Best Room Mic For Drums

Make sure you use your best mics for the room.

Best room mic for drums.

Drum room mics are often overwhelmed with the sound of loud cymbals and in this episode we talk about how to best reduce the cymbals in the drum room mics. If wider stereo imaging is your goal and you have the room size and contour to support experiment with two room mics. When coupled with single drum mics in a more comprehensive modern set up this mic still excels. If you only have two channels to record an entire kit the two mics you undoubtedly use are a pair of overhead room mics since their purpose is to provide a balanced stereo image of the drum kit as a whole.

Especially so for the sennheiser which you can see wired up to many professional stage and studio drum recordings. The standard choice for room mics is a matched pair of condenser mics either large or small. They are the most revealing of shortcomings self noise etc. The akg c414 xls condenser microphone and the sennheiser md 421 ii dynamic microphones may be all that you need for general drum recording.

Be sure to review your room mic sound as well as overheads and overall drum sound in mono to check for phase cancellation issues. In our opinion the c414 xlii are the best overhead drum mics for recording. Overhead microphones are used to capture the stereo image of the whole drum kit so we need a matched pair small or large diaphragm condenser microphones. Make sure cymbals don t overpower everything else they shouldn t be louder than the toms.

In this guide we ll look at some of the best mics for recording drums whether studio or stage. While there exists a wide array of kick drum microphones not all of them are intended for the same purpose. Crush the room mics. First released in 1965 it quickly became a must have mic for guitars vocals drums horns and more.

Mic positioning is key even try facing the ceiling depending on your room. Best budget large and small diaphragm condenser microphones. The shure sm57 is undoubtedly the best value for any microphone available and it s certainly one of the best selling mics in the world. Our picks and tips will make you sound like a pro.

U87s for the room. Using two room mics will add to those challenges. If i m using a lot of bright quick condenser microphones close up on a drum kit say akg 414s as tom mics and neumann km184s as overheads a big fat ribbon mic like a coles 4038 or aea r84 my personal favorite makes a fantastic option in the room the picture it takes of the composite kit is comparatively dark silky and smooth. It offers a flexibility unlike many others.