Live Mic-ing

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wholelottabonzo

New member
I need to know what mics to use and where to put them on my kit.

My bands soundman has the option of recording our live gigs so i need them to be capable of getting a respectable sound for recording as well as just giving them some more volume.

I have a big kit, set up and tuned like bonhams, 24" x 14" bass drum 14" x10" rack tom, 16" x 16" and 18" x 16" floor toms with a 14" x 6.5" snare. I use a 16" crash and an 18" crash with a 22" ride.

You can see pics of the set-up and hear some recordings of it done at a studio at. www.stryderonline.co.uk

I have used three SM 58's up till now, two overheads and one on the bass drum but the aren't doing a good enough job.

I have the option of getting some SM 57's for a good price.
But are the worth it, how many will i need and are the any good for individual drum mic-ing and can they be used for a bass drum.

PS, I have no hole in my bass drum, it has 2 in-tact heads with some felt strips behind the heads (no pillows or anything)

Any advise?
 
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Dude, nice Bonham-style kit. I have the exact same size kit except for your high tom. You really don't need a hole in the front head with that bass drum and take my advice and don't cut one like I did. Those Ludwig kicks sound sooooo much better mic'd live/recorded with the full front reso head intact and mic'd off-center from the front.

Also, try an Evans EMAD batter head on it sometime if you haven't already. I have the exact same size Ludwig kick and it ALWAYS sounded like it was missing it's "kahunas" no matter what infinite head combo and tunings I tried on it until I put the emad on it. It'll make it sound like a dream but without all the time-wasting ballywhoo to bring it out...and OMG how it will sound over a PA.... anywhoo on to your other questions...

I seemed to always have a hard time getting an exceptional recorded dry sound with 57's and 58's alone until I got one of those ultra affordable (*sigh*)MXL 990 mics. I could it put above the kit, closeup or ambient or down low by my drum stool and it would capture everything exceptionally well going in 100% dry by itself far better than the 57's and 58's. I personally don't think you're gonna gain alot in sound quality over your 58's by going with 57's except perhaps on the snare drum. You're probably after a marked clarity in the sound which the 990 gave me on the 'Wigs. I recorded d'yer m'aker with it alone and it truly sounded link Bonzo's kit. Other guys around here seem to like the Behringer ECM8000's ($35.00) as well as MXL 603's on overheads as well...so there's plenty of other great choices out there beside the usual Shure suspects. You'll should get plenty of responses here as to what everyone's flavor of microphones are. My advice is to check out respondee's profiles for links that lead to their own recordings and let your ears do the walking from there. You can also search this forum a bit, you'll find various drummers who have already posted various dry "test run" recordings outlining what equipment they've used and that's very helpful around here to have the recordings do the some of the talking as well.

I depserately wanted to but couldn't pull up any of your audio links on your site for Stryder. Everything else seems to be in working order though. I keep getting a "file not found" error when I click on the .ram files.
 
You recon if i get two of those MXL 990's they should do the job?

On the two overheads what sort of eq should i use to capture the drums and the cymbals together?

What mic should i use for the bass drum?

Sorry about the site, it is playin up a little we will get it fixed asap! Feel free to sign the guestbook ;)

www.stryderonline.co.uk

P.S. My high tom in the photos is a 13" x 12" i have only just bought the 14" x 10" :)
 
wholelottabonzo said:
I need to know what mics to use and where to put them on my kit.

My bands soundman has the option of recording our live gigs so i need them to be capable of getting a respectable sound for recording as well as just giving them some more volume.

I have a big kit, set up and tuned like bonhams, 24" x 14" bass drum 14" x10" rack tom, 16" x 16" and 18" x 16" floor toms with a 14" x 6.5" snare. I use a 16" crash and an 18" crash with a 22" ride.

You can see pics of the set-up and hear some recordings of it done at a studio at. www.stryderonline.co.uk

I have used three SM 58's up till now, two overheads and one on the bass drum but the aren't doing a good enough job.

I have the option of getting some SM 57's for a good price.
But are the worth it, how many will i need and are the any good for individual drum mic-ing and can they be used for a bass drum.

PS, I have no hole in my bass drum, it has 2 in-tact heads with some felt strips behind the heads (no pillows or anything)

Any advise?
Click to expand...


You have a soundman, and he doesn't have his own drum mic's?

Does he own any of the gear at all - or is he just a friend of the band who is helping out? (Big difference between that and a hired professional).

You already have SM57's. That's what 58's are. The only difference is the vocal wind screen. Bonham used the 57/58's predecessor on the toms. On the Kick they used a Sennheiser 421, an EV RE-20 (A PL 20 or RE-27 will do just fine same basic mic style), and a 57, or an AKG version of the 57. Yes, that is three mic's on the kick. They mic'd both the front and back heads of the kick drum.The 421 on the batter side, the other two out front.)

The toms need to be tuned up high. (I'm a Bonham fan myself - same basic setup but larger sizes with two 28" kicks, a 15" rack between them, and 18" & 20" floor toms.)

Okay, here's the deal:

From looking at the pic's on your website. You guys have the tom mic's too close to the heads. With this type of tuning, you need the toms mic's to be about 6"-12" or so away from the drums, so that they at least have a little room to breathe. Remember, that this tuning style (Bottom head pitched higher than the top, and both tuned higher than normal to achieve a tympani type of sound) is the kind where you are tuning for projection.

The Overheads need to be right above your head. Because a lot of the drum sound is actually coming through them.

To be honest, when I was playing out regularly (and this applied even to places that held up to 1,500 people) I normally just used 1 overhead, a kick mic, and a snare mic. The overhead picked up the entire kit, and man it sounded like THUNDER through the PA. It was freaking awesome.

All the soundman should need to do is pull some of the mid's, if you've got the drumkit tuned right and you've got the overhead directly over your head, and pointing at your knee. You need a decent quality Cardiod condenser for this technique, but it rocks!

If you intend for this kit to be your main gigging kit, you probably should purchase and install a MayEA mic adapter, and you own kick mic, and permanently install a mic inside your kick. That way, you can just plug the kick in, and it's cheaper than using 2 mic's on the kick. Plus, it yields a better sound. for live use. I have to use some muffling in the kicks, there's no way around it - people in the audience are too preprogrammed to the sound of a thud or thump for a kick drum. On top of that, since I play double bass I can't use that rumbling low-end kick sound, it's need to have some thump to it, or it just turns into a rumbling, low-end mush



Tim
 
Cheers tim,

I take it you got the ohletree vid as well :)

Our sound man is studying music tech so doesnt have his own gear, he basicly practices his techniques with us and a coulple of other bands so he uses our PA rig. He's a dead handy person to have when you are just a local band.

The pics i think you were looking at were taken at a festival where the was a hired PA team and they mic-ed up my kit with the clip ons. it was a bit of a rush job due to all the bands playing and all.

I usually dont mic up the individual drums and i am just looking for an easy low hassle way of live mic-ing preferably with three mic's and being able to get a good sound with the possibility of a half decent recording.

Can you recommend a single bass drum mic that would do a good enough job?
 
wholelottabonzo said:
Cheers tim,

I take it you got the ohletree vid as well :)

Our sound man is studying music tech so doesnt have his own gear, he basicly practices his techniques with us and a coulple of other bands so he uses our PA rig. He's a dead handy person to have when you are just a local band.

The pics i think you were looking at were taken at a festival where the was a hired PA team and they mic-ed up my kit with the clip ons. it was a bit of a rush job due to all the bands playing and all.

I usually dont mic up the individual drums and i am just looking for an easy low hassle way of live mic-ing preferably with three mic's and being able to get a good sound with the possibility of a half decent recording.

Can you recommend a single bass drum mic that would do a good enough job?
Click to expand...


I just got the Ocheltree video a few months ago and it merely confirmed what I already knew, I've been tuning this way for 25 years. Bonham is one of my major influences.


The problem is this, you're not going to get a good mallet slap unless you mic the batter head - and you're not going to get a good boom/thump unless you mic the resonant head.

If you're only going to use 3 mic's on the kit, here's what I would do:


Kick- AKG D112
Snare - SM57 (I prefer the Beyer #M422, if you can find one - I think they quit making it.)
Overhead - Condenser of your choice


Tim
 
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wholelottabonzo said:
Is it really better to have one mic overhead and one mic on the snare as opposed to two overhead mic's?
Click to expand...

Well, with the setup that you have, one decent cardioid condenser overhead, should pick up th entire kit really well - that position is pretty much right in the middle of the kit. When I say overhead, we're talking about 6" to 12" directly above your head on a boom stand (from behind you) aimed straight down at your kick drum leg. The majority of the drumsound should come from the overheads, and then the additional mics are to suppliment and give individual control over the other drums.

So if I'm only going to use three mics for your type of set up, I'd prefer having more control over the snare rather than a second overhead, since the kick and the snare are the heart of the kit. It isn't like your kit is spread all over the place, so that set up will work well. Actually, I've used that type of setup (well, 2 kick mics since it was double bass) to record a 10-piece kit, and it worked just fine.

The MXL 990 would work well in your situation, but if I had the choice, I'd go for an MXL 603 just because the back end of the microphone's diaphragm is sealed, vs the 990 which is open on the back side, since it's side addressed, but either of those would work well.

I wish that the Behringer ECM 8000 was a cardioid rather than an Omni, because that would be a great choice if it were (plus, at $35 it's a steal - it's comparable to mics that are over 10 times it's price range.)

For a snare mic, if you can find one, look for an ATM25pro. It's an affodable kick mic (actually you could get one for you kick as well) but it works great for snare and toms. It's got a hypercardioid pickup pattern, so it will elminate alot of the other sounds on stage from being picked up, and it may even give you enough elimination so that you might be able to get away without using a noise gate on the kick and snare (I would still use the gate just to make sure I have a clean signal.)

Now, here's my gating trick.

You have to have a gate with an external key input on it.
You run the kick mic through the noise gate.

What the gate does is...it acts like a noise level control. When the sound reaches a certain volume in the mic, the gate opens up and allows sound to pass through the gate, when the sound drops below a certain volume, the gate shuts, and essentially "turns the mic off", so that no other sounds get in.

If you put a drumtrigger on the kick, and plug it into the gates key input, no sound at all will open the gate - it will only open when the kick drum is struck, because the trigger will pick up the vibration of the head and signal the gate to open.

This will REALLY slean up your kick and snare sound - so I have triggers mounted inside my kicks and inside the snare.

I use a dbx 166a, which is a compressor/noise gate that sells new for $250. I've used tons of different noise gates everything from Behringers to Drawmers, and the dbx seems to me to be the best deal monetarily for doing this. (If you try to go with a Behringer, you have to get the 2-channel version, as the 4-channel version only has an internal key that is attached to a built in paramentric eq) I heard that their compressor/gates have an external key input, but I don't know, I've never used on - the Behringer units i have are a 4-channel gate and a 4-channel compressor, I don't have and haven't used their integrated units.



Tim
 
wholelottabonzo said:
I need to know what mics to use and where to put them on my kit...recording our live gigs
Click to expand...

For live recording of drums in rock music you'll be fine with Sure 57's on snare, toms, cymbals.

Put an AKG d112 on the kick

and hang 2 PZM's from the ceiling if you can get them at least 12 feet away from your cymbals and your sound man can do a B mix just for the recorder, depends on his setup. Cause I don't think he/she wants the PZM's coming in the mains.
 
I have just bought myself an AKG d112 for my kick and i set it up at practice to have a play with it and it's awsome.

It gives me the exact sound i was looking for from my kick, when it was set up right my bass drum sounded like thunder!

I just gotta get the over head now and i'm not too clued up on the whole MXL 990 vs the MXL 603. Whats the difference between the open and sealed diaphram part and what does it being side addressed mean?
 
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