better way to isolate cymbals

Taking it that the drumming/equipment is good.

If your room is small then it's hard, as you're up against physics. Mics changes or positioning will have limited use here.

There are a few of things you could try though.

One is see can you borrow smaller quieter hi hats and cymbals - that makes a huge difference, though maybe not enough in a small room.

The other obvious thing to do is strip silence your tom tracks i.e. remove all 'ambience' recorded on them that isn't toms, but you're probably already doing that.

If you're really stuck one 'desperation' solution is overdub the cymbals i.e. don't record them in the first place, and put them on last.

You could also get into triggering ambience samples that don't have cymbal spill etc etc but maybe life is too short for all that mularkey ...

Lastly, the overheads do pick up and overall image of the kit, not just the cymbals.

raidenft wrote: »

cheers for havin a look paul, the drummer is top notch yep, with a beautiful sonar kit, and for the drums im using: beyerdynamic opus 99 for kick, 4 opus 88's for toms, sm57 for hats, sm58 for snare, the akg's for overheads and in general im getting a lovely drum tone. there's just no definition in the cymbals from the overheads. pretty much was hoping to have a little more cymbal in the overhead mix and a little less everything else. tried both nearfield to the cymbals and further away, but still the bleed is too much in the small room that no matter where im positioning the mics im getting an awful lot of everything and not as much cymbal as i woulda liked. dubbing the cymbals isnt an option i want to go down and neither is samples/synths

Usually it's too much cymbals is the problem !

raidenft wrote: »

i know, should have made it clearer from the start really. thats why i was saying i wanted small diaphragm condensers for the cymbals as apose to the akg's which are picking up too much of a full room level. but im broke right now so this isnt an option

That won't make any significant difference

ZV Yoda wrote: »

I track my kit in my own small (12x12) home studio. Smaller rooms generally (always!) mean poorer room ambience/drum sound (as Paul says, you canna change the laws of physics)… but I'm not sure why you think the smaller room specifically contributes to more spill in the overheads?

.

Because the sound has nowhere to 'go' in a small space, therefore the mics pick up more of everything.

In a big room you'd be surprised at the separation. The ratio between direct and reflected sound is much higher in a large space.

I agree with ZV Yoda, it's not the room, it's the drummer. It's true that in a big room, especially one that is acoustically designed, you can get amazing separation. But most of the time folks are not tracking in such great rooms, and it's not often you'd need separation between drum instruments. That's a backwards way of looking at it anyway, it doesn't really make sense to consider cymbals as separate from the rest of the kit. The close mics are supposed to give more focus to the overall sound that the overhead picks up. I think it's a mistake to treat them as cymbal mics.

I've tracked drums many times in rooms smaller than that, and it is possible to get a good tone and sensible balance. I never had that cymbal issue. Next time you're in a bigger space, like at a gig, try listening to him. Has he ever had formal lessons- i.e. rudiments, sight reading etc.?

ZV Yoda wrote: »

Not sure I understand that... if the toms are too loud in a small room, won't they still be too loud in a big room?

Aye, but I'm talking separation.

If you have your kit in a 8ft x 10ft x 8ft room the reflections are close and dense - so they have no time or space to decay.

So if you hit your tom (irrespective of it's 'musical' volume) more of it shoots down ALL the mikes as a rule - making things harder to control.

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Aye, but I'm talking separation.

If you have your kit in a 8ft x 10ft x 8ft room the reflections are close and dense - so they have no time or space to decay.

So if you hit your tom (irrespective of it's 'musical' volume) more of it shoots down ALL the mikes as a rule - making things harder to control.

OK... I think I get it now!

OP, you mentioned Opus 88s... I've recently switched to using them & while they give a great crack off the snare/toms, they do seem to pick up a lot more ambient noise.

I did a direct AB comparison with an 88 on my snare vs. the SM57 I was previously using. The 88 was more detailed & had more presence (and volume!) but it picked up a lot more hit hat & top end. I noticed the same thing on the floor tom... when AB'd against a 57 on the floor tom, the 88 picked up a lot more snare. I'll need to play around with the positioning, but the AB I did on snare/FT was done with 88/57s in the same position relative to each drum.

Just goes to show, even at the low(ish) end of the spectrum, gear choice does make a difference (cue "I told you so" rant from Mr .

Hi Raidenft,
You might be having phase cancellation on high freq from the drum kit. This can be caused by primary reflections from the ceiling coming back to the overheads causes a nulling of high freq. You will in all circumstances get phase cancellations across the freq range but it could be in your set up more obvious at the higher range this is why the cymbols may appear to be lower in volume also lost in definition.

1 -Try moving the mics to different heights relative to the ceiling and listen to what's happpening
2 - Use some absorbent material ( acoustic foam on the rear side of mic facing ceiling to minamise ceiling reflections.) attached to the stand
3 - Place something on the ceiling that will break the parallel angle between floor and ceiling
4 - extend the over heads so that they are looking away from drummer and across the cymbol plane not directly down on symbols and over shooting the tom racks **** Note a lot of cymbols energy comes from the horizontal plane.

Thanks
-Declan

madtheory wrote: »

The reflections aren't going to change the level of the cymbals, just the timbre.

Incorrect !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also re-read my quote " this is why the cymbals MAY APPEAR to be lower in volume also loss in definition."

have you tried "underheads"
Mic the cymbals from underneath and the mics should reject some of the toms/snare and get more cymbals.
Or mic from the front making sure the cymbals are positioned between the snare and the mics. The cymbals should block off some of the direct snare.
But as paul says a small untreated room will fill with the sound and everything will go into every mic. Flutter echoes from above can cause phase cancellation and smear the clarity of the cymbals too.
I am using acoustic panels above the kit and it makes a huge difference.
http://www.studiosolutions.ie/2060-Acousti-Pro-ColourPanel-S-Acoustic-Tile---Blue.htm

studiorat wrote: »

Take the cymbals down and dub them on afterwards...

Said that 2 days ago 'Rat .... Keep Up.

Jaysus lads... the more experienced/pro gurus on here are always telling the bedroom/home studio warriors (of which I'm a proud card-carrying member) to get it right at source - and then work from there. That's good advice... (actually, anything other than "you're wasting your time if you're not using a Neumann/Neve/Abbey Rd Studio 1" is always good advice in my books )

So (for starters at least)... tell you're drummer to ease off the toms or else hit the cymbals harder. If that really doesn't work, then you can start to work your way through the applied physics lessons above!

good luck convincing your drummer to overdub cymbals separately. But try anyway, because it's so nice to have drum-less cymbal tracks.

But always remember to record overheads anyway because drums exclusively close-mic'd don't sound like drums. Much in the way that cows don't look like cows on television (or so that episode of the simpsons leads me to believe).

Actually on Takk apparently Sigur Ros' drummer overdubbed all the cymbal work. And rumour has it it goes on a lot these days.

Bluebirdstudios wrote: »

Hmmmmm.
Firstly if your saying that phase can't effect amplitude maybe you should read more of those quoted books !!
What a mic hears is only a postive and negative waveforms transformed into +/- voltage post diaphram. So even the most complex waveforms particulary at high freq hitting the mic will have degrees of amplitude and cancellation at this 2D phase.

Anyway I stand over what I said on original post.

Lastly - post any study,forum content,acoustic consultant study or any media that states signals out of phase won't effect amplitude of complex waveforms thus effecting their volume/energy.
I AWAIT

In my opinion you've been unclear up to now. Let me illustrate:
In response to a post stating:
im (sic) picking up a bit more toms than cymbals

you stated:
You might be having phase cancellation on high freq from the drum kit.

I pointed out that:
The reflections aren't going to change the level of the cymbals, just the timbre.

You responded with:
Incorrect !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And now, you're being very unclear abut the point you're making. But I enjoy a challenge, so I will attempt to be very clear now

It's a lot more complicated than you appear think. I'm not saying that phase does not affect amplitude, it clearly does, but as kfoltman pointed out, you appear to be ignoring the complexity of the sounds involved. A mic translates 3D sound pressure variations in a room into a 2D representation, as you say, a varying voltage with time.

But in this case, it appears that you're not considering the behaviour of sound in a room, or the behaviour of a struck cymbal over time. It's the science of acoustics.

1. The frequency response of a typical small room, such as the one under discussion, is created by the interaction of all the reflections, giving large peaks and dips below roughly 400Hz- this figure is a function of the room's volume. It increases in smaller rooms and decreases for large rooms, it's called the room cutoff frequency. It's a good way to explain why bigger rooms sound better. Above the cutoff frequency, the peaks and dips are less pronounced. Broadly speaking, there are as many peaks as there are dips. So what happens is that the timbre of the instrument will vary from room to room, but not the amplitude. To put it another way- in the HF range, even though the peaks and dips are at different frequencies in different rooms, there is always going to be about the same of each. Here's a good example of a real room, measure your own, it will show the same "spiky" response at HF:


2. By the time the reflections hit the mic, their energy has been changed because some of it is lost as heat when it hits the wall. Furthermore, the cymbal will be producing a completely different set of harmonics to the ones that were originally reflected. There will be no correlation between the two wavefronts, therefore there cannot be phase cancellation, but there will be something like comb filtering. Again, that will change the timbre but not the amplitude.

As kfoltman has already pointed out, a cymbal produces very complex harmonics. It's almost white noise. It doesn't sound like white noise because, among other things, the phase, amplitude and pitch of the harmonics vary over time. If you were to synthesize a cymbal sound by adding sine waves, you'd probably find that you'd need millions of them.

I've left out some detail to clarify the issue at hand. I don't think I need to post a reference for any of the above, it's all very basic acoustics that you'll find in any book on the subject. This Ethan Winer article is a great primer.

Ronan Murphy wrote: »

This is a very rare situation.

Lads talking bollocsk on Boards ? Nah, happens every day ....

Oh you mean Low Cymbals , yes I agree !

Bluebirdstudios wrote: »

Lets just say we disagree and move on .

You can't disagree with physics.

kfoltman wrote: »

Yes you can! However, sometimes it results in a Darwin award.

LOL

Rockshamrover wrote: »

Darwin awards?

Yeah... it's a special award given to drummers who defy the laws of physics!

madtheory wrote: »

You can't disagree with physics.

****BUT YOU CAN DISAGREE WITH HOW AND WHO'S DELIVERING IT.!!

I wasn't going to do another reply to this thread and already tried to end my part in it but I was bugged by some sign off remarks. So here it is --

1. deleted.

2 You talk about "the science of acoustics" and typical room responses for the room in question but ignore the freq spectrum of the cymbals themselves. Let me explain A ride cymbal depending on size and make may have a strong partials even down as far as 400 hz or lower. THE CONSTRUCTIVE AND DESTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE OF THESE SINE WAVES WILL EFFECT BOTH AMPLITUDE AND TIMBRE TO VARYING DEGREES--- ABSOLUTE FACT !!!

3.You talk about timbre as if it’s not important that somehow the compensatory behaviour of the higher complex waveforms keeps that amplitude averagely the same (true) and again you ignore the fact how important fundamental freqs are to our perception of sound.

A hi hat has a lot of its defining freq's (Partials) as low as 850hz or below needs these partials and harmonics that are factors above ,even and uneven, so we can perceive its timbre accurately. So if these partials (lets take 850hz for example) which has a wavelength of 1.5 foot ? or thereabout and considering our room and the likelihood off the mic being 1 -3 foot away from ceiling its phase may be possibly between 0 - 180 degrees out on primary and secondary etc reflections form said ceiling.
It’s these initial reflections that are vital, they hold most of the impressions of the timbre of the sound/ instrument. The later reflections will have less and less effect as time varies on the brains perception of the sound. There are theories out there that point to the possibility of the brain decoding a sound source in milliseconds not needing to hear the whole sound. The thinking is that the "clues" for what the sound is going to develop into are already decoded from the first waveform impressions ( Off point -I know)But trying to illustrate the need for high freq to remain relatively in phase despite their short wave lengths we still decode this information. That’s why you’ll often hear engineers/musicians refer to sweet open high end in certain studios – good diffusion unlike perhaps the original posters room.

****Point 3 in summary ,the explanation you give re “reflections aren't going to change the level of the cymbals, just the timbre” while true at higher freq in fact the higher the freq the truer it becomes, but again you fail to realise that moving to the cymbals lower freqs (partials) the more possible impact phase has on sounds amplitude.
Your argument focuses too much on high freq aspects and behaviours while again ignoring lower harmonics which are more prone to phase anomalies due to wave length and time domain factors and are also essential to our perception of the instrument.

Your quote – “the cymbal will be producing a completely different set of harmonics to the ones that were originally reflected. There will be no correlation between the two wavefronts, therefore there cannot be phase cancellation, but there will be something like comb filtering.”
IS NOT ACURATE WHEN CONSIDERING LOWER PARTIALS BELONGING TO SOME CYMBALS (eg 18 -20” crash) AND THEIR PRIMARY AND SECONDARY+++ REFLECTIONS ALSO COMB FILTERING IS A FORM OF PHASE CANCELATION – JUST TO BE CLEAR !!

4. You used kfoltman as your reference to support your argument so let take what kfoltman said :
---Try putting a recorded cymbal sound through a chorus or flanger effect (which is based on phase cancellations) - it will fluctuate in timbre, it won't fluctuate much in amplitude.

******Now what I said in original post
---- You will in all circumstances get phase cancellations across the freq range but it could be in your set up more obvious at the higher range this is why the cymbals may appear to be lower in volume also lost in definition. ( the word lost is suppose to be loss – typo )

Are those 2 statements consistent –yes
If you do put cymbals through a chorus or flanger effect
Will you lose some top end and a smearing of definition –YES That’s classic chorus !!!

4- You accuse me of being unclear – which I’ll accept, reason why I was speaking generally if I was to be clear on original post I might have took 20 pages or so to explain all the permutations. Look how long are banters are!! ALSO I DON’T LIKE THIS KIND OF FLEXING MUSCLE BULL S*** AS I SAID BEFORE IT DOESN’T HELP ANYBODY AT THE END OF THE DAY AND WASTES SERIOUS AMOUNT OF TIME.

5- Finally my original post was a general type of tip thing – which by the way I never said the amplitude of high freq would be drastically effected quiet the opposite here again is the exact quote
--“this is why the cymbals may appear to be lower in volume also lost in definition.”
Given the above quote I’m surprised at your pages,charts and references to amplitude arguments.
As I’ve already indicated your arguments are in principle true but not fully inclusive and balanced in regards to my original post.




Mr Brewer I now accept I’m speaking bollcoks but I was kind off dragged in !
Too anyone else who has read this I apologies for wasting your time ye could of had a lovely cup of tea instead.

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Is there a better way to isolate the pair of ye ? :mad:

I'm finished on this topic anyway. I've managed to bore myself !