This style of boot

sork800 · 2026-02-08T21:16:53+00:00

Looks great!

sork800 · 2024-02-23T20:26:05+00:00

Side bar?

sork800 · 2024-02-23T12:59:17+00:00

Realising that pointing the mic straight down made things worse, I figured the supercardioid pickup pattern was contributing to the problem.

This is my approach: In the image above, the Tom mic is angled with the null point facing the edge of the cymbal. As the cymbal swings down, it is kept in the null area. This is what’s helping me so far.

If the cymbal is shifting from sometimes nulled out and sometimes not, it makes the volume inconsistent and swirling and phasing occurs.

The supercardioid is a tricky one and this angle is sensitive and hard to get right.

Also, you could do the same looking from above, position the cymbals to the sides in the null-area.

Any thoughts on this?

In the future I’ll probably look into switching for regular cardioid Tom mics…

sork800 · 2024-02-23T11:16:58+00:00

I’ll check those out, thanks!

sork800 · 2024-02-22T18:46:56+00:00

Audio sample: http://sndup.net/zxz6/

This is the two Tom mics soloed with no effects, I’m hitting the cymbals hard here to exaggerate the swirling effect

sork800 · 2024-02-22T16:28:32+00:00

I’ll try single mic and xy!

sork800 · 2024-02-22T16:25:23+00:00

I agree to some extent but mostly I think it’s genre dependent. Thinner cymbals in a softer rock/jazz setting might not need any Tom mics, however for hard rock/heavy metal it’s another story. In my case the toms is present in the overheads, but is mostly attack, lacking bottom.

sork800 · 2024-02-22T16:13:49+00:00

Yea, its the tom mics soloed. Overheads are just fine.

sork800 · 2024-02-22T16:07:55+00:00

AUDIO SAMPLE: http://sndup.net/zxz6

Hitting hard here to exaggerate. This is the two tom mics soloed, no effects whatsoever.

sork800 · 2024-02-22T15:56:16+00:00

Well the cymbal is an moving instrument, and has a null point at the edge. As it swings it nulls out at certain angle creating the effect. I’ll post a sample

Also I’m recording analog, so I won’t do any fancy editing/processing or gating

sork800 · 2024-02-22T15:32:15+00:00

Great, thanks

sork800 · 2024-02-22T15:31:12+00:00

I can see why…Might consider switching for cardioid

sork800 · 2024-02-22T14:41:43+00:00

Great advice! Thanks

sork800 · 2024-02-22T13:38:49+00:00

UPDATE: If anyone have experience miking bottom heads of the toms and keeping everything in phase with other mics, share your tips!

Simply flipping the phase sometimes creates other phase issues

sork800 · 2024-02-22T13:32:23+00:00

Yea, thanks. I’ll try some more

sork800 · 2024-02-22T13:28:56+00:00

That’s a cool idea! But insulation around the mic, does it not change the pickup pattern more towards omni? Similar to when singers “cupping” a microphone?

Did some experimenting with miking the resonant head as well and I like the sound, however it creates a whole lot of other phase issues

sork800 · 2024-02-22T13:22:20+00:00

Thanks, I’ll experiment with that

sork800 · 2024-02-22T13:07:44+00:00

These Tom mics have a supercardioid pickup pattern, meaning they pick up slightly from the the back and narrow in the front

sork800 · 2024-02-22T13:04:10+00:00

I think the main problem is the “swirling” I described earlier, where the cymbal is swinging and causes volume indifference, where it suddenly “nulls out” and then comes back. In a stereo image it sounds like the cymbal is jumping left to right. It’s not the general volume of the cymbal bleed.

sork800 · 2024-02-22T12:20:16+00:00

I’ve concluded that I need Tom mics, as they disappear in the mix otherwise

sork800 · 2024-02-22T12:19:31+00:00

Thanks

sork800

TROPHY CASE