Miking Toms From Below

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> Does anyone here regularly mic the toms only from below and take the
> stickl click only from the overheads?

You end up with a phase discrepancy with the overheads that way. In the
overheads the top skin sounds (attack and resonants) arrive before the
bottom skin tones. Switching those around is incorrectable. I don't imply
that it will always sound bad, but it's got disadvantages.

Often I favor leaving the overheads completely alone and fill in the toms
with time-aligned full-range direct micing, rather than compress the
overheads to bring out more tom body and only some reinforcement from direct
mics. It doesn't sound like you're sitting in the drum room, but same goes
for vocals...

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On 13 Jan 2005 22:37:49 -0800, "Mike Caffrey" <mike@monsterisland.com>
wrote:

>
>Does anyone here regularly mic the toms only from below and take the
>stickl click only from the overheads?

It's too difficult to get them time-aligned. In fact, when I use
individual mics on the toms, I roll off the lows in the overheads just
to avoid picking up the toms from two different sources.

Which is not to say that you won't get an interesting and useful sound
with the technique you suggest ... but I don't think it will be like
the sound you hear when you're in the room with the drums.

If you're looking for a "natural" drum sound, don't mic the toms at
all; just pick them up with the overheads.

Mike T.

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> It's too difficult to get them time-aligned. In fact, when I use
> individual mics on the toms, I roll off the lows in the overheads just
> to avoid picking up the toms from two different sources.

If you're micing from above, then time and phase alignment isn't all that
difficult. Phase alignment with the kick is a chore, but often isn't the
end of the world, as long as it's time-aligned. I find it helps to have the
different sources, and it can help imaging too. If you're using separated
overheads, align the toms to the earlier of the two instances in the
overheads, pan accordingly, add some room reverb, and it's completely
coherent and nicely confirms the imaging offset.

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Sugarite wrote:
> > Does anyone here regularly mic the toms only from below and take
the
> > stickl click only from the overheads?
>
> You end up with a phase discrepancy with the overheads that way. In
the
> overheads the top skin sounds (attack and resonants) arrive before
the
> bottom skin tones. Switching those around is incorrectable. I don't
imply
> that it will always sound bad, but it's got disadvantages.
>
How is that different from miking the toms from the batter side?

Do you dislike a bottom snare mic as well?

And don't you have the same time alignment issue when close mixing a
kick or any drum for that matter?

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Yeah my studio kit has mics built in like a home made "Mays" system. I usually
(for rock type stuff) get my kit sound established with kick mic, snare mic,
and overheads, then fill in the tom mics to balance it out.
HTH, jer @ sundog audio chicago