight down for a while, but was reading about setting them almost as the drummers ears (higher, obviously) which sounds interesting.

Also going to try the Massenburg thing next week where you have some not-very-spaced mics equidistant from an imaginary line through the kick and snare, and from the snare. So the (drummer's) right OH is pulled back and down a bit, with left higher and forward. Seems interesting to me at least.

I've been using a pair of KSM-137 in the XY configuration on a boom stand in front of the kit but about 4.5' from the floor - above the rack toms where one is pointed roughly toward the right rack tom, floor tom, and ride while the other is roughly pointed toward the left rack tom and hi-hat. I mic the snare and kick separately as well. Sounds like a pretty natural stereo spread to me. Since drums aren't my first instrument I'm not a heavy tom player though, so that might also factor in. But yeah, not super wide. I always check the drum mix in mono but I end up hard panning those overheads.

I'm probably the oddball in that when I'm listening to someone else drum in a room I don't think the kit sounds super wide in the stereo field anyway. Even less so the larger the room.

Maybe I'll try the ORTF for fun and see what happens.

When I had a big drum room with high ceilings, aka my living room at my house in Denver, I tracked drums with a Blumlein ribbon pair as OHs and a bunch of close mics. Turned out pretty good, but probably wouldn't work in a small room.
Also tried a Glyn Johns setup with the same ribbons instead of LDCs and that one was actually easier to mix. A couple of spot mics on the kick and snare, and an LDC out in front of the kit.

My band is tracking drums next weekend in my basement and I'm going to try ORTF as OHs for the first time, based on this thread. Room is fairly well treated. Low-ish ceilings, but I have OC703 panels up there and a wool rug. May hang another rug behind the kit to tame the early reflections from the nearby concrete wall.

I've only tried Glyn Johns with me as a drummer (I'm not a skillful drummer) and the results were never good. I know they say it only really works for good players; is that actually factual? Maybe it's about cymbal bashing?

My gripe with the Glyn Johns method is that the floor tom sometimes seems weak. You may need to add a spot mic there to beef it up. And yeah, the player needs to have some control and not bash on the cymbals. Ribbons can help there a bit, as they can tame some of that cymbal harshness.

I've found this comparison shootout helpful in the past: http://recordinghacks.com/2010/04/03/dr ... omparison/

penningtron wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:58 pm I'm leaning towards M/S right now but only partially blending the sides in. Wide stereo can introduce a lot of annoying issues for sure, but mono overhead/front of the kit just never sounds like quite enough for me.

My default is mono, my second choice is wide stereo, but I've had a lot of luck with M/S lately. I've just been putting my 422 or c34 up and not thinking about it. If the drummer is good enough, I can get away with a single mic in front of the drums, but that rarely happens with rock bands.

Nate Dort wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:13 am I've found this comparison shootout helpful in the past: http://recordinghacks.com/2010/04/03/dr ... omparison/

This was fun and pretty eye opening. I learned two things:
1) I like the ORTF clips the most. I also think it would benefit the most by adding close snare and kick mics. Defo gonna try it.
2) My XY setup is WAAYYYYY closer to the kit than the picture here, which explains why my stereo field is a lot wider than talked about in this thread and in that clip on this article. Calling mine overheads is a bit of a misnomer I guess.

airloom wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 8:50 am If the drummer is good enough, I can get away with a single mic in front of the drums, but that rarely happens with rock bands.

Yeah.. I've been playing for a long time in many bands and recording sessions with no complaints, but only maybe in the last 2 years feel like I could pull off (a combination of self balance, arrangement sense/restraint, tuning skills, and selecting drums/cymbals suitable for the music) this minimalist approach. It helps to not be playing in 'desperately trying to cut thru the mix' type bands anymore.