Ribbons On Stage
Royer ribbons deliver the same tone and power on stage as they do in the studios, smoothing cymbals and giving an accurate, musical reproduction of toms and snare drums.
Australian pro audio magazine Audio Technology interviewed Keith Urban's
FOH engineer Steve Law in July 2007. Here are Steve's comments about using
a Royer SF-24 for live drum overheads:
AT: Any other examples of microphone bravery? A Neumann U47 on the kick
perhaps? (This question came after Steve talked about using Royer R-122's
on live electric guitar cabinets.)
SL: I'm using another Royer - a stereo SF-24, which is an insanely expensive
mic - for drum overheads. But it's absolutely amazing. Truly amazing! The
best overhead mic I've heard. It sounds totally transparent... you can
almost do away with the rest of the drum mics.
AT: Well, I notice that you've place the SF-24 quite high - it's evidently
more than a 'cymbals mix'.
SL: Yeah, it's funny, because I actually get a better snare sound from
the overhead mic five foot away than I do from the snare mic. It's a thicker
and nicer tone.
AT: So do you find yourself pushing up the overhead mic more these days?
SL: With that mic I do. I've definitely got more of the overheads than
any other mix that I've done. Most other mics catch too much of the highs
and it just doesn't sound real. With this mic, you put it 10 feet away
and it sounds the same as if you're two feet away. There's no proximity
loss - you're not losing all that nice warmth and fullness of the cymbals
instead of them just going tssss, tsss, tssss. And I can run it down all
the way to 150 Hz. That's something you don't normally do with overhead
mics, you'd normally be rolling it out about 300 to 400 Hz. It just sounds
so nice... it even picks up the kick drum nicely!
Live Photos
Click on photos to enlarge and view comments.
Keith Urban monitor mixer Jason Spence uses an SF-24 stereo ribbon mic
for drum overheads.
The engineer uses two R-122's for drum overheads and one R-122, two feet in front of the kit, for the kick drum. No other tom or cymbal mics are needed (besides a hi-hat mic). Notice the angle of the front microphone - it's leaned forward at about 40 degrees. Because the microphone rejects sounds approaching it from its sides and its top and bottom, this angle greatly reduces the amount of drums other than the kick getting into the mic, resulting in a well isolated kick drum signal.