Mic placement / choice

D

dpgreek

Member
Trying to record an ethnic drum called a daouli (or davul, tupan) that is played by holding it with a strap slung over the shoulder as such in the photos:

https://ohfs.org/images/Newsletter/news2001Concert20.jpg

It has a bass side, played with the large stick and a treble side played with a wood dowel / plastic thin stick like this photos:

https://live.staticflickr.com/8621/16008367921_5c81a305af_b.jpg

wondering what mic techniques people would use.

I have an Audio Technica 2020 condensor, Audix ADX51 overhead and Shure Beta 87a condenser. I tried micing both sides and overhead, and got mixed results.

Another studio mixer told me to use just one mic and put it in front of drum and not even mic either side.

Thoughts?
 
If you mic it from both sides, you will have phase/polarity issues. This can be fixed in the mixer (flip the phase on one of the inputs) and align the phase using Auto-Align (or an equivalent plugin). This will get the audio into the ball park for further processing with EQ, compression, etc.

If you add an overhead mic to this, you will still need to fix the phase problem. The OH mic will record the room ambience much more than the close mics. It may not be necessary.
 
Most of the time, percussion instruments, especially ethnic drums etc are just mic'ed ambiently - in other words with a mic in front of the player, like a lot of classical instruments.
 
I will give it a try.
Chris Whitten said:
The fewer mics the better - less issues and phasing problems.
I would set up a mic about 1 to 2ft in front of the player, at drum height. Out of your choices the AT 2020 would be my pick.
Click to expand...
Why would you choose AT2020 vs others? Just curious.
 
Chris Whitten said:
The fewer mics the better - less issues and phasing problems.
I would set up a mic about 1 to 2ft in front of the player, at drum height. Out of your choices the AT 2020 would be my pick.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Single mic of your choice in this position as noted by Chris.

If the daouli is being played while moving around--and you want to experiment in advance--you might try a wireless lavaliere mic (I'd recommend the DPA 4061) clipped on either the drummer or the drum strap. Experiment with position of the mic placement to deal with polarity. This mic could be used on an either a wireless transmitter or hard wired with the appropriate adapter to an XLR cable. While not necessarily the ideal choice, I have used this set up on interviews in a pinch where the client/producer failed to communicate with me that an instrument would be involved in an interview. Absolutely no complaints when using this method.
 
I think it would be advisable to ask the player not to move around, it's going to lead to volume variation and weird changes of tone as the drum changes position.
I would normally use something like a U87, a large condenser mic. The closest you have is the Audio Technica.
Cardioid setting (picking up just from the front of the mic, but not too tightly focussed).
 
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