Capturing Sam Smith’s Drum Sound Live

Los Angeles, CA (July 9, 2024)—Sam Smith may be known for his bracing voice, but every performance on his current Gloria The Tour production is still built on the foundation of his band, which means his musicians need to sound just as clear and stirring as the name on the marquee. With that in mind, FOH engineer Jim Ebdon has been capturing drummer Jonathan “Ginger” Hamilton at every show using multiple condenser mics from Austrian Audio, including the OC818 and the CC8.

Ebdon, whose credits include mixing front-of-house on tours with Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, Aerosmith, Maroon 5, Matchbox Twenty and others, has been miking Hamilton’s drumkit with a pair of OC818s positioned as overheads. “We tried different overheads in different spots, but the 818s just kill it,” he reports. “They’re really open and natural sounding and don’t need a lot of EQ. They’re picking up the tom toms and the snare drum as well. It’s a whole picture of the drums. The mid-range in these microphones is so nice.” That said, the hi-hat and the ride cymbal are directly heard via Austrian Audio’s CC8 cardioid true condenser microphones.

Miking for Metal Drum Sound Consistency

To minimize phase cancellation, the two overhead mics ideally need to be positioned equidistant from the snare drum. Some engineers measure the respective distances between the snare and the two mics. “But I just use my ears,” says Ebdon, who typically listens at front-of-house and works with an assistant on the stage to position the drum overheads in exactly the right spots: “With any microphone, you have to find the right spot. Often, I’ll switch the overheads out of phase and that seems to line everything up nicely. The whole drum sound becomes fatter.”

The decision to adopt the Austrian Audio mics was unanimous, he says: “I work very closely with Sam’s monitor engineer, Saul Skoutarides, an Australian fellow. Saul is very meticulous in the way he works, so he loves these microphones, too.”