Mics for recording

srartz said:
Hi - I'm building a studio for recording drum tracks. I wanted to no if cymbal mics are ok for room mics?
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Ive used Shure 5m57s as Room Mics and they are decent, but i Recommend a Condenser Mic for a Room Mic. I use a cheap Behringer C3( $35) for my Room mic and its fine. As long as the Mic is clean( No Buzzing) any condenser should be fine. For Snare SM57, Kick i use a boundary Mic inside and a Shure beta 52 knockoff for outside. Toms are all Behringer Tom Mics and one SM57. Overheads are Behringer Condenser Mics. In total i have spent maybe $500 on Mics. No need to pay $4000 for a bunch of Mics. Even more important than the Mics are your Interface. Get a Good one like a Behringer, Focusrite or Presonus.
 
srartz said:
Does anybody have an opinion on Presonus mic bundles? I don't need the Cadillac.
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yes Presonus are good. Look at Behringer Kits at Sweetwater. They will last a long time if you are gentle with them. Ive only had one go bad in 5 years.
 
I think this discussion kinda spiraled out of the intention of my original response. I think if I was to answer the OP more directly, what I should have said was....room mics are often condensers (more specifically, large diaphram condensers), and overhead (or cymbal mics as OP called them) mics are also often condenser mics (although depending on the engineer, either LDC's or SDC's), so a good mic for an overhead mic is also probably a good mic for a room mic.

The specific brand or mic is less important.
 
classikdrummr said:
Ive used Shure 5m57s as Room Mics and they are decent, but i Recommend a Condenser Mic for a Room Mic. I use a cheap Behringer C3( $35) for my Room mic and its fine. As long as the Mic is clean( No Buzzing) any condenser should be fine. For Snare SM57, Kick i use a boundary Mic inside and a Shure beta 52 knockoff for outside. Toms are all Behringer Tom Mics and one SM57. Overheads are Behringer Condenser Mics. In total i have spent maybe $500 on Mics. No need to pay $4000 for a bunch of Mics. Even more important than the Mics are your Interface. Get a Good one like a Behringer, Focusrite or Presonus.
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What do u think about the Behringer 7 piece bundle vs the PreSonus 7 piece bundle on Sweetwater?
 
Seafroggys said:
So you need to get rid of that mindset immediately.

There is no such thing as cymbal mics, or tom mics, or snare mics. There's just mics.

Now granted, there's different types of mics mechanically speaking (dynamic, ribbon, condenser), but for the most part you can use them for whatever, within reason.

Case in point, the EV RE20? Most people would call that a "radio" mic, or a "broadcast" mic, or even a "podcaster" mic......I use it on my bass drum.

My snare mic? A Telefunken M80....which most people would call a "vocal" mic.

Hell, I did a gig a week ago where the sound engineer used SM57's as overhead mics, and it sounded halfway decent.

So what is your "cymbal mic" that you're referring to? And for that matter, why do you have a cymbal mic? Do you mean an overhead mic?
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While technically you could use any mic to record cymbals, toms, bass drum, snare, or as room mics, they will give you very different results just based on their patterns not to mention their overall quality.

There are mics that are better suited for specific things (that is if you want to prevent bleed from other instruments as much as possible) or maybe you want to capture the overall kit, no single mic is going to be a jack of all trades.
 

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Chris Whitten said:
If you are going to use a room mic your room needs to sound at least decent, which many home studio rooms don't.
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^^^ This. Before recording anything, of course your drums should sound as good as you can possibly get them, that includes some room treatment to improve even more. The old saying goes: "Garbage in, garbage out" if your drums sound bad to begin with, no amount of recording trickery (other than replacing them with samples) is going to make them sound good.
 
John B said:
Yes, but microphone manufacturers have jumped on the marketing bandwagon of describing use specific mics to further confuse those that are new to recording. Earthworks now advertises a "Cymbal Microphone". There's probably 40 different bass drum microphones one can choose from and of course one can buy "drum miking kits" with advertised use specific mics. To me, just the idea of these drum miking kits/bundles just further serves to confuse those new to drum recording in the sense that it leads to the belief that one needs to plaster the drumset with microphones to record.
Not disagreeing with you at all though. Some mics are better suited to certain to certain tasks, but I doubt that I'd ever spring for a "tom-tom" mic or a "bass-drum" mic.
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One simple way to choose the correct mics would be to see what frequency ranges they are meant to capture. With that information, you can select a mic that covers that range and by doing that, you can guarantee that it will at least be more true to the source. I agree a lot of marketing confuses people, but, some mics are industry standard for a reason.
 
I have a decent sounding recording space, and I've never voluntarily used a room mic. I did get a request one for an album I was recording, the engineer wanted a room mic so I just set up an old NT2a that I haven't used in years, set it to omni mode, and he loved it. But it was just for that one album, I prefer no room mic personally. But many people love them, so your mileage may vary.
 
Crash_thrash said:
I believe you are making my point. Initialy you and your engineer did the setup with gear you knew and you were confident about the result. The gear change caused a disaster! Not because the gear was inapropriate but because it wasn't what your engineer and you were used and set to work with. It was inappropriate for you.
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Ha,ha. It's funny how you weren't there but happy to come to a different conclusion.
It doesn't actually make any difference to my drumming which mics are used. My own acoustic sound and the way I play sound the same. What happened was that in order to stamp his authority on the record, the (insecure) producer demanded we change every mic on the kit to a somewhat random choice. The drum sound we had worked on before the producer got there was 99% finished and excellent. The drum sound that ended up on the album was thin and weak sounding.
It's like entering the Tour de France and riding a mountain bike. There ARE just things that work, even though everyone might be using them, which might seem boring.
 
eric_B said:
Although the discussion about more expensive/industry standard mics is interesting,
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A lot of 'industry standard' mics are not expensive.
The 57 on snare, or a D112 on kick. There are a ton of affordable small condenser mics around. I also use a very cheap Beyerdynamic M201 on snare and sometimes overheads. There are cheap vintage ribbon mics, like the Reslo.
Yes, the sound of your room and the placement of mics is very important. also, the more mics you add the more problems you have to solve.
If someone is on a budget I would advise buying the best four mics you can afford - kick mic, snare mic and stereo overheads.
That's enough to worry about to start with.
 
srartz said:
What do u think about the Behringer 7 piece bundle vs the PreSonus 7 piece bundle on Sweetwater?
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I am not a fan of bundles. Better to buy a 57 for snare, a second hand D112 or B52 fir kick, then a cheap stereo pair of condensers (Josephson, Lewitt, Behringer etc). Build your mic collection from there.
 
Chris Whitten said:
A lot of 'industry standard' mics are not expensive.
The 57 on snare, or a D112 on kick. There are a ton of affordable small condenser mics around. I also use a very cheap Beyerdynamic M201 on snare and sometimes overheads. There are cheap vintage ribbon mics, like the Reslo.
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Yes, although the word 'expensive' is relative. Considering one C2 mic costs € 15, an SM57 costing € 105 can be quite an investment for some.

Chris Whitten said:
Yes, the sound of your room and the placement of mics is very important. also, the more mics you add the more problems you have to solve.
If someone is on a budget I would advise buying the best four mics you can afford - kick mic, snare mic and stereo overheads.
That's enough to worry about to start with.
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^^ this. Start with a basic setup, learn how to use it and expand from there, if needed.

As you posted before, I think room/ambient mics are the last recording element to worry about - if ever needed.
And it might be easier / sound better to add it as an FX in post.
 
There are numerous new, or virtually new 57's on eBay UK for under $50.
Otherwise I agree, people would rather have dozen OKsnare drums that two really good ones. It's the same with mics.
I love the way choosing something 'standard' is viewed as wrong or short sighted. The music is what counts. No one is going to complain that you used 57 on snare and a D112 or RE20 on bass drum. But many people will notice if your drum sound is weird or trashy.
 
If you want affordable LDC's for your snare/toms and overhead/room, the Chinese brand 797 Audio (and its rebrandings such as Studio Projects) makes some really good mics based on the U87 design. They are not quite the same as a real U87, though, due to lower cost materials and deliberate re-tuning (in order not to eat into the sales of expensive mics), and because of a latter reason, sometimes a relatively simple mod can significantly boost their performance.
 
Chris Whitten said:
Ha,ha. It's funny how you weren't there but happy to come to a different conclusion.
It doesn't actually make any difference to my drumming which mics are used. My own acoustic sound and the way I play sound the same. What happened was that in order to stamp his authority on the record, the (insecure) producer demanded we change every mic on the kit to a somewhat random choice. The drum sound we had worked on before the producer got there was 99% finished and excellent. The drum sound that ended up on the album was thin and weak sounding.
It's like entering the Tour de France and riding a mountain bike. There ARE just things that work, even though everyone might be using them, which might seem boring.
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I did not mention or questioned your drumming at all. In fact i have only respect to your drumming. You have misinterpreted my writing. All i was saying was, that if you had only the choice of the second setup -the one proposed by the producer- your engineer would have made it work.
Yes apparently you will not be able to finish on the first places of the Tour de France with a mountain bike but it is doable to run it with one.

The following is an example of a unorthodox use of a "jazz" guitar. It was recorded with an cheap chinese replica of an Ibanez George Benson jazz guitar. Although it is one of the most extreme, extreme metal sounds. No, it is not a 2K ESP baritone. Just some extra work the engineer did on the DAW. https://desecratorofichor.bandcamp.com/track/annihilatum .I know that the music will not be of your liking -neither mine- but it is an example of what it can be achieved if the means/funds do not exist but the will is there.
 
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