d112 vs. beta 52

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worldeater

New member
if anyone could offer some advice i would be most appreciative.

here's the situation. my partner in recording, and i have an upcoming project (his band). i have a beta 52 for the bass drum, and a bunch on sennheiser e604's for the toms. i am not a pro engineer and these tend to be the weakest links of the recordings. it could very well be the drums and my lack of experience but mic's do play a role in the sound as well so...

he is thinking of buying a mic package for around $500.00 that comes with a d112 and 4 akg c418's.

the beta 52 vs. d112 seems to be a chevy/ford type dispute. i have not really heard anything about the c418's though. or how they compare to the e604's. or if there are any other alternatives for at least micing the toms within the same price range that may work better.

thank you in advance for any advice.
 
Admittedly the mics you are considering will have a somewwhat different sound than the ones you own. But whether they will result in a quantitative leap in your drum sound is doubtful. If you are unhappy with your drum sounds now, chances are it is more due to deficiencies in your technique than to the actual mics.

My suggestion (before throwing money at a "magic bullet") is to take some serious time and play with mic positioning. Try some different overhead and room mic'ing techniques - those tracks often comprise a higher percentage of your total drum sound than the close mics. Work on your compression technique as well. Many a wimpy sounding track can be transformed into Godzilla-on-steroids (or Gojira, for our Japanese friends) with the proper application of compression.

But before any of that, you may want to determine if the drums themselves sound good. Does the kit suck? Are they tuned? Are the room reflections disastrous? Hard to get a good sound with any mic if any of the above is true. Make sure you go out and LISTEN to the drums in the room - not just in the control room through headphones or monitors.
 
... I completly agree with what little dog has said... But if you do decide to go with some different mics on toms, My suggestion would be to supplament the tom mics you already have and buy some more sm57's (which as you probably know can be used on numerouse different sources besides drums... so it s a good buy anyway). Put mics (the tom mics you already have, and the new ones) on the top and the bottom of each tom, Reverse the phase on the 2 mics and mix them together. This will alot of the time give you a great sound and alot of options with out having to use alot of eq... need more tone? turn up the bottom head. need more attack? ect... But like littledog said... this is all kind of pointless if the drums dont sound good to begin with.

Well i hope this helps... this really uped the quality of my recorded drums...

Ps... The beta 52 is a great kick mic, the d112 is different but if you cant get the 52 to sound decent then the d112 is not going to be a magic bullet( as little dog puts it)... you sould try moving the mic around. or something more drastic...
Paul Knox
 
I agree 100% with littledog. I have a beta52 and I often think of getting a d112 but I am not willing to lay the money down when I know a lot of the reason I am not very happy with my sound is the kit it's self.

Also the degree of compression I have to use to get the tight thumping kick sound would not change much with a different mic.
The drum it's self, the head, the beater, the tuning, the muffling, and the mic placement are all going to play a larger roll than anything as far as having a good tight sound given that you are dealing with two good mics here. And you still won't get all the way there with out compression. At least I can't.

I would think you might get some frequency responce more to your liking with a different mic, but if your like me your going to eq the hell out of it anyway. I think that's pretty normal on the kick drum. If someone out there can record a killer tight kick sound with out EQ and compression Pleeeease tell me how:confused:

By the way drums are my weakest link too. It to alot of recording just the kick and experementing to get just a reasonable sound. It's still not great but it's light years ahead of what it used to be:D

Ahh and the real question you asked about micing the toms. I used to mic my toms individually or in pairs with dynamic cardoids and I just couldn't really get a good sound. I tried it for a long time because I was used to setting up for live sound. After hanging around here and reading posts by people like littledog and alike I tried miking with overheads. It helped me a ton. not only did I get better results but it helped me realise I needed to consentrate on the sound of the whole kit. It also saved me lots of tracks. now I use 3 to 4 tracks for drums. I always record 4 tracks 1 kick, 2 overheads, and one snare so I can adjust it by it's self as needed and blend it into the other tracks. some times I don't even need to use the seperate snare track.

The nice thing about doing it by miking with overheads from the back is that the mic's pick up pretty much what you hear. This makes it easier to judge what adjustments you need to make to your drums.

If I where you I would pick up a couple of marshall MXL 603's and keep the beta 52 and throw a dynamic cardoid (like a 57) on the snare. For me a as far as the overheads go I would use cardoid type mic for overheads so you can get away with recording in a less than steller room. I have also thought about using super cardoids (if anyone has used some I'd like to hear weather you like it better).

Any way that's my two cents. Hope it gives you some ideas.
You might want to search the board on drum miking techniques.

also here is a link on drum tuning and head choice. plus other good stuff.

http://www.drumweb.com/profsound.shtml

I will try to dig up the thread on miking a kit with three mic's. I did a search and could not spot it.

Later

F.S.
 
thank you

thanks for the tips, and if anyone else has any other advice by all means ....

i know my technique is in no way 100% but alot of the recordings i have done in the past have been on a friend of a friends band. when they come over i have to work with what they got. on our projects we have taken lots of time with sound (usually just shooting in the dark and experimenting) it gets frustrating sometimes unless you are a pro with room acoustics/reflection, mics, drum tuning, ect. ect. so i fully realize that i have miles to go down all of those roads. but if i had all of those mics for one day and could experiment to see which mics sound however on the same drums (a controled experiment if you will) i would have a better idea of what mics worked better and what i was soley to blame for. i try to read up on different mics, but usually whoever is selling them says "they are the best mic in the world" and who ever owns one of them might not own thier rivaling competitor. one mic might suck and one might rule, but unless you have both at the same time it's seems to just be drawing straws ??? if this make any sense ??? thanks
 
Listen to Littledog.

I recently had my son's band in the studio to do a demo, and I had mondo problems getting a good drum sound. The drummer is a green, 15 year old kid who plays with a lot of fire, but not much refinement. He also knew nothing about tuning his drums.

I went to a local music store and purchased a torque wrench type of drum key, and spent a bit of time learning about how to tune drums from a couple of drummers there. Each drummer had a different idea of how to do it, based on his own drums, his own sound and his own style, but I got a decent idea of how to start, so I went back to the studio and tuned them myself.

I also had to experiment with where to put the drums in the room and where to put the room mic for a huge sound, but the bottom line is -- WOW! I ended up with some great sounding tracks.
 
I found it!!!

Wow I thought I'd never find this thread!! any way this might help you out some. It did me. Thanks Tube Dude! and everyone who commented.

This thread justmade me realise it could be much simpler.
If you can get the kit you are going to record a couple days ahead of time (and if the drummer will let you tweak with it) you can start to get a sound. Really test on the kick. moving the mic around. and adjusting the damping/blanket or what ever you have. also listen to some of your favorite recordings and study the kick. I found that I really dressed up the drum sound in my brain to somthing I could not achive. The kick does have highs in it (if you know what I mean). listening close to kick sounds you like will give you a reasonable target. If you walk in not having the sound firm in your brain, I at least always searched for this huge room shaking sound on the kick. Now I often dial in some highs for click arond 2 to 2.5khz if needed.

any way good luck

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39030&highlight=fat+drum+three


Later

F.S.
 
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