Time-Aligning Drum Tracks...all of em?

[spicyitaliano]

Hey all. This is something that I've always wondered.

I have a new project coming along that's going to have a lot of really fancy drum work - similar to Tool, as well as some other groups which all have a lot of drum work in all of em. I have a really nice big room to work in. I plan on using a full-range mic setup on each drum, an overhead pair, and a pair of room mics.

My question is regarding time-aligning tracks. Whenever it has been somewhat noticable, I have always aligned the drum mics with the overheads. But is this necessary with room mics too? Or should I just leave this in their place in space?

Thanks for the advice! ;)

[cmchamp]

Whether or not to time align the set with the room mics depends on if you're using the room mics as ambient sources or part of your main sound. If you're using the room mics for ambience, then you wouldn't necessarily align everything else to them. If the room mics are where you're getting your body, depth and stereo placement, and the kit mics and OH's are for deffinition, then I'd align everything to the room mics.
My 2¢.
C.

[xstatic]

Wouldn't it be better to actually align the room mics to the rest of the kit?

[cmchamp]

Well, that's what I do in my DAW, just drop back the ambient mics however many samples required to get them aligned

[michaelhoddy]

The following is presented as my opinion. I'm sure there's plenty of great time-aligned drum tracks, and there's certainly plenty that weren't.

The only time I even mess with it is when I'm using two kick mics or two snare mics and I want to take care of combing or phasing problems.

A lot of what gives properly-placed overhead room and ambient mics the spaciousness that they're useful for is the simple fact that they're NOT time-aligned with the closer mics.
Since most of the great drum tracks of the past thirty years were recorded to tape when this technique wasn't even possible, I'm firmly of the mindset that just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to.

If you're resorting to this or any other trick to get your drum tracks working, take two steps back and look at the larger picture. I'd go so far as to say that 85 percent of a great drum sound is a well-tuned great-sounding kit, a great drummer, and what is often overlooked and underrated, a great-sounding room. If those three things are in order, what you mic it with and what you do with the tracks is almost immaterial.

[MrKeysAOO]

Oooo; momentous occasion....I agree :D

[panhead]

I'm firmly of the mindset that just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to.


thanks for the input michael as always you are dead on.
:bounce:

[xstatic]

I agree Michael. I never have to move any of my times around with the drum mics. I just figured that if you were going to it would be better to move the distant mics to line up with the close mics for timing and ease purposes instead of the other way around like it originally sounded.

[djui5]

Spicy,
I'd personally recommend getting things as much in phase as you can with mic placement. Of course..if you find a spot in the room where the mic's have to be..and it's not perfect..then so be it. But getting the mic's in the right place is the best starting point.
This will make for a better recording, which makes for a better performance, which makes for a better mix, etc etc.
You don't want phase issues messing with your lovely drum sound.
Remember, if it sounds good..it is good.

[StrykeBack]

interesting, I had to do a search on this after being in the local barns and noble and flipping through a MIX and EQ magazine with both having large articles on time alligning drum tracks. It had never really occurred to me to reallign the drums and I never have. I recorded the latest project with 8 mics on the kit including a rode ntk out infront about 10 feet as a room mic...

Looking through the wav data everything seems to allign, I don't see how anyone could end up with the wave data so missaligned as they had it in these articles.

Is there any online sources to read more about this? i'm more or less having issues with my overheads and hihat messing with the snare and kick a bit.

Note that it would be great to check the phase and all before recording but when you have to bring a rig to a church to record a mic and all you have is a pair of headphones to monitor the drums that are about 15 to 20 feet away its kinda hard to hear those minute details til later on unfortunately.

[MidiMagic]

Too many mics spoil the drum soup.

4 is the best number:

1 kick
1 snare/hats
2 overheads

More than these gives you phase cancellation headaches.

[michaelhoddy]

Really?

Not that I disagree with a minimalist approach, but lotz of rather competent engineers over the past 30 years or so have apparently come to the consensus that the extra options are worth having to navigate around multi-mic phasing and combing issues. If one gets their mic placement right, most of these are non-issues, even.

[StrykeBack]

I'm thinking that this drum mic phasing issues has more to do with using these high end condensers that pick up everything.
For my latest session I've got
Rode NT5s as overheads
a 57 on the top of the snare
a beta 52 on the kick
57s on floor and normal tom
a rode nt1-a on the hihat
and a rode NTK about 10 feet infront of the kit to pick up the acoustics of these really old churhc we recorded in.
I really don't have a problem with the dynamics, however putting the
rode nt1 on the hihat has made a mess of things since it picked up everything. sure the hihats sound awesome but when i've got the snare coming out of its own mic, the overheads, room, and this hihat mic its becomign a bit of an issue and i'm afraid to ruin the mix.
But like i said, i tried zooming in as far as i can per sample and didn't really see anything "outof line".

[web01169]

I know how you feel spicy but i have overcome that problem with the hat mic, i have a pencil condencer pointed down and a bit away from the snare and then i use little bit of compression...yeah it still picks up that snare, but it tightens it it up just a bit. and i also agree a great tuned, and a good drummer makes all the difference.

[StrykeBack]

I don't know how you guys feel about it but when i was in a craze to go and time align everything i also time alligned the 2 overheads, since obviosly one was picking up the snare faster then the other and it tightened teh drums up incredibly almost to the point that i don't want to un allign it the 1 millisecond that i shifted it because it almost adds a chorus to the kit, and yet i know that that should be normal and a natural effect. i just thought it was worth mentioning.

One other thing, i know that when you go and time allign everything you should flip the phase on the kick, or in words of the latest article i read, buss everything to a submaster, flip the phase on the subchannel of the drums and then flip the phase on the kick so that it gets kicked back into phase....(hopefully you guys understand that) but should i flip the phase on the room mics? did it on one of my songs and it sounded a bit fuller, but not sure if it was doing that negative transients and messing with the kick again.

[DAS]

http://www.sweetwater.com/insync/word.php?find=AbsolutePhase

[Ed Belknap]

Originally posted by StrykeBack
I don't know how you guys feel about it but when i was in a craze to go and time align everything i also time alligned the 2 overheads, since obviosly one was picking up the snare faster then the other

Or you could just make sure your overheads are physically equidistant from the snare drum to start with. I usually take a one-meter patchcord with me & make sure the two overhead capsules are exactly the same distance from the centerpoint of the snare drum.

[StrykeBack]

take a one-meter patchcord with me & make sure the two overhead capsules are exactly the same distance from the centerpoint of the snare drum.

See, i never even thought that that would be very important until now. Right now i need to figure out how to slide tracks by less then a millisecond in cubase to fix this.