Drum mix questions

[conleycd]

Hi folks,

I'm in the midst of mixing a live recording project. I'm currently mixing acoustic drums and wanted to some other opinions so as not to contribute to my own narrow thinking.

What are people's thoughts about phase aligning overhead microphones to close mic'd drums? If it is advocated - what do you tend to align to? Would you align to the snare (bass would be more out of phase given the distance away from the other drums)? In this situation, the snare and the toms would mostly be at the same distance from the overhead microphones.

Also, I've been triggering samples on top of the close mic'd drums. I'm using ApTrigga2 (the poor man's drumagog) which really works quite well... My question is which do people think is more efficient

a) Make a copy of the close mic'd drum and trigger from that track
b) Buss the track to an aux and place the trigger on the aux channel?

With scenerio a I only have the added resource of another mono track (because the trigger would be present in both scenerios) but in b I have the added resources of all the additional busses.

Any thoughts would be helpful and welcome.

CC

[Phil O]

First let's be accurate. We're really talking about time aligning. For the times when it's been an issue for me I've set nudge to one sample and nudged the appropriate soundbite(s) until it sounded right. I really think you ears are the best tools for this type of adjustment.

Phil

[Henry Robinett]

I don't often do this, but I have more recently. I am more frequently time aligning other instruments to the snare. I try and use the snare as a reference point.