Phase & Latency for Overhead / Snare / Kit recording

[CochraneDrumTutor]

Hi there

I'd heard that it was worth checking if your OHs were not only in phase with each other BUT also "in phase" with the rest of the kit (from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNC5CZM ... jI&index=2 ) so I was looking into this (although not fully understanding if its actually "an issue" or not!) and I noticed the following:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19-AO0r ... sp=sharing

(Sorry I'm not sure how to get the pic to appear here!)

The snare top and bottom (Green) are out of phase visually here (But I have switched the bottom snare mic polarity to resolve that) and the 2 OHS (Yellow) are in phase with each other, so far so good.

BUT

When you look at the delay between the snare mics and the OHs its @ 5ms. The mics are equally spaced above the snare.

So in a case like this is it an issue that the OHs are not "in sync" / "in phase" with the snare mics?

And if so what are the best remedies ( given that the OHs will always be some distance further away from the snare as the snare mics are)

[Hugh Robjohns]

I'd heard that it was worth checking if your OHs were not only in phase with each other BUT also "in phase" with the rest of the kit...

If they actually mean POLARITY then yes. It's always worthwhile checking that the close mics have the same polarity as the overheads.

If they're not, you'll get a weak sound lacking in bass.

When you look at the delay between the snare mics and the OHs its @ 5ms.

Sound travels roughly 1 foot in a millisecond... so your overheads will be about 5 feet away from the snare mic. Physics, innit.

So in a case like this is it an issue that the OHs are not "in sync" / "in phase" with the snare mics?

I don't think so, and millions of successful records and live shows have sounded just great without being in sync.

However, now that people mix by looking at waveforms, and digital delay is free, it is increasingly common practice to delay the close mics to time align them with the overheads... and then marvel at the resulting 'improved' sound!

If you want to try it, you can use delay plugins on each close mic and dial it in to align transients with the overheads. Or you can bus all the close mics and delay the bus (not as accurate, but quicker, easier, and lower CPU hit.

Of course, you may then feel the need to delay everything else to rebuild the groove with the (now delayed drums)....

[CochraneDrumTutor]

Excellent info. Thx Hugh.

[sonics]

I think it's worth taking a step back here. Let's assume you are standing in front of a drum kit, and that is the sound (in essence) you wish to capture. Are your ears the same distance from the snare as the cymbals? No, in most cases they are not. As you move further away from the kit, the difference becomes less, but then much of what you hear will be reflected sound. It should then be obvious that close-micing a drum set is essentially problematic if the desire is to create a natural sound.

Add in the many ways the sound of the drum kit can and will be modified in the name of production decisions, and the relevance of measuring mic distances becomes even less important.

As I always say, rely on the best tools you have for assessing your recordings, your ears. By all means experiment with delays and phase manipulation, but put things in perspective. A phase issue with kick drum mics that leads to a thin, unusable sound is a problem. A slight tonal change on a cymbal may not be.

[Wonks]

And any analogue recording (or digital before the likes of Pro Tools came along) won’t have had anything but a polarity switch on the desk channels to play with in terms of ‘phase alignment’.

It’s only an issue if you make it one and overthink it.

[CochraneDrumTutor]

All fair comments. I guess I'm still at the stage of trying to work out what matters and whats just a characteristic of an overall "drum sound"
Thx again.

[Hugh Robjohns]

There are a lot of videos on YT of people saying you must do this or that... but much of it is nonsense or at least, overhyped. Just because we can do something doesnt mean we should, or even that its helpful.

[MarkOne]

There are a lot of videos on YT of people saying you must do this or that... but much of it is nonsense or at least, overhyped. Just because we can do something doesnt mean we should, or even that its helpful.

And certainly in the shallow end of the pool where I paddle, there are probably a bunch of things that are far more important to get right long before working about milliseconds of delays, like:

How good is the drummer, the performance, the kit, how new and well tuned are the heads, how good are the mics, what is the room acoustic like, etc... In my experience fixing even a couple of these can transform the drum recording.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Absolutely!

The presumption gets stronger everyday that anything and everything can be fixed with a plugin.

It's time-consuming nonsense.

It's quicker, easier and sounds much better to get the sound right in the room, and then capture that sound well.

[The Elf]

To add the other perspective...

I do sometimes time-align close mic's with overheads. With rock/metal the tighter I can make the drums usually makes for better. It only takes a couple of minutes to do this, often using some isolated drum hits I ask the drummer to do for me before we get into the session proper.

If it makes a positive difference then great, if not it's a couple of seconds to back out and move onward.

I definitely would not mess around with plug-ins or delays - aligning by eye and ear is simple enough.

[The Red Bladder]

The presumption gets stronger everyday that anything and everything can be fixed with a plugin.
It's time-consuming nonsense.
It's quicker, easier and sounds much better to get the sound right in the room, and then capture that sound well.

That's all you need to know! And I've been recording drums for fun and profit for about 45 years. More mics = more phase problems.

My take on mic'ing a kit is 2 x AKG 414BTL-II (or whatever is the new equivalent is today) for perfect soft and silky drum OHs when combined with the Audix D6 on kick. Those three are all you need (in the studio) for a properly tuned and set-up kit! (Live PA is a different kettle of fish!)

[tea for two]

When Neil Peart is mic'ed up with 10-20mics it's done by World class audio engineers. It is tempting to think yeah I wanna do something like that.
Yet your dear self CochraneDrumTutor being a Pro Drum tutor is an amateur in recording, as am I an amateur, therefore encountering these problems.

So I'd say dropping our biting orff way more than we can chew. Instead us doing it the way a World class audio engineer as The Red Bladder would.
There's 3 more World class audio engineers that have replied on this thread : Elf, Hugh, Sonics.

[Sam Inglis]

You might find this SOS article useful.

[Aled Hughes]

There are a lot of videos on YT of people saying you must do this or that... but much of it is nonsense or at least, overhyped. Just because we can do something doesnt mean we should, or even that its helpful.

I fully agree with this.

But equally, the fact that people didn't do it "back in the day" is nor reason not to do it today either, if it works.

I've dabbled with slight delays on the close mics on occasion. It does result in a different sound that sometimes work - to my mind it was usually a bit punchier, and also more 'polished' for lack of a better word.

[The Red Bladder]

I shall go back to Hugh's perfect summation of what is involved in recording a drum kit - there is one aspect in his statement that you have all missed!

The presumption gets stronger everyday that anything and everything can be fixed with a plugin.

First Story - I was passing the CR and was called in by the guys working there - could I listen to two drum tracks. So I did. What did I think? (a) was sort of OK-ish, but not very impactful. It didn't groove. (b) was it! Waaay better! It sounded right and it grooved. (a) was all nine or ten mics used, phase and time corrected (as per instructions from the producer) and (b) was just one on kick and OHs with no alignment or anything else.

It's quicker, easier and sounds much better to get the sound right in the room, and then capture that sound well.

And in that, he makes one important point you have all missed - get the sound right in the room!

Second Story - We were booked for one week to record a few drum tracks. The kit was specially built by Ludwig just for the recording and arrived by its own courier. It was already more or less ready to play, but the drummer in question spent one whole day just getting it right. By the time he'd finished, it was truly banging! He rocked for an hour on it, making adjustments as he went.

We recorded it the next day (after another half-day of adjustments) - three mics as described, but with three pairs of room mics, two SDCs, two M149s and two PZM mics.

The kick was empty - no pillows, no blankets, no dead cats, cheese sandwiches or anything else in there or anything glued to any of the skins. Resonance skin off the kick and replaced with an empty hoop to prevent rattles. Kick covered with a duvet so that it didn't go bong, but a bit more of a thud. Kick mic was an old beige Sennheiser MD421 inside the kick and somewhat to one side - no Audix D6 available back then.

The results were great and resulted in better contracts for the drummer.

That's just one of many, many sessions we've had like that. For me, the take-aways must be -

The drummer is more important than the kit.
The kit is more important than the room.
The room is more important than the mics.
The mics are more important than the rest of the recording equipment.

Yes, there have been times when I have put up mics on everything - snare top-n-bottom, hihat, every tom, etc., etc. But they are only used for one or two hits or bars and deleted for the rest of the piece. But I do not like doing it because it can annoy the drummer - and he or she is the most important person in the room!

[Aled Hughes]

I shall go back to Hugh's perfect summation of what is involved in recording a drum kit - there is one aspect in his statement that you have all missed!

The presumption gets stronger everyday that anything and everything can be fixed with a plugin.

First Story - I was passing the CR and was called in by the guys working there - could I listen to two drum tracks. So I did. What did I think? (a) was sort of OK-ish, but not very impactful. It didn't groove. (b) was it! Waaay better! It sounded right and it grooved. (a) was all nine or ten mics used, phase and time corrected (as per instructions from the producer) and (b) was just one on kick and OHs with no alignment or anything else.

It's quicker, easier and sounds much better to get the sound right in the room, and then capture that sound well.

And in that, he makes one important point you have all missed - get the sound right in the room!

Nice stories, but I don't think any (well, certainly not all...) of us missed the points Hugh was making.

[Hugh Robjohns]

But equally, the fact that people didn't do it "back in the day" is nor reason not to do it today either, if it works.

That's a fair point... but the crux is 'if it works'... or more importantly, 'is it necessary' in the context of a particular mix?

Time aligning everything may give punchier transients and reduce the inevitable blurring of a dozen close mics mixed with overheads and a plethora of room mics... but what was wrong with the sound of a kick and two overheads?

If one can state clearly what's lacking for the wanted sound in the simple approach, then by all means address that with more mics, or gating, or time aligning, or dynamics processing or whatever gets the result. I have no problem with that.

What I rail against is the presumption -- before even hearing the drummer playing the kit in the room -- that it needs mics on everything and every plugin the DAW can run... which is the impression given by some YT tutorials.

Time aligning is a tool, like every other in the recording engineer's arsenal. Sometimes it can get the sound needed, other times not.

[tea for two]

TRB likes to poke fun