$400 budget: 7 pc drum kit mics....kit or separate?

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ghostred7

New member
Tax return is soon here and would like the ability to record my drummer's full kit (7pc: 3 rack toms, 2 floor, kick, snare, etc) and am looking at a few kits in my price range.

Would quality be better if I buy the mics separate and tailor? Some of the kits I'm looking into thinking I can go w/ a 5pc kit and augment with the 2 MXL990 & 2 MXL991s. Would it be better to upgrade to a 7pc kit that includes condensors?

Audix FP7 (have actually seen this less than $400)
Samson 5kit
Shure DMK57-52 (52 + 3 57s and clips)

Thx in advance.
 
ghostred7 said:
Tax return is soon here and would like the ability to record my drummer's full kit (7pc: 3 rack toms, 2 floor, kick, snare, etc) and am looking at a few kits in my price range.

Would quality be better if I buy the mics separate and tailor? Some of the kits I'm looking into thinking I can go w/ a 5pc kit and augment with the 2 MXL990 & 2 MXL991s. Would it be better to upgrade to a 7pc kit that includes condensors?

Audix FP7 (have actually seen this less than $400)
Samson 5kit
Shure DMK57-52 (52 + 3 57s and clips)

Thx in advance.
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This is a very low budget for 7 mics. You're better off if you buy a good snare and a good bass mic + a pair of overheads to pick up both toms and cymbals. Even then $400 is mediocre budget, so you might want to consider one overhead (mono) mic. Buy used and get the most out of your $400. Of you want to go with MXL, get the 67V.

It's better to slowly expand a collection of good mics, then to start off with a whole bunch of mediocre ones.

My two cents. Good luck :)
 
chrisghost said:
It's better to slowly expand a collection of good mics, then to start off with a whole bunch of mediocre ones.
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I agree.
I bought the samson 7kit first time around.

None of it sucked but it all got replaced piece by piece rather quickly.

If you can afford it I'd be inclined to suggest the same. Good kick mic, snare mic and overheads.
Idk how far dollars go so I'm not sure how over budget that'd be.
 
I asked an engineer friend of mine about this and he told me mic my drums according to the sound I want to achieve. A lot of my favorite drum recordings are done on single mic setups in the 60s.
 
Caveat is that we're looking to record sooner than I can afford a $2k setup.

If I'm going to go for the "better" (read: individual) buildout, which recommendations for snare/kick/etc? I'm not sold on any specific brand, but love my MXL kits b/c they're conveinent AND I already have them.

I mean, I've read on here that 57s are good for drums, but also have read they're not ideal. Benefit of being a n00b....I have no idea LOL
 
ghostred7 said:
I mean, I've read on here that 57s are good for drums, but also have read they're not ideal. Benefit of being a n00b....I have no idea LOL
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I think the majority of people here will agree that sm57s do a nice job on basically any snare/tom.
 
KevWestbeats said:
I asked an engineer friend of mine about this and he told me mic my drums according to the sound I want to achieve. A lot of my favorite drum recordings are done on single mic setups in the 60s.
Click to expand...

And it's important to note, that those single mic setups were done in almost absolute perfect acoustic environments for the sound they were after. In those cases you can just use one good mic to capture the sound of the kit and room, in most normal cases your going to have to close mic your drums to remove most of the room from the mix.



I bought that shure kit as my first mic purchase. IMO it's worth the money, and at least unlike the other kits, your still getting 3 57's that you'll have forever and can use for a lot of different applications. There are definitely better mics out there for recording drums, but those you can use and get a good sounding recording. The clips are alright, I used them for a few weeks until I bought enough mic stands to use those.

If were to do it over again, I would try to buy everything separately though, and used if possible, you'll save a lot of money that way. If you bought new, you would still need 4 mic cables at $20 a pop, and at least 1 stand for the beta 52, so your looking at an extra $100 if you don't have any of that stuff you need to account for. Surf craigslist maybe you can find a good deal!
 
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