From the course: Real Recording School Weekly

Cardioid or omni mono drum overhead mics - Pro Tools Tutorial

From the course: Real Recording School Weekly

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Cardioid or omni mono drum overhead mics

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- [Instructor] Let's say you're recording drums and you know you want a single mono mic on the drum overheads. If you have the choice of a cardioid or omnidirectional mic capsule, which one should you choose? I set up two identical small diaphragm mics with different cardioid and omni mic capsules in them and I placed them in the same position and recorded them simultaneously over the drummer. Let's take a listen. I'm going to play some of the sections because there's a few different drum patterns on here and I'm going to switch between the two. So this is cardioid overhead on the beginning section here. (drumbeats) This is omni on the beginning. (drumbeats) Here again is cardioid. (drumbeats) And then omni. (drumbeats) Notice the kick drum is a little deeper on the omni mic. Now listen again to these sections here. This is where the snare and then rack tom and floor tom are being hit. (drumbeats) And then here's an omni. (drumbeats) Now listen again and listen to the low end of the floor tom and the rack tom as they come in, a little bit on the snare, but more so on the toms. (drumbeats) That was in cardioid. Now listen in omni how it changes. (drumbeats) One thing to listen to in this section that works well too is the room sound. There's more ambience on the omnidirectional mic, because by the nature of being omnidirectional it's picking up more sound around it. This is the cardioid version. (drumbeats) This is the omni. (drumbeats) When you're really listening to it it's a lot more splashy and roomy. Now listen also for the sound of the kick drum. I'm going to switch between these, starting on cardioid, and listen to how much kick drum we're getting and what it sounds like. This is the cardioid mic once again. (drumbeats) And now in omni. (drumbeats) So you do hear a different tonality. The cardioid mic has a little bit of thickness in the low mid range. But when you hear the omni mic, there's a little different deeper and a little more present sound. Now putting these in with the close mics we'll hear the differences as well. Here's the cardioid mic over the kit with the kick and snare added in. (drumbeats) Let's go again on the omni mic, same section. (drumbeats) If I was looking for my overhead mic to bring in a fuller picture of the drumset, I'd use an omnidirectional capsule. If I wanted a mic to really just pick up the cymbals and stay more out of the way of the close mics involved, I would use the cardioid pickup pattern. This is really good information to always keep in mind when you're setting up mics to capture a drumset for recording.

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