MS Stereo Miking for overheads

[SorenP]

I used to intern at a world class studio and one of my favorite slow-day "let's let the intern do some stuff" days involved a big mic shoot out using the MiddleSide overhead technique. We got some real cool variety and MS allows you to literally just dial in how wide you want your drumset to be in the mix.

Has anyone used this real world? Good/bad results?
It was a ton of fun to do, doesn't seem like a lot of people use it. It's a great way to fake a different sized room too.

[SorenP]

haha.. guess not? do people just not use this or not know what it is? should I write a little how to?

also... the "world class studio" haha. It was Smart Studios in Madison Wisconsin, which by all means is world class, i just sounded like a tool when i said that.

[dagosto]

Yeah, I have not tried it. When I record in nicer studios I usually elect a Blumlein or space array. Now, I rarely record outside of my basement and I doubt that MS would be good for my space since I actually try to take out the room as much as possible. It's a good technique though.

[SorenP]

yeah right on. that makes sense

[Nubus]

I have been meaning to try and I never did, other than once on piano. It's used in broadcast alot. I'll have to remember to give that a shot on the drum room this Saturday. I'll be using the Rode K2 for the figure 8, and I'll have to use something mismatched for the middle mic. What do you think would be better, a tighter cardioid or wider?

[SorenP]

one of the coolest things about the shootout that we did was seeing how the different mics changed the entire image. We had some crappy radioshack broken stuff that gave a really cool lo-fi sound, and some giant cardioids that gave a huge room sound, the smaller ones gave a much punchier sound in the image. The character of the mic you choose really comes through in the image when you get down to mixing it. You can really design how you want your set to sound. Based on how much of the figure8 mic you put in you can really dial the size of your sound too. So if you want something tight and punchy mix a small amount of figure 8 into a smaller cardioid or a hyper if you have one. If you want something big a huge throw the biggest one ya got and crank up the figure 8.

[smopo24]

I've never used it on drums, however, I did like it with an acoustic guitar. The track sounded great.

[abarnett]

When I've used MS, its been on live tracking with everyone in the same room. I've unfortunately never gotten to record a band with drums that didn't want all the amps with the drummer.

However, the MS technique is great. I highly recommend using that for spatial depth over eq. The less eq I have to use, the better my mixes will turn out.

I've always done it with a single bidirectional ribbon running with a phase reversed split and a single ldc for the mid. Did you have a different way of doing this?

[SorenP]

yeah thats how i learned to do it.

[Nubus]

Thats what I almost tried a few weekends ago, but I didn't have the guts to test it out. The guitarist walked in and saw the mismatched pair and started laughing though.