Miking Cymbals

Zeusy82

Junior Member
Hi all, long time reader of this forum but now I need to know something so decided to join. Lol
I'm going to be miking my kit and need some help. I'm all sorted with close miking my drums but need to mic my cymbals. Was thinking of using 2 overhead condenser mics, would this be the way to go? What pattern should I use (omni or cartioid)? I only have a budget of $300-$400 so I could get 2 decent condensers for that. I have a crash and hats on the left and a ride, crash and china on the right. Any help in what I should buy and best way to set them up would be very useful.

Thanks
 
I have three pencil condenser mics and I use one on the hi-hat, and then make an X-pattern of the other two and have that positioned over the center of the kit, about two-and-a-half drumstick lengths high. This helps with the stereo imaging, but you can get away with just one over head and one of the hi-hat.

Depending on what you're doing, I've also gotten great results with just a kick drum mic, and then the one overhead over the kit for everything else.
 
Do u have the one for you hi hats up close? What model/brand mics are they? I could probably add another sm57 for the hats but that will only leave me with $200-300 for the overheads.
If you have a cartioid condenser a few feet away, will it pick up a larger area?
 
you don't really need a hi hat mic, unless you're doing a lot of intricate hi hat work, and you need to be able to control the level... you can just spot the cymbals instead of XY to work around that.

oh_xy.jpg

thats what XY is


Metal_11.jpg

thats spotting mics, you can get away with spotting with just 2 mics if you really wanted... just make sure everything is even distance from the snare so you remove any chance of phasing.
 
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