Drum Mics & Setup for Church

C

cerulean

New member
At my church, we have decided to get everything through our sound system. As a result, we need to mic the drums.

I have the following questions:

Drum Shield -- 4' tall panels vs 5' tall panels? Whats the difference? I'd assume taller is better? How about thickness? Is 1/4" adaquate?

Acoustic Foam -- I was thinking foam on the lower portion of the shield (ie lower 2') to absorb the kick & toms as well as some foam on the wall behind the drummer.

Mic Setup -- 4 mics total (2xoverheads, 1xkick, 1xsnare) -- is this good? Too much? too little?

overheads considered: MXL603's .. given that the setup is for a monosound system, is it necessary to have two mics or will one be enough? What other options should we consider?

Snare -- SM57 -- seems standard & durable .. anything else to check out?

Kick -- Beta 52 or AKG D112 seem to be fairly common suggestions --- any other thoughts (or perhaps recommendations for one or the other)

Unfortunately we will have to submix the drums to one channel .. so I was thinking running the mics through a Behringer UB1202.

So what do you all think? Anything I should be aware of that I have not mentioned? Thanks for any advise you can provide :)

Oh FYI -- the budget is around $1100 or so for everything (shield, foam, mics, mixer, etc..)
 
Warning, I am not a drummer

So some stuff I have no idea about...

Mics, though, I think I can help. 4 mics is reasonable. If you find your sound is lacking, you can always add, and you haven't spend a lot of money of the churches un-necesarily as opposed to if you bought 10 mics, but 4 mics sounds good.

Obviously from your budget, you're going to want budget mics (ie. a pair of 414's for overheads is not on...)

It is possible to get a good drum sound from a single overhead, kick and snare, I've done it on a recording but not live. Kick mics are a really personal thing, and I think they depend on the kick a lot as to how they work... Beta 52 and D112 are good mics, but so are the Audio Technica Pro25 and ATM25 (I can never remember which is the cheap one, but one of these is quite cheap, and is a good kick mic). I personally use a Peavey PVM520i, which is a bit of a sleeper (do a search, there are actually a few people here who rave about them despite their being Peavey), which I got second hand incredibly cheap, and it does a creditable job on kick live and recorded. Snare, well, you can use other mics for it, but the SM57 is great. I use it, loads of other people use it, and it works. Overheads there are a number of budget choices. I have a pair of MXL 603's, and they sound good as overheads, and they're cheap, and they have a relatively wide pickup pattern so if you do go with a mono overhead, they may be a good choice. Others to consider include Oktava MC012 (or MK012 - same mics) $99 at guitar center but watch out for the crummy QC on them. Lots of people don't seem to be keen on using large diaphragm mics live, but you could consider Studio Projects B1's ($80 each) as an option.

Alternatively, I've heard good stuff about the Superlux/Avlex cheap drum mic kits both live and on recording. I wouldn't expect them to sound as good as the mics above, but if cash is tight, they should do the job.

You may also want to factor into the budget a cheap compressor/limiter like the behringer Autocom/Composer/multicom to give you peak limiting on the kick and snare at least.

Happy hunting,
Steve
 
Re: drum shield, every time I see a drum shield I wonder what the point is. If it that the drummer is too loud, then the drummer needs to learn to play. If it's that the drummer can be heard directly and that is difficult to mix, distracting, or whatever, then what about horn sections? Why not put everybody in an iso booth?

Still, even if the drummer is too loud, if you are running everything through the mains, so what? Just add a bit of overhead and crack on the snare and let direct sound do the rest. I mean if they haven't been miced up until now, what's the problem?

To me a church band is analogous to the late show bands in style, appearance, purpose, volume, etc., and none of those guys use drum shields.
 
Equipment around a church seems to get heavy and rough use. someone will decide that we need an extra mic here or there and just move it. I would go with gear that has high durability rather than studio sound quality. The first time some clutzy choir member knocks over the mic stand you will be awfully glad there was a SM58 on the end rather than even a cheap LD condenser. So the SM58 (or maybe 57) would be my choices for the snare and even the overhead. For the kick I would go with a beyerdynamic M88 http://www.beyerdynamic.com/pdf/m88.pdf which has excellent low frequency response and a tight pattern so it will not pick up a lot of other low frequency floor noises.
 
We recently purchased a a drum shield at the Catholic church I play at in an effort to dampen the drums. It's a waste of money. Unless whatever is behind the kit will absorb the bounce you know your going to get whats the point? If you are going to mic the kit I dont see any advantage. Use the $400 somewhere else.
 
Drum Shield

The only purpose for the drum shield is to provide some relief on stage to other musicians from the loud direct path of sound from standing nearby.

As a drummer I can tell you that playing from behind them is deafening because all that sound is coming right back at you.
I would rather play softer or use bundles instead of sticks ,rather than be forced to play behind them.

I also realize that sometimes you can't get what you want...
 
Thanks for the responses so far...

Sounds to me like it is "axe the shield" :) I tend to agree (atleast from a visually appealing perspective, space perspective, etc..)

From what I gather, it doesn't sound like the shield will help with the primary goal of reducing live sound out in the audience (congregation)

Just to answer a few questions that some of you have brought up-->

Innovations --> I agree with your thoughts on durability first ..

mshilarious --> Perhaps it is a drummer issue, unfortunately, it is a church setting and all volunteers, so its an issue of working with what you have. Above that, given the location of the band in the church (off center .. almost in a corner) and the size of the church (seats 1200), it would be nice to get a more consistent mix throughtout the church w/o having the people closest to the band be blown out with too much live & PA sound..
Oh yah, we don't have to worry about a horn section. :) don't have one. hehe..

Just curious .. are there other options to dampen the drums so the drummers can "play out" a bit more? They are already using Hot Rod Sticks (i believe). Too bad we just didn't go with a V-drum kit .. (though i dunno .. i guess I like the sound of live drums)
 
I redesigned our church's sound system last year. We decided against the drum shield. Everything runs through the PA. On the drum kit we have one Behringer ECM8000 to pick-up the whole kit and an Audio-Technica Pro25 on the kick. Sounds great. Just enough to fill out the room without being too much.

We have a pretty big budget and I could chose what I want. I'm happy with the way the kit sounds in the room through just those two inexpensive mics.

We also use ECM8000's for choir and podium mics. We've also used SP B1's for the singers, and that sounds really nice.

Dan Richards
Digital Pro Sound
The Listening Sessions
 
Dot - how do the B1's work live? I've used my C1 (and MXL603's) on acoustic in church (and the 603's on piano), but BrettMckinney was asking about using his B1 for vocals in a coffee-house kinda setting with small PA no foldback etc. I suggested taking his B1 along and trying it. Any experience with that sort of application?

Thanks,
Steve
 
Dot --> I like the idea of only two mics on the drums .. From what I am gathering, the Pro25 seems to be the mic to get for the kick.. however, what type of issues are there with the omni? I was under the impression that was a no-no as it would not only pick up a lot more bleed from other sound sources (congregation, singers, piano, bass, etc..) but be more suspectable to feedback.

What has been your experience? (I'm assuming its working fine since your still using it) -- $120 in mics instead of $500 sounds really tempting.

Also, are you running anything extra on those channels? (limiter, gate, compression, etc)? The first reply recommended it, but no one else has. Thanks.
 
Thanks Dot

You don't tend to see a lot of LD's in use on live vocals, which is why I asked, but as I said, I've used them on instruments with no worries so why not!

Thanks again,
Steve
 
Why dont you just get a electronic set since your going through the pa and everyone will be happy.
 
Dot,
Do you use the foam wind screen for the singers on the B-1? How close are the singers to the mic?
 
SteveMcB said:
You don't tend to see a lot of LD's in use on live vocals, which is why I asked, but as I said, I've used them on instruments with no worries so why not!
Click to expand...

Mostly because until recently, LDCs were lots more
expensive than something like a SM57 or SM58,
and relatively more fragile. The combination
of fragile, expensive and folks not used to
handling gear (typical church, community theater, etc.)
means that the budget would go for SM57/58.

Now that the Shanghai mics are priced almost at the
SM57 level, I expect you'll see more of them.
But I'm not sure that you gain all that much,
except maybe for a soloist, and avoiding them
avoids phantom power, damage
and earsplitting pops when an inexperienced
helper plugs or unplugs the LDC into the
cable with the phantom power on and the
gain turned up, etc.
 
All true, but I have used my C1 and MXL603's in church (on guitar and piano, watching very carefully to see that no idiots touched them), and for those applications, the difference is huge.

Steve
 
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