What the audience hears

I am hardly ever miced. Except at festivals. I just did one not too long ago and I asked the sound guy (a friend) to not close mic me because I wanted to tune high and not muffle. So the overhead elements were maybe 66 inches from the ground and over my hat and ride, pointed in the general direction of my snare more or less. I think he used AKG pencil condensers. The drums sounded crazy good. No dull thud here, real lively singing toms with depth.

At home I use a matched pair of Rode NT5's, which are small diaphragm condenser pencil mics. But I haven't recorded at home in a few years.

I hear there's a nice Guru kit we would all enjoy hearing mic'd! (video too of course)
 
Over the weekend, I got the first chance to hear my kit in a live setting from the perspective of an audience member. I had a gig, with six bands on the bill. Four of the bands (including my band) used my kit. I wasn't worried, because they were all very appreciative and very gentle with it.

Now, I had been starting to wonder if I was just bad at tuning or what. I could never get the kit to sound quite right to me, but I was always behind the kit. I listened to and watched these bands play, and I quickly realized that, from an audience perspective, my kit sounds just how I want it. I couldn't believe how good it sounded from the other side. Almost like there was a studio compression on it. The kick sounded huge and booming, but with the plastic side of the beater, it had the perfect amount of 'click' to really cut through. The floor tom sounded HUGE. Low, and thunderous. The rack tom had a good mid range sound, but upon hearing it from the front, I'd like to tune it a little higher. The snare sounded absolutely beautiful. Just everything about the kit sounded so good to me. Better than most that I hear at these types of gigs. Even my crashes, that I am always displeased with, sounded great from the other side.

I'm starting to think that we spend too much time worrying about what it sounds like from the throne. At a gig, it's more important to please the audience than ourselves, is it not? Shouldn't it matter more what they hear than what we hear?

Yes it should matter more what they hear than what we hear. I've had it go the other way. What sounded like a great tuned kit behind it sounded like crap in front of it.

Maybe the best thing to do if you have time before the gig is, have a band member sit where the audience would be to hear how they sound. If the sound is a little off, tune them until they sound like you want.
 
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