THE DRUM MICROPHONE / MICROPHONES THREAD

Re: Micing up a drum kit for live performace.

Just to expand on some of the mics and ideas:

Bass Drum: Crucial for rock. Not only does the crowd need it, but your fellow musicians will thank you when they hear this comming back through the monitor. I recomend the mic in the bottom corner of the fron head, about the 5 o'clock position. If there's a hole in the bass drum, put the mic in or right in front of the hole. If there is no hole, close to the head of the drum but make sure the head will not touch the mic when you hit it. Experiment with diferent positions to find the best sound.

Snare: A few ways to do this one. Going between the hi-hat and snare is a great choice, seeing as it will easily pick up the snare and your hats. However, if you want a deeper sound to your snare, or you notice the depth you normally have isnt there, but the mic UNDERNEATH the snare drum as opposed to on top. This will pick up more depth from the ressonant head. You can put it underneath between the hi hats and snare too.

Toms: For toms, again I usually put the mic underneath the tome for two reasons. Number one, the mic clamp doesnt get in the way. A stray hit during a role can be devestating to the mic and the audiences ears. Second, putting the mic on the bottom gets more out of the resonant heads, giving you more sound from the drum through the PA. If you dont want as much ring or overtones, then by all means put the mics on top. Both setups sound great, they just sound different. As usual, experience for best results.

Overheads: These can be crucial if used correctly. If you have loud cymbals (the zxt's are pretty loud) either ditch the overhead for rock completely or have it very very low in the mix. Too much from the cymbals will mask the rest of your drums. Thats a bad thing. Instead of using overheads, I do the following (most of the time),

On the left side of my kit sit my ride, next to that my hi hat, and above them, a 14" china and a 16" crash. I position a mic between my ride and my hi-hat, that way the bell is picked up niceley. The crash and china bleed through enough on the tom and snare mic. Furthermore, chinas are much louder to the ear, so to speak, so they jump out more.

On the other side sit my 18" crash, 14" crash, and 22" china. I place a mic above the 18" and 14" crashes (they sit right next to eachother). The 22" china is way too loud to mic, so I get the mics as far away as possible so as not to pick up too much of the china (some bleed through is inevitable though).

Of course, if you are short mics, ditch the cymbal mics. The crashes bleed through enough as is.

Hope this helps,

-Matt
 
Yet another mic thread.

hey,

I'm joining a band with some experienced players who have booked recording time in april. I know nothing about good mic's and have no studio/recording experience. I want to buy a decent mic set, that would suit a 5 piec with hats, ride, 3x crash, 2x china + splash.

If someone could point out to me whats necessary/whats not necessary etc or make any suggestions, it would be a great help.
 
Re: Yet another mic thread.

TopCat said:
hey,

I'm joining a band with some experienced players who have booked recording time in april. I know nothing about good mic's and have no studio/recording experience. I want to buy a decent mic set, that would suit a 5 piec with hats, ride, 3x crash, 2x china + splash.

If someone could point out to me whats necessary/whats not necessary etc or make any suggestions, it would be a great help.


Hey Topcat.

Most of the bigger mic companies (Shure (www.shure.com), Sennheiser (www.sennheiser.com), etc.) make drumset packages. For example, Shure has a couple of packages with different mics/numbers of mics. The main difference in their kits is that one uses plastic housing for the mics (PG-series) and the other (SM and Beta I think - more expensive) uses metal. The metal-housed mics would be best for gigging, IMHO, as they would necessarily suffer more abuse then studio mics if only for the fact that they would need to be moved around a lot.

Instead of a package (which I find doesn't save you much cash) that kind of locks you into one brand, you can simply build up your own selection. In fact, depending on the venues you'll be working, you may be able to start small (overheads and a kick, and maybe a snare mic) and pick up extras as needed.

Another thing to remember is that all of the mics need to plug in somewhere. More mics mean more cables, larger mixers, more cash, etc. Personally, I'd rather buy a few great mics than a ton of crappy ones.

Good luck...

-Michael
NP: 30 Seconds to Mars - 30 Seconds to Mars (with Shannon Leto on drums).
 
Re: Yet another mic thread.

Even a modest studio should have its own mics...get with the engineer and see what they have. You probably know that different drums call for different types of microphones, the two main types being dynamic and condenser. So I guess just make sure that the engineer or whoever is doing the recording sounds like they know what they are doing, then you don't have to worry about it. It's not your job, but it's nice to know some stuff which I see you are trying to do.

The one thing that affects the sound more than anything (besides the instruments themselves, of course) is the room you are in. If you can help it, don't record in a room if your drums don't sound good by themselves in that room. Of course you may not be able to do anything about it.

Also I noticed you plan on using three crashes and two chinas. It would probably help the recording to use as little as possible, if you don't have to use all of them. Use your smaller, thinner crashes, they tend to record better.

Good Luck!
 
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Re: Yet another mic thread.

Thanks alot for your suggestions and tips about cymbals + where to record, really appreciated.

I was looking through some sites for packages + individual mics. a couple of thigs that were of interest -

http://www.dv247.com/invt/20966/

http://www.dv247.com/invt/10833/

However, i probably wont go for a full set, Just a kick, snare + 2 overheads to begin with. Could anyone suggest some decent mics for those purposes?
 
Re: Yet another mic thread.

That AKG D112 bass mic is preferred by a lot of pro drummers and engineers. So you can't go wrong there. Go with a Shure SM57 for the snare, it's another tried and true mic. Find a pair of large diaghram condensers on sale for overheads. That is, if you want the overheads to pick up the toms, too. If you plan on getting more mics in the future then you could go with small diaphram condensers, these will be better suited for only cymbals. You could also put one on the hi-hat.

You can get a great sound out of four mic's. I've made recordings with only three mics, a bass mic and two condenser overheads. I used the most affordable mics and mixer I could find (Samson Q-kick, Nady CM-88's, Behringer 1002) but you can hear everything ok. The snare is tuned high so it is still prominent even though it's not close-mic'ed: :http://www.youtube.com/w/Ryan's-Mo...?v=dkpexifMY9M

I ran the mix into a camcorder that didn't have the proper inputs, so it would have sounded fuller, louder, and all around better if I had ran it into an audio recorder of any kind.

So if you get three mics: that D112, and two nice overheads, you will be in business.
 
Re: Yet another mic thread.

TopCat,

I'm just about to buy some mics too and have been trying to do as much research as possible. I'm not recording with any band but I've been setting things up in my basement to do some recordings. Some of the threads here have talked about the Nady mic packs, CAD mic packs, and Samson, Shure, etc. so I'm sure you'll get better advice from what limited knowledge I have of them too. I'm still learning....

For under $200 you can get several mics from Nady or Cad. I'm looking at the Nady after most reviews from Musiciansfriend had slightly better quality. there were a few more negative comments on the Cad pack. I've heard a few samples from other drummers here, I think Scott was one who used the Nady package and his clips sounded great. I agree from below that the AKG112 for kick and Shure SM57 for the snare are really the way to go. I picked up an AKG off of Ebay and will likely get a Shure for the snare soon. I'm thinking of using the kick mic in the package for the floor tom. Scott said it worked pretty good. I know others here don't care for the low quality of some of these mics but for what I'm doing, I can't break the bank and I'm not picky...at least until I can spend more $. I've trended towards the Nady because of the extra mics (7). But there are packs of 3 or 4 if that's all you'd like.

Here's the link...I was just looking at it before checking out this thread. But you can search for Cad and others too.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Live/Sound/Microphones/Wireless?sku=277246

Like another said below, we still need drum clips, cables, etc. along with a mixer. I've had one on layaway at the local store for a while but you can search Ebay for some boards too. I actually found a bigger board for less at the local store than what was on Ebay so just check everything out before buying.

Well, I'm rambling a bit and I need to get back to work....hope this helps in some way!

Cheers!
 
Re: Yet another mic thread.

Wow, thanks for all your helpful suggestions. I think im going to go for RMS' and tmc's sugegstions with the three/four mic layout. I go into the studio on friday. I 'officially' became a member today. Recording three tracks. Had one practice. Code red.
 
Re: Yet another mic thread.

Yeah, good choice. If I were doing studio work, I would lean towards the better quality of Shure, especially for kick and snare. I bit the bullet and bought the cheaper CAD mic package last night. I changed my mind seeing that they had the clips included and I could save a few bucks that way....I'm such a cheapskate! hehe.

Anyways, be sure to post some clips of the studio session if you can. I'd love to hear how those drums sound! Good luck and have fun!!
 
Re: Yet another mic thread.

Carvin makes a really nice kick drum mic and it's under $100. Once you own a good mic for the kick you should be able to "beg, borrow or steal" everything else.
 
Help with mics?

I want to get a bass drum mic so i can be heard over my band. I know i have to get a mixer or pa to run the mic through and a speaker for it to play through. I have no ideo what to buy and i only have a budget of around $275. Can someone reccommend a mixer and a speaker or speakers to run it all through. Nothing too complicated as i am new to the technical side of drumming. Also a mixer with enough inputs to set up a full kit of mics would be handy as i will probably be wanting to expand within this year. Thanks in advance for any help given.
 
Re: Help with mics?

hatebreed said:
I want to get a bass drum mic so i can be heard over my band. I know i have to get a mixer or pa to run the mic through and a speaker for it to play through. I have no ideo what to buy and i only have a budget of around $275. Can someone reccommend a mixer and a speaker or speakers to run it all through. Nothing too complicated as i am new to the technical side of drumming. Also a mixer with enough inputs to set up a full kit of mics would be handy as i will probably be wanting to expand within this year. Thanks in advance for any help given.

Dude(tte)!

I doubt that you'd get a mixer for that much, let alone a mic and some speakers, too. A decent kick mic will take all of that budget, and good mixers with a large number of inputs (you can easily use a dozen mics on a good-sized kit) seem to be very pricey. I just got a quote this afternoon for a british mixer with 16-inputs and it was $1,750 Canadian.

You could probably go with some less-expensive Chinese mics and mixer, but I'm not sure the quality (sound-wise and ruggedness) will be what you need... or if it will even come within that budget. Good luck, though.

-Michael
 
Re: Lookin for good quality drum mics! Help Please!

mmm

350$ is not enough to get real quality drum mic.
But let me advise you what i would buy for this price.
First The snare : of course you need a good one. The best price/quality is the Shure sm57 ( which costs 100$ I believe ). You won't find better on this price range. this mic is dynamic.
For the cymbals, you need a electrostatic pair. Some cheap and not too bad are these ones
http://www.musicstorekoeln.de/fr/Percussions/10_2_G_0_DRU0010090-000/0/0/0/detail/musicstore.html
So here we're at 150$ ( approx )
For the bass drum buying you must buy a not too cheap one;
I advise this one :
http://fr.audiofanzine.com/produits/index,idproduit,15431,mao,shure_pg52.html
The total ups too 280 $

For the toms, Fame makes good cheap cardioid mic. If you have Music store catalog, search in, you ll find some at 30 $
http://www.musicstorekoeln.de/fr/Pe.../images/artikel/medium/dru/DRU0010089-000.jpg
( like those 4 )


Hope i ve helped you
 
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