I need mix tips for mono overhead drum recording

hi, RHCP vibe, eh?

i like mono - and a mono o/h for the kit can be good.
at least no phase probs.
if one mic were used, it'll depend on the acoustics as to the final.
don't place anything dead center, but keep the kit around the center.
the o/h can be compressed in a number of ways. all valid, style depending.
listen fore time delays between the o/h and the close mics.

open a bus on the ovh track and put the comp on that track, then blend it back in with the original.

rick

See if this gives you any ideas...

http://www.danalexanderaudio.com/glynjohns.htm

Opps... sorry. I misread your first post. I thought you were tracking...

If the overhead and room mics are mono (one each), obviously, keep them up the middle. Since they're not matched, certainly by placement, and possibly by microphone type a well, I think it would be moot point to try and create a stereo image out of them.

I think you'll get more milage out of sending each, to a decent room reverb. There's plenty of presets in Space Designer that would fit the bill here. Nothing to big, I'd suggest. Just something to add some "excitement", or "sizz", to the outer edge of the stereo field, and create a pseudo stereo image.

And squashing the room mic with compression, and tucking that underneath, or doing the parallel compression trick that upakrik mentioned, would definitely help add some "weight", or "depth" to the drums.

Or have I still misunderstood the question...?

Working with the same problem, I had some success with the 'Stereo Spread' plug.
Insert > Mono/Stereo > Logic > Special > Stereo Spread

Especially on a mono OH: Because of it splitting the frequency range, you can fine tune it to move the different cymbals to the left and right. Same witht the toms.

You might need to mess with a hi-pass to keep the snare where you want it.

Anybody have any ideas about whether I should time-align and fix (match) the polarity on ecah of the tracks, or leave them the way they are (delayed naturally depending on mic position, and polarity affected by whether the drum was "sucking" or "pushing" based on how it was miked)

This caught my eye, as possibly being something to try. If the room wasn't that big, you might get away with this, as a way of fabricating a stereo set up.

Certainly it's worth trying.

The polarity thing probably won't work. By definition, if you copy the track, and flip the phase, it'll cancel itself out, meaning silence. That's probably not what you had in mind : )

Still, you might stumble on something cool.... have fun!