Drum Mics
Chapter 2:
The Drum Mics. Passion at a price. Literally, there's a hefty price tag.
The necessity for my latest purchase stems from the fact that I have three recording sessions coming up, all at home studios of which there is a severe shortage of proper drum recording gear. As a drummer I have always prided myself on having great sounding, quality gear. It's the only corner I refuse to cut in my life. Seriously, I can survive on Ramen noodles and no-name brand toliet paper, but chafe as I might, I cannot settle for anything less than getting that pro gear to replicate my sound, at the highest levels, to a finished working product. It drives me nuts when gear doesn't work or sound properly as I wish it. Granted there are always financial restraints if there wasn't, I'd be sporting a pair of AKG 414 TL2s (www.akg.com) as my overheads and a quad of Sennheiser MD 421 II (www.sennheiserusa.com) for my toms. Unfortunately, there is always financial restraints, so we do the best that we can.
A brief description of my gear. If I get asked to see a picture of my girlfriend I'll crack a smile, open my wallet and excitedly show whoever is asking a beautiful picture of my drum kit. A Premier Genista circa 1994, in Terriverde green finish (www.premier-percussion.com). Not only does it's undersized shells sound spectacular, but the aesthetic of the drums still takes my breath away. Premier really outdid themselves in the developing of the teardrop lugs on the drums and the woodgrain finish is amazing, even still, as the drums are now starting to mellow as the shells are reaching a maturity at 14 years of age. The Premier Genista was discontinued many years ago, and, until recently when I had a chance to play Tama's new birch/bubinga hybrid kit, I still find its sound to be of the highest caliber damn near unrivaled when I have the beast tuned optimum. I have recorded with this kit on just about every session I've had, same goes for my cymbals, a plethora of Sabian AA, AAX, HH, HHX series (www.sabian.com). My only deviation came about a year ago. Playing with the jazz octet I needed a more traditional sounding ride cymbal, something with mature overtones, and although I was looking into Sabian's Artisan series or Zildjian's Constantinople line, I played a Bosphorus Wide Ride one day and it blew me away, at about half the cost of the latter mentioned. The Wide Ride is widely associated with Stanton Moore's endorsement of the Bosphorus cymbal company (www.bosphoruscymbals.com). Soon after my purchase, I was able to see Stanton play his signature line in concert. An amazing drummer, I couldn't believe the unique cymbal tonality he was getting in his monster grooves. It's great to be on the other side, to hear those cymbals from a different angle and in different hands. It's eye-opening.
Now to the mics. After many a heavy conversation with other drummers, sound engineers and music salespersons, I decided on the Audix DP7 drum mic kit (www.audixusa.com). I like the fact that Audix was located just outside of P-town in Wilsonville, not far from Guy's (bass) house. Audix has really established a brand awareness in the drumming world by winning the M.I.P.A. awards for the best Drum mics in 2007 with the DP 7 kit. I was already familiar with the quality of sound being recorded by the D2s which come in the kit as the Tom mics, but I couldn't wait to hear the highly acclaimed D6 on the kick, and test out the i-5 vs. the SM57 that has set the standard for the past 40 years as the go to snare mic.
The verdict. Sammy and myself set up the drums in the center of the room and mic'd up the drums in various fashions. Right out of the box all the mics sounded clean and solid. Our first test was the big showdown between the SM57 and the i-5. We placed the mics at precisely the angle and height and compared the two with no effects, no EQ. What I thought was going to be a long, drawn-out 15 round battle, ended up in the i-5 knocking out the SM57 in the first round. With the first few snare hits, Sammy's amazement (and my own) were mind boggling. There was no comparison, the champ is dead. The SM 57 sounded thin in comparison, with strong amounts of treble that Sammy always had a task of EQing to get the proper tone. With the i-5, there was a full-bodied, full-spectrum of sound that almost sounded like it had a touch of natural compression right flat out of the box. Sammy said there was lower gain and a lot of head room to work with the mic. The bleed into the i-5 mic from both cymbals and toms was minimal. Absolutely, the highlight of the Drum mic package and Sammy already can't wait to test record the i-5 on guitar. The second highlight were the overheads, the ADX-51s. We used the Fusion series f-15's on the first recording and I wished the tone of the cymbals came through a little better. I have a feeling we're going to get better presence from the ADX-51s. Even when we minimally mic'd the kit with just overheads and kick, those overhead condensers did a great job capturing the overall sound of the kit. Had I more to invest, the next step up and Audix's flagship overhead mic would be the SCX1 line. I'm really curious to hear the difference between the two lines. The D6 on the kick did exactly what we expected. It captured a big sound. Our initial placement was right up through the sound port to the front of the bass head. We didn't care for the sound we were getting, so we pulled the mic back, just inside the port of the front of the bass. The sound improved dramatically. After pulling the D6 completely out of the kick drum and placing it about two inches from the front head we noticed we lost a lot of the punch and depth. We'll probably just keep the mic inside the port which should give us a nice round, fat, punchy kick-drum sound.
The Wrap up.
Well, that's pretty much it. For you musicians and mic geeks, I hope the above sheds some light for those of you who were always interested in opinions concerning the Audix line. For those others, there should be a disclaimer somewhere in this blog that states: "cannot be held responsible for anybody shooting their brains out from boredom and engineering tech talk." In the next chapters I will bring to light some of the processes which Sam and I will encounter while recording the first songs on our sophmore album. I'll talk a little about the songs, how we recorded certain parts and how songs mature in the studio through focus and critique.
The Drum Mics. Passion at a price. Literally, there's a hefty price tag.
The necessity for my latest purchase stems from the fact that I have three recording sessions coming up, all at home studios of which there is a severe shortage of proper drum recording gear. As a drummer I have always prided myself on having great sounding, quality gear. It's the only corner I refuse to cut in my life. Seriously, I can survive on Ramen noodles and no-name brand toliet paper, but chafe as I might, I cannot settle for anything less than getting that pro gear to replicate my sound, at the highest levels, to a finished working product. It drives me nuts when gear doesn't work or sound properly as I wish it. Granted there are always financial restraints if there wasn't, I'd be sporting a pair of AKG 414 TL2s (www.akg.com) as my overheads and a quad of Sennheiser MD 421 II (www.sennheiserusa.com) for my toms. Unfortunately, there is always financial restraints, so we do the best that we can.
A brief description of my gear. If I get asked to see a picture of my girlfriend I'll crack a smile, open my wallet and excitedly show whoever is asking a beautiful picture of my drum kit. A Premier Genista circa 1994, in Terriverde green finish (www.premier-percussion.com). Not only does it's undersized shells sound spectacular, but the aesthetic of the drums still takes my breath away. Premier really outdid themselves in the developing of the teardrop lugs on the drums and the woodgrain finish is amazing, even still, as the drums are now starting to mellow as the shells are reaching a maturity at 14 years of age. The Premier Genista was discontinued many years ago, and, until recently when I had a chance to play Tama's new birch/bubinga hybrid kit, I still find its sound to be of the highest caliber damn near unrivaled when I have the beast tuned optimum. I have recorded with this kit on just about every session I've had, same goes for my cymbals, a plethora of Sabian AA, AAX, HH, HHX series (www.sabian.com). My only deviation came about a year ago. Playing with the jazz octet I needed a more traditional sounding ride cymbal, something with mature overtones, and although I was looking into Sabian's Artisan series or Zildjian's Constantinople line, I played a Bosphorus Wide Ride one day and it blew me away, at about half the cost of the latter mentioned. The Wide Ride is widely associated with Stanton Moore's endorsement of the Bosphorus cymbal company (www.bosphoruscymbals.com). Soon after my purchase, I was able to see Stanton play his signature line in concert. An amazing drummer, I couldn't believe the unique cymbal tonality he was getting in his monster grooves. It's great to be on the other side, to hear those cymbals from a different angle and in different hands. It's eye-opening.
Now to the mics. After many a heavy conversation with other drummers, sound engineers and music salespersons, I decided on the Audix DP7 drum mic kit (www.audixusa.com). I like the fact that Audix was located just outside of P-town in Wilsonville, not far from Guy's (bass) house. Audix has really established a brand awareness in the drumming world by winning the M.I.P.A. awards for the best Drum mics in 2007 with the DP 7 kit. I was already familiar with the quality of sound being recorded by the D2s which come in the kit as the Tom mics, but I couldn't wait to hear the highly acclaimed D6 on the kick, and test out the i-5 vs. the SM57 that has set the standard for the past 40 years as the go to snare mic.
The verdict. Sammy and myself set up the drums in the center of the room and mic'd up the drums in various fashions. Right out of the box all the mics sounded clean and solid. Our first test was the big showdown between the SM57 and the i-5. We placed the mics at precisely the angle and height and compared the two with no effects, no EQ. What I thought was going to be a long, drawn-out 15 round battle, ended up in the i-5 knocking out the SM57 in the first round. With the first few snare hits, Sammy's amazement (and my own) were mind boggling. There was no comparison, the champ is dead. The SM 57 sounded thin in comparison, with strong amounts of treble that Sammy always had a task of EQing to get the proper tone. With the i-5, there was a full-bodied, full-spectrum of sound that almost sounded like it had a touch of natural compression right flat out of the box. Sammy said there was lower gain and a lot of head room to work with the mic. The bleed into the i-5 mic from both cymbals and toms was minimal. Absolutely, the highlight of the Drum mic package and Sammy already can't wait to test record the i-5 on guitar. The second highlight were the overheads, the ADX-51s. We used the Fusion series f-15's on the first recording and I wished the tone of the cymbals came through a little better. I have a feeling we're going to get better presence from the ADX-51s. Even when we minimally mic'd the kit with just overheads and kick, those overhead condensers did a great job capturing the overall sound of the kit. Had I more to invest, the next step up and Audix's flagship overhead mic would be the SCX1 line. I'm really curious to hear the difference between the two lines. The D6 on the kick did exactly what we expected. It captured a big sound. Our initial placement was right up through the sound port to the front of the bass head. We didn't care for the sound we were getting, so we pulled the mic back, just inside the port of the front of the bass. The sound improved dramatically. After pulling the D6 completely out of the kick drum and placing it about two inches from the front head we noticed we lost a lot of the punch and depth. We'll probably just keep the mic inside the port which should give us a nice round, fat, punchy kick-drum sound.
The Wrap up.
Well, that's pretty much it. For you musicians and mic geeks, I hope the above sheds some light for those of you who were always interested in opinions concerning the Audix line. For those others, there should be a disclaimer somewhere in this blog that states: "cannot be held responsible for anybody shooting their brains out from boredom and engineering tech talk." In the next chapters I will bring to light some of the processes which Sam and I will encounter while recording the first songs on our sophmore album. I'll talk a little about the songs, how we recorded certain parts and how songs mature in the studio through focus and critique.
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6:02 PM
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