Overhead mic setup for real cymbals + midi drums

In about 3 or so weeks I'm going to start recording the drums for my album. I'm using a rolland TD-3 V-Drums kit and BFD. I'm going to use this setup for the drum component, but use real cymbals and record them all at once. Not sure what cymbals I'll be getting yet, but I'll borrow or hire something decent. I will be using HH, two crashes and a ride.

So, my setup consists of the V-Drums (with MIDI cymbals removed) and some nice, real cymbals. I have two inputs only which will record my pair of Rode K2 mics. Keep in mind these mics have fully selectable polar patterns from omni, F8 and cardiod, and everything in between. They are tubes.

The room looks something like this (well, it doesn't look something like that, it DOES look like that):

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=290837197610819&set=a.222718917755981.72580.110206089007265&type=1&ref=nf

Which is from my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/mattlyonsmusic

Room dimensions: 10 foot high, 12 foot wide, 15-16 foot deep. Lots of objects in the room for diffusions. Less so on the roof though, of course. I have six 1" thick acoustic pannels of 2'x4'. These can be positioned anywhere. Thinking of maybe setting them up around the kit, or maybe just keep them on the walls around my room. Walls are plaster.

My drum recording experience is very limited. Most of the overhead techniques out there don't really apply so much to me as they are all often about getting good phase coherence with the snare and kick, which obviously isn't an issue for me. I need to record JUST the cymbals. I need good balance between the high had, crash and ride. I figure this will mostly come down to how well I play the cymbals but mic placement should help a little too. I'm looking for a pretty wide sound. But not unnaturally wide. I don't really want to use stereo widening for anything extra, just get it as wide as I can safely and naturally. I'm thinking spaced pair or XY are my two real options here. This is for an album so I'm looking to have it sounding nice. Reasonable mono compatibility would be nice, but unless it's really bad and obvious, I'm happy for it to sound better in stereo. So not a big issue for me. If figure if you're listening mono, it's probably not on a great system anyway, so who cares!?



The question is all about setting up those mics. As I said, I have more flexibility here than most tutorials give me as I don't have an entire kit I need to keep in phase. I just need to record the cymbals, then we are good. Ideas? Opinions? What have you got for me?!

Cheers,
Matt

(P.S. I'm dead set on using this MIDI + Real Cymbals setup. I have trialled it a few times and I'm very happy with the initial results. I'm not gonna go out and hire a studio with a real kit of anything like that, this is how I'm gonna do it!!)

No I wasn't thinking that setting up the mics like that would be very good for phase, but I was just experimenting to see what happened. It sounded a bit like pseudo stereo than a nice stereo with them like that. As you said, too many phase issues with them set up like that. My reasoning behind that was to try and get a bit more high hat on that mic over to my left. The the other mic just kind of went off to the side somewhere far away... Didn't sound very good.

I'll probably just end up using a basic AB spaced pair. I should have played with XY while I had my gear set up. Couldn't be bothered setting it up again now! Would I get very much separation with XY? Or would everything essentially sound centred with a bit of a stereo presence and ever so slight directionality on the cymbals in different positions?

I guess maybe I just set up a basic spaced pair, nice and high, nearly 1m between mics, and then spend the rest of the time positioning all my cymbals in the right place so they sit where I want them in the stereo field. Cant go too wrong with that considering there is no kick or snare phase issues to worry about, right??

I use a similar set up for drums (live cymbals and midi triggers for the drums) and it is one that works well if you can't get the equipment to record a regular kit. I think the cymbals are what normally give away a midi kit the most and perhaps the snare. With BFD or something similar such as Toontrack's even the snare sounds more real than it used to.

I would move the mics around while you are setting up. Try them high and try them with one close to the hats and the other close to ride. The room will play a big role in the sound anyways (You may want t throw up some blankets to help kill the reflections in addition to what you already have). The crashes always tend to sound way louder than they should wherever you put the mics in comparison to the hats and ride in my experience. I really would try one next to the hats and one next to the ride panned somewhat hard and just let them catch the crashes from there. That way you can keep the gain down a little on both mics so that they will pick up less of the room/reflections/hits on the pads and so the crashes won't be so loud. If you find you need or want more crash then back the mics away from the ride and hats to capture more of the crash. As you said a lot of the normal rules don't apply because you won't being doing things in the standard way anyways so play around with it.