Ambience mics provide additional natural colors to the sound that (although you can have plug-ins in your DAW with which to replicate them) if you can naturally have them, it’s fantastic. The reverb, the trashy-rock and roll vibe, the depth. A lot of great options at your disposal. Not that every song or every part of a song will need that, but, as producer and engineer Ross Hogarth (Van Halen, R.E.M., Jewel, Roger Waters) shows in this video, having those room mics high on the corner and opening them in the chorus, gives the song a fantastic vibe:
If you have a good drum room and a couple of condensers to spare, it’s probably a good idea to set them up as ambience mics. Maybe high near the ceiling in a corner, maybe across the room—depends on the room, of course—but it will give you great options.
