Steve Albini had one of the most subtly funny responses when asked about the SM57- "I never found much use for it myself, as a microphone"

@sheanroche2548

Ай бұрын

Nazi punks who don't like selling out usually punch out themselves. Albini is losing at poker in Satan's den now. He is probably finding more uses for microphones someplace-foreign. Nevertheless, id be an over-ideological punk burnout, too, if the only album I was known for was the one I worked on for some sissy who couldn't handle his dope.

@sheanroche2548

Ай бұрын

oh and fight club

@AlecBoyd

Ай бұрын

He also said he doesn’t worry whether the speaker is sucking or pushing in regards to polarity.

@kimseniorb

Ай бұрын

@@AlecBoydnothing wrong with that. just not the best way to put it but we all understand that he meant absolute polarity

@anthonydallarosa8314

Ай бұрын

@@kimseniorbprecisely

The drums on Sarah Smile by Hall and Oates is a drumkit recorded with only SM57s. Not the biggest or a really flashy sound, but still nice and warm and fits the song beautifully.

@jackburtoncantsavelopan

Ай бұрын

I had no idea, they sound great!

Love it, bud and sounds good. In the past when I only had 2 mic inputs I would place a sm57 on the snare, and a large diaphragm condenser a few feet in front of the drums, pointing at the kick, and about 2.5' off the ground. Then, I'd copy that track, and put basically a high-pass filter on one and a low-pass on the other, which effectively gave me cymbals on one and kick on the other. In addition to my snare mic, I had effectively 3 tracks and was able to get very usable drum sounds. You can also then copy (any of) those tracks and add a bit of stereo processing to get 'room mics'. I know - so ghetto - but you do what you gotta do!

@elderchildren

Ай бұрын

would you end up with phase issues?

@glenesis

Ай бұрын

Classic setup 🙌🤘👊

@boobo3763

Ай бұрын

What type of stereo processing are we taking about here?

@shyanmahmoodi1746

Ай бұрын

not ghetto, that’s efficient as hell dude !

@schance1666

Ай бұрын

@@glenesis heh, classic for some of us i'd guess! cheers

I just shared this with the folks I know who are starting to progress into actual recording and mixing territory. A perfect video about using limitations to your advantage as well as upgrades. Also, I've been pondering that same polarity question. I've watched a number of videos about it, as well as futzing with it, and have to say I think it's absolutely an improvement. Physics, huh?😂

Glad to see you here more. Please continue.

Like you I've been recording for 20+ years, the "mic sucking" never occurred to me. Learned something today, thanks!

@brooklynboy1000

Ай бұрын

I used to jam with friends in a basement. I put the mic over a the drummer hanging from a pipe. Sounded very 1960s

@Studio22mix

Ай бұрын

Come on a mic cannot suck, people do but membranes don’t. This could only happen when the sound is coming from behind the mic. A speaker kan push or pull when the phase is connected wrong but a mic no way 😂

This is exactly why I spend a lot of time setting up any instrument then build around that setup with only a few mics.. You can get great sounds with very small setups. Good job on this one! Love the sound. It's my type of a drum sound.

I feel like we’ve lost the desire for interesting recordings, and replaced them with “professional” recordings.

@bowel_movement

Ай бұрын

Record drums using 12-15 mics, only to replace half the recorded sounds with preprocessed samples. That's the modern way.

I’m always amazed at just how impactful mic placement is, no matter how many of these examples you’ve shown. This is a super practical approach, I may try to be brave next time; ie. not just recording a bunch of spot mics just for the sake of it, but instead try to work from the overhead first. And then fill in anything that’s “missing” with additional mics.

I remember when I got my first portastudio I used a single mic pointing upwards in between the snare and the hi hat and the bass drum and it turned out pretty good for what it was.. this just brought back that memory..

This sounds great. Always love a minimal approach. Thank You.

Great video, I love these kind of experiments. I think it solidifies the notion that stereo rooms are SO important. Thanks!

I've been mixing in an SM7 in that over the shoulder position and it's great! Good to know I could just throw up a 57 instead 😂

Thanks Ryan. The SM57 is truly an amazing mic.

Love this! Really gets the image of the kit as one instrument!

oh man you havent been on my feed for ages! Great to see your videos again

@creativesoundlab

Ай бұрын

Hey, thanks!

Amazing technique! Thank you!

OMG... You're so right! I just realized how phase is time related and how it's not the same as polarity! Wow I saw a video months ago about recording drums with one mic from in front of them at a distance, will look for it. Thanks, this was awesome!

A fantastic video. Will be trying this out for sure.

Yesss!!! I love this type of stuff. I did something like that a few years ago and got a massive sound

Superb presentation. Simple yet very effective in an overcomplicated world.

Sometimes less is more, interesting. Glad to see you’re back.

Awesome! Thank you for sharing.

Great that you emphasise process over technology.

Not sure this would work on a Simon Phillips or Peart setup, but this was cool!! always great stuff.

This is pure genius and very inspiring.

Great i will try it ❤ i always love the glued Sound then Having Just a couple mics 🥁😊

This is great! Thanks for sharing!

Thank you and a very useful approach. 🙏

This is great thank you. I will use this one mic technique def in my studio 👍🎸🙏

Very useful. Thank you. I had the same thought about phase on the mic 🎤 over the drum vs the kick and noticed Albini flipped polarity on the Kick and under the snare of bottom snare mic was used

that's very interesting, thank you for this video ! it would also be cool to hear the track in the full context of a mix. but great video, thank you !

Sweet! Thanks Man!

Great sounds ryan!

Great sound on this and I was just listening via my iPhone speakers. A good sounding room sure helps.

This is cool- thanks

1 start w great sounding drums and drummer

@thomasvasilarakos1450

Ай бұрын

I have an EV 635a, dynamic omni... I'm going to try that out! I bet it will sound scrumptious! Tom Vasilarakos here at Northern Sound in Laporte, Indiana.

I always hold the mic when finding the best position while drumming. It’s the only way to find the best spot. Repeat with each mic where possible. I agree with Steve Albini though, the 57 really has no business being anywhere near a nice kit haha

Wow, I’d never considered microphone pressure waves before.👍🏽Excellent man.❤️

Lately, I use only one SM57 on an overhead boom, which covers the entire room. This way I can change the "mood" for each track, if I want it. It was a relief to get rid of cables, mike placements, phase problems, multi-track comping etc. I love simplicity. Reminds me of the late 1970s when I was hanging around at rock sessions in my uncle's garage: that's the way they did it back then.

Great simple setup for the stereo room mics. For room mics I have got 2 cheap ribbons (superlux R102) for blumlein (mounted from behind) plus (+z) another mic pointing straight up for adding some high frequencies, like an x y z setup but with figure of 8.

Love your channel dude

@creativesoundlab

Ай бұрын

I appreciate that!

Amazing what can be done.

I've been using one decent SDC, sE SE7, strategically placed for live gigs. With a kick drum mic, it works beautifully...

Really solid drummer really helps the recording.

This is great because it is cutting away barriers people have to making music. Interesting point about the polarity of the mic signal but im not sure i totally agree. Think of it like this: the waveform you show shows the first undulation going down but its not the first full undulation which is the second peak. Im not sure if its as important to capture the first peak going in the positive direction, but in the original polarity recording now you have a greater compression of the air from the lower/proto peak to the tip of the first full peak. That contrast may make the first full peak hit harder since its going from negative to full positive, and not zero to positive. You have double the speaker movement on the first full waveform if you dont flip the polarity, and you then emphasize it with a compressor. Im sure both scenarios would be useful depending on the situation but this is great as i dont always consider this orientation primarily recording guitars. Keep these kinds of experiments and thoughts coming!

GREAT VIDEO

rad!! ins thing phase is related to polarity all the way as things lining up all on a down or up wave has to do w time of sound per distances. shifting a track of flipping polarity essentially gets you to the same effect of things sounding better aye

Thanks!!!

I think one of the most important parts of this video that isn’t talked about is the source. The drums are nicely tuned as well as being played well.

Sweet video

If you are limited in inputs…Radial has a box called Mix2-1, that lets you pair 2 mics into a single pre (no phantom power. Each mic gets a phase flip and depart input trim. I use a lot of stereo techniques, but summed to mono…you have to measure and get the phase right. RecorderMan in Mono sounds great, even with mismatched mics.

Those room mics sound fantastic!

@djentlover

Ай бұрын

That room sounds amazing. I spent thousands to realize that it's not the mic, it's the room that needs to sound good

Sick

That’s a good sounding room

@anthonydallarosa8314

Ай бұрын

That’s the key to success

Hell yeah!

shure sm57 and large diaphram condesor. No matter if its one, or two-placement always matters more, great video btw, boss.

Very creative! You also gave an idea - use the holy grail electric guitar duo (R121 + SM57 both held with Royer’s purpose-built holder for these two) instead of just the SM57... The need for a plugin/separate low-end treatment could go away in theory at least, with not much to worry about in terms of phase between the two thanks to the perfectly aligned mic capsules.

in a live setting in small rooms, i find one kick mic is enough, especially if there are vocals on drums, and a couple vocals up front that kind of act as room.

A friend of mine is a good FOH (worked with Red Fang, Radio Moscow, Thee Oh Sees, SLIFT...) and he use this technic when he has very limited number of input on the mix board. Sounds awesome !

@javier.ignacioo

Ай бұрын

wow, how does he deal with feedback?? and i dont think they use in ear monitors 😂

@xavkoston16

Ай бұрын

@@javier.ignacioo small clubs, rock n roll baby

@javier.ignacioo

Ай бұрын

@@xavkoston16 if you send me a video of your friend using this mic technique in a small club with monitors I’ll give you 10 bucks.

@xavkoston16

Ай бұрын

@@javier.ignacioo maybe i didn't mention the 57 was pointing at the snare, not exactly like this video

@javier.ignacioo

Ай бұрын

@@xavkoston16 was it 4ft away from the kit?

That sounds great! I need to give this a try sometime. What about using a ribbon mic instead of a 57, would that help to get more low end ?

For all close mics, you should look at them in the analyzer, and align them by eye. Make sure they cross zero (and are going in some direction) at same time. Distant mics can also be improved with phase…you won’t line up the front of the wave, but you can make sure the body of the close mics is in phase with the transient of the distant mics.

I love this video and thanks for sharing this technique with me and the internet. However, I’m not sure human hearing is sensitive to phase polarity. Polarity will obviously matter if it is shifted from identical source material, but if there’s only one recording of something, the polarity shouldn’t affect how we hear it. Whether pressure is starting as positive or negative doesn’t matter since it’s the time distance between the compression and rarefaction that give us frequency. Again, maybe this does matter though, when you put it in the context of a mix! So still a useful consideration and definitely applicable to multiple-source and multi-mic material!

@JoeyDoyscher

28 күн бұрын

This ^

why are we all stuck typing italics lol. When I was a kid, I mic'd a drum kit by hanging a dynamic mic from the upper toms rack lol. It actually sounded pretty good for a demo tape sort of thing as I recall. This was before all the processing plugins we have today.

very good for those of us who don't have a ton of Hardware. would a pair of Rode m5 also work as from mics? I always used them for stereo AG recording but wonder if they were similar to the sm57 in regards of capturing room reflection like you showed. they have a lot of high detail I think

Fucking insane! I must try this unbelievable room stereopair at recordings!

Very interesting technique! Will definitely try it out :) What's your opinion of the Lewitt dynamic mic? Been eyeing it out for a while

@creativesoundlab

Ай бұрын

The dynamic mic is decent. But I love the 440 Pure condenser a lot.

Im all about simple mic setups on drums. I use 5 or 6 mics depending. The denser the mix gets, Ive found things get lost with fewer mics

Great drum sounds depend so much on the drummer self mixing. Great drummers can keep time playing loud or quiet.

@morbidmanmusic

Ай бұрын

that is pretty obvious.

you are the best

Most Dope 😎🍻🤘

@BcBaxley

Ай бұрын

So, record like you cant mix, mix like you cant master Master Yoda type $hit 🤔

Sm57 is a monster. Acoustic guitar, vocals, drums… everything sounds rock n roll with it

@anthonydallarosa8314

Ай бұрын

Everything sounds like an sm57 with it and that’s okay 👍

I wish I was living in the States so I could record my albums with you 😩

SM57. The best mic in the world!

Love this idea. You could have taken them EQ further though. Maybe add a parallel processed track.

when i do this i put the mic directly above the snare pointing down- i have to move the cymbals and toms in weird spots but it sounds amazing before you even compress it

Hi, thank you for the vid. I actually own a mic like that, i am pretty curious, how the end result is effected by the room

Every mic you add on a drum kit is more potential phase misalignment. Measuring is critical and always go with as few mics as possible. That’s my approach:)

Would love to see some videos showing how to get late 60s early 70s tones, but for guys like me in a basement with 2-4 inputs and midi vs orchestras. How can basement warriors sound like classics? Maybe even videos on how to listen to vintage recordings…how to match reverb & eq settings. My mixes get better every day, and I play pretty good…but can’t get my mixes to sound great like stuff from the 68-74 period. How can I learn to make good mixes?

@Studio22mix

Ай бұрын

Look for the Glenn Johns technique, also the kit you use is together with the mics and placement the biggest part of the sound 😊

Agree with record like you can’t mix. Have done some rough demos for song ideas that sounded great before EQ. Captured the performance and mainly did level balancing. Needs more than that for sure if I was something unplanned on releasing but it would need tweaking more than anything. But the good capture of a good sounding source was the foundation and best starting point.

This is a great idea. Would it work if you made the single ‘57, two in an XY?

Look it up Blair Sinta and 21 drum sounds only using an SM57 ... incredible :) ...

I'll try it when I get a 1073 preamp. I saw another drummer do this, and it sounded good. Not as good as yours, but really, an SM 57 and a cool preamp are all that's needed. Thanks for the video.

@7171jay

Ай бұрын

@user. A cool preamp is the least important ingredient actually. The quality of the drummer, the kit, the room, and the tuning of the kit are most of the equation. The 57 is nice with a transformer micpre and a low impedance input like a Neve or API or clones of them but the difference between these and a basic interface micpreamp is really pretty subtle compared to all the other stuff.

@user-gh9iw1of2y

Ай бұрын

​@@7171jay I'm not convinced that a preamp makes little difference compared to "all the other stuff." I've heard records made on a big Neve console at a local studio, and they sound amazing. There's definitely some magic to the sound that's hard to describe.

Yup

That polarity switch idea for mics sucking air first seems so logical, but now I’m questioning everything lol.

@jpeterso1977

Ай бұрын

Electrons are negative. Tada. The “source” is the ground. Welcome to Oz.

Where can i find that tree you have at the 16:36 time mark?

Can you do a live band situation where you have drums, vox, guitar, bass and the band don't have headphone monitors and they only have an eight input interface.

What mic pres are you using? Do you use any cloud lifters on these mics?

@creativesoundlab

Ай бұрын

Direct into the Focusrite preamps. ISA

My drummer calls that position the "shoulder mic".

i edit podcasts to suppliment my music income and sk10 is also good for adding to cellphone thin voice recordings

@m.o.n.d.e.g.r.e.e.n

Ай бұрын

also i did the Worst Trimester track by Welcoming Committee with a single coles over the shoulder as you have the 57 here

15:24 tl/dr: actual title should be "Record Powerful Drums with a Single SM57 and 3 Other Mics.

What an interesting video. Based on the logic of the overheads wouldn't it follow that every single mic on a drum kit should be reverse polarity except the snare side mic?

@Studio22mix

Ай бұрын

Usually only the bottom snare mic, if you zoom in on the waveform of your recording you can see which mic is out of phase. Of course you can hear it when flipping the phase, it just sounds thinner or fuller.

@Zack-Hates-Youtube

Ай бұрын

@@Studio22mix yes I know.. did ya watch the whole video? He reversed the phase of the overheads because the sound is bouncing backwards off the heads to reach them. In theory all the mics on top of the drums should be reverse polarity then. I've never had any issues doing it the "normal way" but I may try this just to see what happens.

@Studio22mix

Ай бұрын

@@Zack-Hates-KZread Think about it in a logical sense… the mic picks up a sound wave, the membrane will move a coil that generates a current that’s all. The membrane cannot ‘suck’ in the opposite direction and even if it did it wouldn’t matter. If you flip all the phases of all mics then you reverse the polarity of your sound wave. Check the waveform in your Daw, they should first go up and then go down not the other way around.

@Zack-Hates-Youtube

Ай бұрын

@@Studio22mix I completely agree I'm just talking about the results he got in the video when reversing the polarity.

remote 'Wurst' microphone technique ? :D

Where you been????

Hey this very helpful, but I have a question. I’ve heard that copying and pasting a track you’ve already recorded, onto a new empty track can cause phase issues or is just problematic in general. Is that true? If so, how were you able to avoid issues when copying the track you recorded with just the 57 onto the second track where you were using k10 plugin? Thank you!

@holdenm9361

Ай бұрын

Also how did you avoid phase issues between your over the shoulder 57 and the stereo room pair? Thanks

@creativesoundlab

Ай бұрын

Only if you shift the track in time. Otherwise two tracks together with sound 6dB louder. Phase issues with the room mic can happen, but usually if it’s 3x the instrument distance from the mic then it’s not a problem.

@holdenm9361

Ай бұрын

@@creativesoundlab thanks so much

Steve Albini used to mic the beater side of the kick!

@nissekram

Ай бұрын

He's hardly the only one doing that 😉

@creativesoundlab

Ай бұрын

Thought of him actually

I think you can’t really judge a drum mix without the context of the other instrumentation. I think it sounds decent in isolation, but I’ve found using many mics will give you a way more firm base to lay other tracks over. Also I find the high end of the 57 not good enough for capturing cymbals.

@mirkomarkovic3438

Ай бұрын

That's 'cause the 57 is not a microphone

@boobo3763

Ай бұрын

As s mixer, it drives me nuts now to hear toms that should be moving left to right (or right to left) in the stereo field just playing on top of eachother in the middle.

Hey what daw is that ?

Phase and polarity are exactly the same, they just switch the signal and ground that’s all there is to it. Same as low-cut and high-pass two names for the same filter. It can be confusing but they are the same. So switching the phase and switching polarity is exactly the same thing.

Step one: have a good sounding room to record in