"Drummer's Perspective" vs "Audience's Perspective"

[Ted]

I know this is mainly an electronic percussion forum but thought this might apply here...I've posted it to the Microphone forum but thought I might get more feedback from drummers here.

When recording a drumset, do you mic/mix it from the "drummer's perspective" (ie toms panned high/left to low/right, hats on left, ride on right) or from the "audience's perspective" (ie the opposite of drummer's perspective)? As a drummer I've gravitated towards the drummer's perspective, but I was thinking about it and wondering why anyone would do it from the audience's perspective? I don't believe in the audience's perspective because in reality, in the perspective of the audience, the drumset is almost completely mono. Think about it...if you sit at a drumset you're basically surrounded by the drums and cymbals (to a lesser or greater extent, depending on the size of the kit) but if you're sitting in the audience, you're far enough away from the kit that it basically appears to be coming from one source. Even if you're up pretty close, any stereo imaging you perceive will be minimal; unless you're standing on the kick drum, you're not going to hear anything way off to one side or another.

So what gives? Should we redefine our terminology? Should we change "audience perspective" to mean "mono"? Or should we change the name of what we now call "audience perspective" to, say, "left-handed drummers' perspective"? I don't have the answer, and I'm not even saying the traditional "audience perspective" is wrong (lets face it, there's nothing natural about the way most drums are recorded in most modern pop music), it's just a slow Labor Day and I've got too much time to think.

-Ted

[Bob]

great post. i always mix in the drummers perspective. i don't know why anyone would do it any other way. if your a drummer than you want to hear the music that way, if your not, then it really doesn't matter - as long as its in stereo, right? i must say that i get very annoyed air drumming to one of those many classic rush cd's in my car and having the toms go the opposite direction that i am

[Rdub]

If I'm in the audience listening to "live" music, then I want to hear the drums mixed in the "audience perspective". That is assuming they are mic'ed. If the drummer is traveling around the kit from my right to my left, then I expect the sound to be coming from the speakers in the same way.

This is my only preference. On recorded material, the perspective doesn't matter that much to me.

[Ted]

Sorry, I should have specified that I was referring to recorded music, not live. Live I'd expect it to be audience perspective, although even in most live situations I see drums done in mono, or panned slightly. Especially in larger venues, drastic panning is a bad idea since someone at the far right side of the stage wouldn't hear the floor tom very well.

[Spastik]

Drummers perspective, definately.

I think of it like this, when y aplay live, no way in hell anyone could tell anyway where you have things panned, its so damn loud. So when you do the CD people want to feel part of the music and if you do it from the dummers perspective you feel like you are on stage. This doesn't mean they are v=necessarily the drummer either, lead singer type wanna be's stand in from of the drummer and hear the pans L/R the same as sitting at the drums, just behind em is all, same with side of the stage. If you stand closer to one speaker then you will hear the left more than the right and so on, just like if you were walkin away from the drums on stage. Just seems more relistic and mor immersive to do it that way.

Course I could just be a moron, its been known to happen.

[Ed Belknap]

I always record acoustic drums from audience perspective. (On those frequent occasions when the drummer's back is set up towards the control room window I'll invert the monitor panning so I don't get that cognitive dissonance between my ears & eyes.)

With electronic drums, drum machines, samples etc I'm a lot less didactic...partially because I play drumkit left-handed, so it's never quite obvious whether things are panned drummer's perspective or audience perspective!

[shaneperc]

I think if you listen to most recordings, they follow a high/right to low/left panning field. Unless you're remixing old Whitesnake tracks, or some other 80s hair band, you don't want to spread the drums that wide anyways. It's just cheesy. (Tommy Aldridge's kit is pretty big, but the toms don't take up 2/3 of the (sound)stage.) I do like pulling the cymbals apart, though (ala Carter Beauford).