?I'm in the middle of tracking my first producing gig. The project is getting close to taking a year and half. No, it's not THAT good, it's just we've only been able to work on it maybe once per week. Anyway, we had tracked in a large drum room at Music Creek Studios in St. Louis on a Neve console.

The drum tracks did turn out great and were pretty much what I was looking for. However, I was never able to get the drums to have the magical space I wanted. I'm not sure if space is the right word. There are probably better words to describe it. I guess, I wanted that natural 3D ambience that makes you fee like you are in that room.

The tracks had ambience, but I wasn't getting the three dimensional sound I was looking for....until the other day.

The room mic used was the Royer stereo ribbon mic, the SF24. This mic is very nice for room sounds because it knocks down a lot of the harshness from the cymbals. Being stereo, I have two, in phase tracks to play with. They compressed the hell out of one of the tracks and left the other one alone to give me options when I was mixing at home. After tracking one per week for almost 3 months now, I've tried just about every technique I could and was never able to get exactly what I was looking for (I'm being very very picky by the way). Anyway, I found the solution.

I simply took the stereo tracks and panned them hard. Even though one track is smashed all to hell, it didn't matter. In fact, I think that probably helped a little. Now I can hear three dimensions when the drummer hits the snare. That's what I was looking for.

Sometimes the simplest approach is the best approach in recording. Either way, try taking an X Y stereo recording and just pan it wide. See what happens. It worked for me this time.
Brandon