My band has an e-kit for when we don't have a house kit. It was great for making our album, too. The recorded it in my home.
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How can I reduce my stage mic picking up drums?
- Thread starter Baker69
- Start date
Our drummer doesn’t like electronic kits (even though he has a set at home!)
He has a very loud set of Animal Custom Drums!
That means the cymbals will move up and down in volume when you sing, which probably isn't desirable.
A lot of clubs never mic cymbals, as those mics are kinda redundant if you have vocal mics up front. You either need to block the sound with shields, get the vocal mics far away, or point the backs of the vocal mics towards the cymbals - those are the things that will help. Whether or not they are doable in your layout is the real issue.
If the drummer can't control his volume, then maybe he needs to swap his heads and cymbals out for ones designed to be lower in volume
How about something like this?
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As an old radio and video production guy, my answer would first be to use a more directional mic IF it's compatible with your performing style.
And guitar and bass amps only work when cranked up to 11...
Having personally used an overhead quite a bit in relatively small clubs I disagree on this point. When we have a pro sound guy he just mics the shells and every recording from FOH I've heard of that has had the cymbals buried in the mix. YMMV.
But to the OP's question, switches and gates will lead to the volume of the drums changing in your inears. This will probably be worse than them constantly loudish.
The only solution is keeping the drums out of the mic with a shield or mic placement. A mic with a tighter pattern might help keep them out but not if it is still pointed at or near the direction of the drums. Most of the tightness of the pattern is on the far side of the mic that won't be pointed at the drums anyway on a typical stage setup.
You'll just have to fiddle with mic placement and direction to get the lowest level you can.
Buy him an e kit and go Direct, otherwise you're going to be battling drum volume everywhere you go. A bands loudness is driven by the volume of the drums.
They don't work at all, if you play rock through them with single coil pickups.
I'm a big fan of the e945, but you kinda have to get right on it.
Lol!FTD!
And I don't mean buy him flowers.
And I don’t mean look out Louie!
Also, I can't get "my sound" unless you're bleeding profusely from the earholes.
Pro option:
Make a Mic Muter
Your mic auto-mutes unless you're standing right in front of it (I.e., when you sing).
Make a Mic Muter
Your mic auto-mutes unless you're standing right in front of it (I.e., when you sing).
Do you know how polar patterns work? You need to aim the null of whatever mic you use toward the drums. If this doesn’t make sense I can explain it more. You might end up singing into the mic at a weird angle but it can cut as much 20 dB of bleed unless the reflections from the walls around you are also really loud
That's been the obstacle for my band when it comes to trying to run "silent stage"... most performance spaces are simply too small to do that unless our drummer was running a V-Kit.
The shield is a good idea.
Use a tandem reverse polarity microphone. Put it on the same stand as your vocal mic, maybe about 6 inches apart, and sing into the standard polarity mic. Phase cancellation will remove the drums, since both mics are picking up the drums, but only one is picking up your voice.
A very simple thing to try out - get another mic, switch plus and minus in the XLR connector (they make adapters for that, too) and tape it to the mic stand - try to get them both on the same plane. Run both feeds to the mixer, and balance them until the drums are reduced..
A very simple thing to try out - get another mic, switch plus and minus in the XLR connector (they make adapters for that, too) and tape it to the mic stand - try to get them both on the same plane. Run both feeds to the mixer, and balance them until the drums are reduced..
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Small room with hard walls where waves are gonna get in there fast regardless? ( idiot engineer here )
Seems it's time to have a conversation with your "best mate" about playing stupid loud in small venues. That's awesome when you're 16. When you're a grownup, it's simply immature.
The drum screen will help in two ways.
1) It blocks some sound.
2) A little-known side effect is that the drums screen reflects a lot of that volume right back at the drummer. They usually ease up a little on their playing at that point because the volume is too much for THEM for a change.
My favorite part of my band is my drummer. He's great at his job. He plays with intensity when needed, and lays back when needed. But he never, EVER, plays too loud for the venue. Our pay actually got bumped up from $900 to $1200 at a tiny venue because we're the only band that doesn't play so loud the staff can't communicate with customers. The guitarist is all Line 6 and in-ears so volume all falls on the drummer. They make more money the nights we play because the bar staff can actually take orders from customers, and the customers stay longer.
Your friend needs to lighten up. Period.
Edit to add: I use an SM58 right in front of my drummer with zero issues in my in-ears OR the FOH mix.
