Interesting Conversation

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Mica

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So, I was speaking with another local musician at a gig last night. He has a couple of songs that get fairly regular play on local radio. In my estimation, the recordings sound pretty damn good. I know he records himself, so I asked him what he was using. The biggest surprise to me was that he uses a kick drum mic for his vocals. He has a few mics in his closet, including a couple of decent LDC's, but he always uses the kick drum mic. He says he likes it because it is impossible to overload - makes sense, as a kick drum mic is built to handle high spl levels. I wish I'd asked him which kick mic it is, but I didn't.

This goes against everything I have read. I bought a Shure KSM 44 and I love it with softer ballad type stuff, but I'm not yet sold on on it for punchier in your face type rock vocals. I'm toying with the idea of picking up a sm 57 to try for this application, but having spoken with this guy I'm thinking I might give the kick mic a try.

Anyone else using a kick drum mic for vocals? Experiences?
 
re-20 is pretty well established for both duties. some people use sm-7b's for all sorts of stuff including vox, guitars, drums. many people use ldc's or sdc's for kick drums and voc's. does seem kind of counter intuitive though eh?
 
Something like a B52 is popular for screamo. But for sung vocals, such mics are severely lacking in high end, usually they cap out with a big peak at 4kHz and head south fast.

It is also difficult to overload a KSM44 with the pad switched on. Not sure what the issue would be there.
 
Yep - I've used RE-20's (good with growly baritones), AKG D12E (if it was good enough for Buddy Holly...) and live, our drummer belts out his harmonies through my AT Pro 25 - it's Hypercardioid, so good for off-axis rejection, and the presence peaks seem to really suit his voice.

Of course, the (male) singer in our band uses one of my 1960's Reslo ribbon mics (the old square ones on the gooseneck) because it looks cool and sounds great, and it's also so insensitive that the feedback rejection is superb!
 
Phildo said:
Yep - I've used RE-20's (good with growly baritones), AKG D12E (if it was good enough for Buddy Holly...) and live, our drummer belts out his harmonies through my AT Pro 25 - it's Hypercardioid, so good for off-axis rejection, and the presence peaks seem to really suit his voice.

Of course, the (male) singer in our band uses one of my 1960's Reslo ribbon mics (the old square ones on the gooseneck) because it looks cool and sounds great, and it's also so insensitive that the feedback rejection is superb!
Click to expand...

yeah i've read that one of the good things about these kinds of dynamics is the off-axis rejection-- you can use them in a control room with monitors instead of headphones.
 
boing & I thought I was the only neep to use a bass drum mic

yeah for some reason I was getting problems on every mic I tried except a D112, so Iused it for an entire 2 part nine voice chorus section on a track of mine & man it worked well

having said that I've never used it like that since
 
Well I use a Vocal Mic as a Kick Drum Mic...It is some sort of Cheapo dynamic Vocal Mic made by AT but it has a Very Large Diaphram (close to 1.5 inches) so It picks up the Low end very well and handles very high SPL"s......

Not a Bad mic for what it does I guess....




Cheers
 
I've got an EV RE-38 (cousin to the RE-20) that does vocal and kick mic double duty. it also sees lots of time on guitar amps. it excels at all of the above. it's probably my "go to" dynamic.

there's a good possibility that whichever mic he's using has a built-in eq that emphasizes the more pleasing things about his voice, and rolls off those freqs which are not so pleasing.

as with all things, you need to match the mic to the source as best you can. i sound like nasally crap on an sm58, but our other singer sounds pretty bad on my senn 835 (it's too dark/dull for him).


cheers,
wade
 
RE-20.

Used it for years on vocals. I will runit side by sode with a good tube mic then mix.

Get some great vocals that way.
 
sm57 on certain vocals can be sweet. it's worth a try... I've had great results with my 57.
 
At the end of the day... if the mic in your cell phone gets the sound you want... who cares? Use what works.
 
just for the fun of it i tried my d6 on vocals and it didnt sound bad at all
 
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