I thought for sure it was the missing mic on the cowbell.
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No. Local dive bar. Rock/hard rock, nothing that approaches jazz, blues, or anything of that nature. Thankfully, no direct board mix recording, either. In the end, it probably mattered for a hill of beans or less. I just thought that, this being a Live Sound forum, the reason given for not mic'ing the snare was quite interesting. I've been around the horn for a long time and been part of many different types of situations, both as a player and a live mixer. I'm just curious if I'm the only one here who thinks this is odd.
See post #10 re: minimal mic'ing of drum kit. I'm not an inflexible prude, and if someone can actually make a technique work well for live sound, more power to them. However, in this case, not mic'ing the snare due to concerns over toms bleeding into the snare mic seems...umm...unique. It's not as though you need a strong kick/snare back beat in rock music, right?
- Oct 18, 2012
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That's what I thought too! The underside can sound pretty decent depending on the situation.
NO WAY.OK. Here's the official answer from the sound guy: he didn't want the TOMS to bleed into the SNARE MIC.
Try to wrap your head around that concept for a second and discuss.
No snare mic under.
Yes, he actually said "toms bleeding into the snare mic" thus no snare mic. Absolutely vexing!!
that's when you have to just sort of stop talking to him, put your head down and get through the gig.
it's also fake! check the 'shopped cables disappearing into nothingness on the left edge of the cab there.
Musician friend on FB posted a pic the other day of a gig where the sound man put a mic on Roland Octapad!! Hahaha
I hate hearing a pop/rock band where the snare is not properly tuned and right up under the vocals in the mix. And it's pretty common, unfortunately.
If he gates the toms and puts reverb (which as a drummer I hated, sound guys please stop making my drums sound like Phil collins in the air tonight when I'm playing a genre that's completely different) the snare is gonna sound so weird and out of place with the rest of the kit.
Well actually it doesn´t surprize me! And I did this live. Most of the time what goes through the overheads is enough and it´s of more help to just mic the drum at the bottom only. And specially if you don´t have any mics on channels on the mixer available.
95 times out of 100, the snare is way too loud already for a situation like this. Usually the kick needs a bit of help, and then I'm wishing the rest of the kit was about 10db quieter so I could actually have a nice overall mix with the band (especially the 40" heavy crash ride seemingly all drummers like to use). I typically mic kick and snare (and sometimes toms and almost NEVER overheads), and then almost universally use just the kick mic pretty much, maybe with just the slightest hint of the others. He may have just been feeding you a line so you'd leave him alone. And I guarantee the snare had plenty of "attack" unless you were in a big washy live room (in which case the cymbals were killing everyone anyway, so adding snare to the PA would probably do more harm than good).
I usually just mic the kick, and then eq a pair of overheads. Quick and sounds great. You do lose the ability to gate stuff. My drummer also uses a headset mic, which I call the 3rd overhead. God I hate that thing.
s0c9
Supporting Member
For bar/club gigs, I usually mic kick, snare and put up an overhead. Usually snare is almost off, but it's there if I need it.
I've never understood drummers who want to put 14 mics on their kit and play in a bar/club.. it's not an arena guys!
When doing SR, it was aggravating when a drummer insisted on mic'ing everything in a dark bar .... the worst part being that it eats up channels that could be used for things than NEED amplification.. like vocals!! LOL.
I had one drummer (whose band I did SR for a while, who also happened to be the BL) who had 11 mics in his kit, that ran into a mixer situated next to him. I got a stereo (L/R) feed to FOH. No amount of explaining would educate him on what was wrong with that...
I'm not going to haul out a 32-ch analog console for what they pay, and told them so.
I've never understood drummers who want to put 14 mics on their kit and play in a bar/club.. it's not an arena guys!
When doing SR, it was aggravating when a drummer insisted on mic'ing everything in a dark bar .... the worst part being that it eats up channels that could be used for things than NEED amplification.. like vocals!! LOL.
I had one drummer (whose band I did SR for a while, who also happened to be the BL) who had 11 mics in his kit, that ran into a mixer situated next to him. I got a stereo (L/R) feed to FOH. No amount of explaining would educate him on what was wrong with that...
I'm not going to haul out a 32-ch analog console for what they pay, and told them so.
I was going to say not my preference to get snare via overheads... but then you posted no overheads, so that's just a clean miss.
So much fail in that logic. I've done snare + hat with a carefully placed condenser when channels were hard to come by, but with the current age of cheap consoles (full feature digital ones at that!) it's also hard to fathom why channel count would even be much of an issue anymore.
For most of the clubs I do sound, the drums are too loud already. The overheads are just to make sensitive drummers feel important too....
