Shure PG-52 for kick, Behringer ECM8000's for Overhead??!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter carlosguardia
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carlosguardia

carlosguardia

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Ok, I found a really good deal on this mic:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7...3824/g=rec/s=mics/search/detail/base_id/58543

I found it brand new for about US$ 80 and here in Costa Rica so I decided to try it out at the store and it sounded nice enough that I ended up buying it. I went ahead and bought a couple of Behringer ECM8000's solely given the review Harvey Gerst gave to that mic.

I went to my home studio, and set them up on an old beat up drum set. I added an SM-57 on the snare and that was it. I ran both ECM8000's to a Behringer MX 602A mini mixer for the phantom, panned each one hard L & R and sent the L & R outs from the mixer to separate inputs in my Delta 1010LT audio card. I sent the 57's signal to one of the XLR ins of the 1010LT and did the same with the PG 52. I hit record in Sonar, went from the control room to the studio and played a little on the drums. Walked back to the control room, hit stop, rewind and then play. Everything sounded GREAT, although there are a few issues that I think I can solve on my own but decided to come here and see if I'm on the right track. Here are my questions:

First of all, have any of you used the PG 52 on the kick drum?! Comments on this mic?!

Second, about the ECM8000's, I think they were a pretty good buy at around US$ 55 each (for Costa Rica) and they sound pretty good for OH's however, they are quite "hissy". What do you guys think could be a good way to handle this hiss??!!

Third question, I think that I should put a little gate on both dynamics (snare and kick) but I'm not too "shure" :D which one (gate plug-in) to use or how much; the probably right answer is, the one and the ammount that sounds right, but I just wanted a few starting points to start tweaking.

Thanks in advance for all your help,

Carlos
 
Try putting the ECM8000's closer to the drums... and/or hit the drums harder so you don't have to turn the gain up as high... that should give you less hiss/noise.
 
I'll second DJL's advice. However, as I understand it, by the nature of their very design, ANY small-diaphragm condenser will be noisier than a LD mic. I don't think the ECM8000's are terribly hissy, though I remember a pretty heated thread about this very topic a while back from a very dis-satisfied customer.

Just for reference sake, I miked up an acoustic guitar with a pair of ECM8000's going right into my Behringer MX802A mixer, and went direct to Cubase, and posted the results. There is no editing (mistakes are in), and no compression, or no other effects. A very small amount of EQ was used to roll off the bottom end to eliminate a little of the boominess, which I probably could have avoided in the first place, had I engaged the low frequency cut.

You won't hear a lot of hiss - even with the cheap mic pre's in the cheap mixer.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/9/christondreaumusic.htm The first sample is titled ECM8000 demo.

Chris
 
The ECMs are relatively hissy, but for drum overheads, no one will hear the hiss unless there's a section of the song that is just drums, and even then they will have to be listening for it. Believe me, it's nothing to worry about.
 
Chris Tondreau said:
A very small amount of EQ was used to roll off the bottom end to eliminate a little of the boominess, which I probably could have avoided in the first place, had I engaged the low frequency cut.
Click to expand...
Hiss is ok, still bass-heavy to my taste though.


Herwig
 
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