Karma K10's as drum overheads

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killer_deep

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Hello All,

I know there's been some interest in Karma mics on these forums, but I haven't seen much about the K-10s. My interest in them stemmed from their use as drum overheads. Given their low price, I just took a risk and pulled the trigger on them, and here's the result:



2 Karma K10's in recorderman configuration + a Blue Kickball on the bass drum. This is actually my first ever drum recording, so any critiques would be appreciated, if applicable...

Either way, thought I'd contribute something to the forum. Hope someone gets some use out of it

S
 
Nice

Sounds pretty darn good man the balance is nice. Where did you place your kickball it sounds a tad bit boxy.
 
Fantastic! I was just thinking about Karma recently, and I actually asked about their little k-micros yesterday in the $50 mic thread, I think. I think those little things are just adorable, lol.

Anyway - This recording is *only* the K-10s? That's.... a pretty damn solid sounding recording for being just overheads... I've been meaning to pick up a couple of pairs of these for about two years, but haven't because I've got a few different pairs of SDCs already, but I really do like the raw sound I just heard. Thanks for sharing! :D

(Possibly) Interesting Sidenote (made small to save the scroll-wheels of the world): Karma mics came very highly recommended to me by the most successful producer I know (Mack Damon, 5x Grammy Nominated... last I checked, anyway).

I had asked him about buying "serious" mics and preamps a few years ago, when I was really starting to get going recording on my own, and all I had was a handful of 57s&58s, a few MXL mics and the (cheap versions of) drum packages from Audix and Shure. This guy's got a mic room (WAY past a mic locker, and WAY past a mic closet) that nearly made me soil myself when I first went in it...like crazy retarded expensive stuff. Anyway, it really meant something to me that he specifically recommended Karma microphones... and an SM7. The preamps he recommended were NOT cheap at all, which leads me to think he did not recommend these mics based purely on affordability. :p

/trip down memory lane
 
killer_deep said:
Hello All,
+ a Blue Kickball on the bass drum. S
Click to expand...

Apparently I missed this the first time I read your post. I guess I was excited to see somebody mention Karma, lol.

Anyway, yea, how did you set up that kickball? It didn't work very well...:p Other drums do sound pretty nice for just being a couple of overheads, though...especially if this is your first drum recording. ever. Go you. :D
 
Thanks for the comments.

I did think that the Kickball sounded a little bit weird. I placed it right outside of the bass drum hole, with default settings and nothing changed. Any suggestions of what I should do to change that?

Here's a picture of the placement:

http://pearldrummersforum.com/showpost.php?p=1852972361&postcount=75

I was thinking about a gooseneck extension so I could stick the kickball into the drum itself and closer to the beater.

I definitely can't fault the overheads though... they sound outstanding.

Any suggestions on the bass drum placement?

S
 
Did you try reversing the phase on the kick mic? Personally I've found kickballs to be pretty inferior to D112s, but that's just me. I'd also put it a little more inside the hole.
 
timthetortoise said:
Personally I've found kickballs to be pretty inferior to D112s, but that's just me.
Click to expand...

And I've found D112s to be inferior to e602s, beta 52s, beta 91s, and the d6, but that's just me. ;)

@killer_deep: I had never even heard of that mic before this thread. I briefly read a description of it and it certainly seems... weird. A phantom powered dynamic mic, with "active balancing circuitry to even-out the frequency response" (quote directly from Blue). So the mic actually EQs the signal before you even get to hear what it actually picked up? That's one way to get your mic to have a certain response curve, I suppose. :p Is it even supposed to sound like a normal mic?

Anyway, with normal (or "traditional", I guess one could say), kick mics, if you're only using the one microphone: where you put it in the pic is the place to start. Just get down and point it directly at where the beater hits the head. Briefly Looking at the pics and info for this kickball, though... I'm not sure that it's designed to be "aimed" like that at all. I got the impression this was sort of a gimmick that they're saying you can just throw in the drum and it will "automagically" make itself sound good. I could be wrong, though - Did you read the manual? How does Blue suggest to set it up?

I actually downloaded the manual while I was looking at the product page - I'll flip err... click through it tomorrow, lol. I'm curious to know if it is just a normal microphone with a hardwired EQ circuit. Is there more to it than that?
 
Well, I read through the manual this morning, and I was mistaken - when they said "active balancing circuitry", they literally meant "active balancing circuitry" as in load-balancing. I thought that was a candy-coated way of saying "with a cheating EQ built-in", but that's not the case.

So yea... apparently it is a normal mic, and the response curve charts in the manual look about the same as other kick-mics (with a huge scoop in the mids), so I would assume you can get a decent recording with these things.

Does your kick drum, itself, sound good or does it actually sound like the recorded audio?
 
Thanks for the extremely helpful replies.

The kick drum sounds decent, but not great. I think that right now I've got the batter tuned too high - I should probably tune it down to just past wrinkles to get more attack. I'm also using a felt beater.

Right now, I agree that the problem appears to be that the kick sounds too boxy and boomy with too little attack. I'll play with tuning and position and get back to you - the drum is at my bandmates house so I won't be able to get at it for a while.

Thanks again for your time and effort in helping me figure this out.

Regards
S
 
TyphoidHippo said:
Well, I read through the manual this morning, and I was mistaken - when they said "active balancing circuitry", they literally meant "active balancing circuitry" as in load-balancing. I thought that was a candy-coated way of saying "with a cheating EQ built-in", but that's not the case.
Click to expand...

Yeah, no. Active balancing just means that it doesn't use an output transformer, but instead directly drives the + and - output lines with some part of the circuitry. That could mean the + and - outputs are driven by an op amp, a transistor, or... is it possible to drive microphone output lines directly with a tube, or is it only suitable as a buffer amp driving a solid state stage? Anyway, it's the opposite of "transformer balanced".

Oh, yeah, and it usually (but not always) indicates that they've taken the time to get the output levels similar on the two signal lines so your CMRR doesn't go to crap when you get a little 60 Hz buzz in the ground bus (as opposed to just connecting the - side through a resistor to ground and using it only for power or whatever...). :D
 
dgatwood said:
or... is it possible to drive microphone output lines directly with a tube, or is it only suitable as a buffer amp driving a solid state stage? Anyway, it's the opposite of "transformer balanced".
Click to expand...

I don't think it would be practical. I mean, yeah, it's possible, you would need a cathode follower stage, but I think the output impedance would still be a little high (800 ohms for 12AX7, I think), and of course you'd need two of them if you wanted electrically balanced. Or you could do a tube phase splitter, but I think that would perform poorly.

This is why it's typical to see either a low-ratio transformer after a cathode follower, or a higher-ratio transformer after a plate follower, or a solid-state buffer amp.
 
dgatwood said:
is it possible to drive microphone output lines directly with a tube, or is it only suitable as a buffer amp driving a solid state stage?
Click to expand...

*TyphoidHippo looks around the room... "Are you asking me?!"* :p

To be quite honest, this (and mshilarious' post) is a bit over my head - I'm no stranger to a soldering iron or anything, but I've never really researched, or been in a situation where I learned through hands-on experience, how all the little components you guys are talking about work. So thanks for enlightening me. (As usual....with both of you guys :D)
 
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