Which microphone should I get?

E

ex351d

Member
Hi I am thinking about recording my band and in the near future set up a home studio. My band consists of a vocalist, drummer, bassist and myself, playing the electric guitar. At the moment I have 4 microphones: SM57, SM58, D112 and sE X1 (LDC).

For the vocals I could use she condensor or SM58. For the guitar I can use condensor or SM57 and I could DI the bass or use any of the mics and see what works for me as I have discussed with local stores and all said that I could get good sound using these mics for these applications. My problem is recomrding the drums (4-5 piece drums with hihats, ride and a crash or 2). I have a budget that I could buy either a Golden Age R1 active ribbon mic or a pair of Oktava Mk012 SDCs at the moment. Locally there is no store supplying either mic in my country so I would have to by via internet and at the store they do not have much experience with either mic.

I do not know what would work best for drums. I would use the SM57 as a spot mic on the snare drum and the D112 as a spot mic on the basedrum. Then I could either go for Glyn Johns method by placing the sE X1 on top of the drummer's head and the ribbon mic slightly above the ride/floor tom. Or I could use the SM57 and D112 as spot mics and use a spaced pair of Oktavas.

My concerns are that the SDC would sound thin without having spot mics on toms. With the ribbon I'm concerned if it would fit the Glyn Johns method using 1 condesor and 1 ribbon.
 
What do you want the drums to sound like? Plus of course, how do you record in terms of placement and separation. Simple but effective drum mic setups do rather assume you aren't do heavy tom heavy music and have total isolation. If the guitar amp is in the same room, then no form of distant miking will be clean.

What are you up to?
 
I intend to record each instrument separately as I have only 1 SM57. Room has some sound treatment but it is far from a perfect room. I do not play heavy music, just pop, rock and a rarly bit funk. I wish to get a nice drum sound, irrelevant if it sounds a bit more traditional (Led Zeppelin) or a bit more modern. As long as the drums sounds nice, I'll try to adapt the guitar to fit to that sound.

Eventually I intend to get both the ribbon and the pair of condensers so I would be able to experiment. But at the moment I have to guess a way to get a decent sound quality.

Another note is that the drummer is the least experienced/qualified musician in the band. So he may not have the perfect balance of strikes between different drum pieces. but I am not so concerned too much as toms are not over used.
 
what I mean by traditional Led Zepplin is that picking up the drums in the room rather than close miking the drums.
 
Problem with Led Zep being traditional is all the different ways Bonzo's drums were recorded. They all sound good, but there were probably a couple dozen different setups...
 
I actually went to the store to look for beyer m130 & 160 quote, but they're too expensive for me at the moment.
 
I'd say- Buy the Oktavas if you can afford them. Not only are they very good drum overheads, but they are good for a lot of other applications. Later on, add the LOMO capsule, and they can be very good vocal mics as well
 
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