Re: Room mic recs: what, where?

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Chud Fusk wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:16 am I've never used a room mic for drums because I've always recorded with a full band and it seemed like just one more thing to fight with while mixing, but I have the chance to spread out a little and have a separate drum room for a while, so I am going to set something up in front of my kit. On hand I have a cheap omni, 1 ldc, a pair of sdcs, a couple of high-spl ldds, and an assortment of 57/58 types and drumkit dynamics. I'm going to test the omni and ldc first of course, but it's had to get to my studio much right now and so I want to be prepared. If I don't have to buy another mic to do this that'd be great, but tell me what mics inspire you. Where do you want them ideally, and where have you compromised?
Sometimes a dumb dynamic gets less cymbal hash. Try everything.

Chud Fusk wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:16 am Side-quest: should I track with a room mic even with the full band? When we record scratch vocals there's so much bleed that having a mic to intentionally pick it up seems counterproductive, especially if we replace the guitar etc with dubs, which I want to maintain the ability to do if the best drum takes don't line up with the best takes of other instruments.
The room mic usually sounds better because it can be set up lower.

Re: Room mic recs: what, where?

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This is partly an aesthetic choice.

I am a big fan of the room mic sound, because it conveys an impression of physicality to the music that I haven't been able to hear from a fake reverb. For me, I prefer a room-mic approach even in a not-great sounding room. I think you can also get pretty great results recording a band live in a room with a well-placed room mic. Here's a quick example of a live recording I did a while ago where the band wanted a somewhat ambient room approach - Refund. (Vox were overdubbed)

A few things I've learned: Start by walking around the room where you'll be recording with the sound you'll be recording in the place where it makes noise. In other words, figure out where in the room your guitar amp (i.e.) sounds best while you are (or someone else is) playing it. Once you've got a spot where things sound pretty good, consider any treatment. This needn't be fancy - it could be as little as seeing the impact of moving a rug around on a hardwood floor, or putting some less reflective materials up on the wall/ceiling.

Then try different mics. And don't just think about the sound of the mic, but also consider stereo pickup pattern. Looks like most of the mics you've got handy are cardioids, so this would limit your immediate choices to x/y, NOS, ORTF, or similar off-axis spaced pair approaches. If, however, you can get another omni mic, that'll give you the ability to do spaced omnis. Bi-directional mics would let you do mid-side (1 bi-directional) or Blumlein pair (2 bi-directional mics, and my preference for the room I'm in). The differences available using different stereo approaches can be pretty dramatic - I find the comparison between the approaches an enjoyable exercise. Maybe I'm just weird.

Finally, play around with the height of the mics. There's good reasons documented on the old forum to consider putting a pair of mics taped on the floor, but I'll confess that after lots of different auditioning, my favorite sound in the room that I'm in is about 4 feet off the floor. This is a great time to use the power of many, many tracks on your DAW - record the mic in one spot, then (for example) 2 feet higher, then 2 feet higher, etc. And then compare them against each other. I wrote up an experiment I did using our drum machine a while back with a sound clip showing off the different height results. Ambient Mic Height Experiment

Of course, if you can get a Josephson C700S placed in the sweet spot in Studio B in Abbey Road, this will all sound gorgeous. But even in less-ideal circumstances, experimenting with room mics can reveal the difference between "gosh, this sounds like an awful version of the close-miked instrument, no thanks" and "this adds great sonic texture to the music".

= Justin
Last edited by Justin Foley on Thu Jan 20, 2022 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Room mic recs: what, where?

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tommy wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 11:11 am I just took a look at your website and saw something unexpected that you had a hand in. "Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time". I've known Ben Taylor (and his wife Emily) since he moved to Chicago like 20 years ago or whatever.
Nice! Yeah Ben is my bestie. Literally, I was best man at the wedding, and Scotia's named after me:)

SLAGIATT (as we call it) is probably the best record I've ever made. That's the one everyone likes anyway, and the people can't be wrong! So glad we did that, I love that record.

Cheers man!
work: http://oldcolonymastering.com
fun: https://morespaceecho.com

Re: Room mic recs: what, where?

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One other thing about this...

The whole "Reamp..." angle?

One time, I did record a "Wurst..."/"Crotch..."/"Heart..." microphone and reamp it later in the "Kit..." spot with the three vocal microphones in the spot they were during the band practice.

While it might not work for everyone?

It was certainly interesting in with the rest of the tracks.

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