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Author Topic: 16 channels for drums?  (Read 36779 times)

Ned Ward

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #40 on: July 21, 2017, 09:24:37 PM »

Resurrecting the thread after using search and not coming up with a lot.

Our drummer has kick, snare, 3 rack toms and 2 floor toms. We have 2-3 female singers, 3 other singers, and other inputs, so I'm limited to 7 channels on my DL1608 for drums. Music is 80's/90's rock with a few 70's thrown in a la Barracuda.

Kick - D6
Snare - 57
Hat - Pro37
OH - Pro37
Rack Toms - I have 3 D2's, but then I'm done with channels, and read in the archives that the D2 doesn't split toms well because of the hypercardoid design.
Floor toms - I have 2 D4's, but same situation.

Would I be better off using 2 OH and aiming one at the rack toms, 1 at hi-hat? I'm a newbie when it comes to drum micing. last show we had a smaller band and had enough channels to mic his whole kit, but ran out of time (guy supposed to run sound never showed, so my gear that was supposed to be for monitors became the PA and I mixed the opening band and us), so I just went with Kick, snare, hat, OH.

Suggestions? Am I overthinking this? Should I sell my D2's and D4's and get more guitar gear?
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #41 on: July 21, 2017, 09:34:00 PM »

Resurrecting the thread after using search and not coming up with a lot.

Our drummer has kick, snare, 3 rack toms and 2 floor toms. We have 2-3 female singers, 3 other singers, and other inputs, so I'm limited to 7 channels on my DL1608 for drums. Music is 80's/90's rock with a few 70's thrown in a la Barracuda.

Kick - D6
Snare - 57
Hat - Pro37
OH - Pro37
Rack Toms - I have 3 D2's, but then I'm done with channels, and read in the archives that the D2 doesn't split toms well because of the hypercardoid design.
Floor toms - I have 2 D4's, but same situation.

Would I be better off using 2 OH and aiming one at the rack toms, 1 at hi-hat? I'm a newbie when it comes to drum micing. last show we had a smaller band and had enough channels to mic his whole kit, but ran out of time (guy supposed to run sound never showed, so my gear that was supposed to be for monitors became the PA and I mixed the opening band and us), so I just went with Kick, snare, hat, OH.

Suggestions? Am I overthinking this? Should I sell my D2's and D4's and get more guitar gear?

Ned...

The greatest thing I ever found for getting more out of fewer mics on a kit is frequency sensitive compression for a pair of overheads.  This allows you to compress the cymbal noise while not diminishing the sound coming off the tom heads, in effect letting the OH's "see through" the cymbal wash.

Of course, this was in analog world where you could just insert your choice of processing instead of having to beg the manufacturer to include such features in an upgrade or buy a big boy board running plug-ins.

I don't think ducking will work...
/geeze
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Jay Barracato

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #42 on: July 22, 2017, 12:22:22 AM »

I would leave one mic at each tom and use a couple of mic combiners to save channels. With identical mics the processing can be close enough that you won't miss the extra control of separate channels.

( Ok, it doesn't fall under best practices, but a pair of female xlr to a single male y cable will probably work fine)

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

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Jean-Pierre Coetzee

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #43 on: July 22, 2017, 04:30:30 AM »

Currently running:

Kick In
Sub Kick
Snare 1
Snare 2 (There are actually 2 snares)
4 Toms
Hats
Ride
Crash
Crash
Pad L
Pad R
Click
Cue

I mic under not over on the cymbals(other than hats), if there are more cymbals just move one of the under mics between the two(remember to check phasing and positioning).

I find the sub kick can be very useful, low pass at about 80 and gate to the other kick mic really quick, gives you something different, never seen the need for 3 kick mics.

If I had to sacrifice, drop some tom mics, second snare(because I mean really?) and maybe the hats and ride mic.
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Scott Olewiler

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #44 on: July 22, 2017, 10:29:35 AM »

Resurrecting the thread after using search and not coming up with a lot.

Our drummer has kick, snare, 3 rack toms and 2 floor toms. We have 2-3 female singers, 3 other singers, and other inputs, so I'm limited to 7 channels on my DL1608 for drums. Music is 80's/90's rock with a few 70's thrown in a la Barracuda.

Kick - D6
Snare - 57
Hat - Pro37
OH - Pro37
Rack Toms - I have 3 D2's, but then I'm done with channels, and read in the archives that the D2 doesn't split toms well because of the hypercardoid design.
Floor toms - I have 2 D4's, but same situation.

Would I be better off using 2 OH and aiming one at the rack toms, 1 at hi-hat? I'm a newbie when it comes to drum micing. last show we had a smaller band and had enough channels to mic his whole kit, but ran out of time (guy supposed to run sound never showed, so my gear that was supposed to be for monitors became the PA and I mixed the opening band and us), so I just went with Kick, snare, hat, OH.

Suggestions? Am I overthinking this? Should I sell my D2's and D4's and get more guitar gear?

Google "Glyn Johns drum miking"

On of the bands I work with regularly has the exact same drum set up and I also am mostly using the dl1608 with them.  Indoors in small rooms where I am just reinforcing the kit a bit; I use just 4 mics on the kit (kick, snare, and 2 OHs equi-distant from the snare) and shelf the highs out of the overheads a bit so I can get more of the toms with them. Snare is never is a problem. I do bring the OHs as low as the drummer is comfortable with. You can still get some pretty solid toms doing this.

 I will sometimes do the same thing on outdoor stage if the stage is pretty large and I feel I can get the levels of the OHs up quite bit without getting too much of the other backline in them. It does require a real drummer with some stick control. This method works better on a board that allows to you to delay the snare channel to match the OHs, which the dl does not.

On tighter outdoor stages where the backline might be bouncing all over the place I'll use one mic (e604) split across the floor toms, another split on the two higher toms,a single mic on the remaining tom, then kick, snare, OH and hi-hat. If there are going to be vocal mics close to the hi-hat, I may ditch that mic altogether and point the OH towards it a bit. 

If the mics you're using don't split well, maybe you are better off micing the toms close and ditching the OH and Hat mics, given the amount of open vocal mics you have on stage.  You may need to put up mics that are not plugged in to avoid the drummer bashing the crap out of things that aren't mic'd.   Fortunately the drummers I work with regularly trust my judgement and play the same regardless of how I mic the kit.

It may be worth the time invested to do a full set up "soundcheck" that is not at a gig and experiment a bit.
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Rob Gow

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #45 on: July 22, 2017, 10:44:51 AM »

Myself, our drummer has a 6 piece kit, so I use 6 mics.

Kick: e902
Snare: 90° sm57
4 toms: e904's

Cymbals carry, snare usually carries on its own as well. Decent sized rooms. I'll use overheads & hats if we are playing outside. Inside I skip them.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2017, 10:55:24 AM by Rob Gow »
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Mark Oakley

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #46 on: July 22, 2017, 10:53:59 AM »

I'm originally a drummer, and what got me started in live audio was getting my own mics/mixer/reverb to sub-mix my drums and send a stereo feed to the Main board, as per Dave Weckl's advice. I've since learned that this is harder to pull off in real life and takes all the control away from the FOH engineer.

I mix a lot of Top-40 bands for weddings/events, and my usual Input list is:

Kick (Beta 52)
Snare Top (57)
Snare Bottom (57)
Hi-Hat (Crown CM-700)
1 mic per tom (Beta 98)
Ride-mic'ed from underneath (Crown CM-700)

I get all the top-end Kick click I need from boosting the highs a bit on the Beta 52-depending on the drum. I may add a Beta 91 in the future. I find that the snare often sounds boxy with only a top mic. Adding just a bit of sizzle from the snare bottom (polarity reversed) really makes the drum sound "true". I've also done many gigs with the snare top and bottom mic'ed and never had it up in the mix. This is why I run my snare reverb Pre-fade, as I can still add some "production" without increasing the drum level. Mic'ing the ride from underneath shields the mic from much of the noise of the set. When I turn up the ride mic, I only want the cymbal, not everything else. I'll only add overheads on large stages, as I find my (condenser) vocal mics pick up all the crash cymbals I need.

Back to the original problem: Maybe add a smaller mixer to sub-mix the drums?

-Mark
« Last Edit: July 22, 2017, 10:57:45 AM by Mark Oakley »
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Ned Ward

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #47 on: July 22, 2017, 11:18:47 PM »

I would leave one mic at each tom and use a couple of mic combiners to save channels. With identical mics the processing can be close enough that you won't miss the extra control of separate channels.

( Ok, it doesn't fall under best practices, but a pair of female xlr to a single male y cable will probably work fine)

Jay - thanks and this could be an option. Appreciate it.
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Ned Ward

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #48 on: July 22, 2017, 11:23:31 PM »

Ned...

The greatest thing I ever found for getting more out of fewer mics on a kit is frequency sensitive compression for a pair of overheads.  This allows you to compress the cymbal noise while not diminishing the sound coming off the tom heads, in effect letting the OH's "see through" the cymbal wash.

Of course, this was in analog world where you could just insert your choice of processing instead of having to beg the manufacturer to include such features in an upgrade or buy a big boy board running plug-ins.

I don't think ducking will work...
/geeze
Dick - thanks and appreciate the suggestion. Mackie's Master Fader app for the DL1608 has gates and compression available on each input, aux and output, but not frequency sensitive compression. No inserts, and don't want to buy outboard compression...
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Rob Spence

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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #49 on: July 23, 2017, 12:21:46 AM »

Indoors, for a smaller kit, I could do 3 channels.
Kick (d6 or b52) and a VP88 parallel to and above the kick drum just beside a rack pointed toward the snare. 


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Re: 16 channels for drums?
« Reply #49 on: July 23, 2017, 12:21:46 AM »


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