Investment - Drum Mics

Hello fellow New Mexican!

I have been really happy with my Karma K10's. Cheap as hell and they sound great. I was sold on them after hearing them on a shootout with Gefells. I thought they did better.

57's on snare, D6 all excellent choices. For toms you could do worse than something like the Shure PG kit. I bought a set 10 years ago for live sound and I still use them with drummers that I fear will hit them. The OH's in that kit are totally lifeless but work pretty well for spot miking. I personally hate clamps for the studio, most of the time they are too close to the toms and get in the way. Regular stands are better and for cheap, grab those Musician Friend 6 or 10 packs. MCM Electronics sell 4 packs. They break, but to me about as often as stands I paid $30-$50 a piece for. I am careful with mine so I typically get a couple years out of them.

You can do a lot with just 3-4 mics. Look up the recorderman technique for instance. With a great kit, you can get pretty solid drum sounds that way. Definitely good enough to get your recordings going while you continue to save.

Keep in mind, buy cheap buy twice... damn I have to remember that :bah:

Holy crap! A producer that lives in this state! I'm a little surprised to be honest, haha.

Nice, those Karma-10's look awesome, they sound nice too from the samples on their website, only $130 for 2!

I'm actually glad to hear that you can kind of cheap out the tom mics. I was thinking about picking up the Sennheiser E604's, but if I could get away with even less that would be sick too. For 5 on Musiciansfriend its $630.

You said the Shure PG56 were ok mics for toms, we've played at some venues where they used em. I usually can't define the mix very well on stage lol. I have heard they are very durable mics, much like the SM58 vocal mic.

So mic clips are not looked highly upon in studio? Is it mainly for if the toms / snare move, they make the mic move, so it messes up phase possibly, or makes noise in the mic? Would be my guess. So individual boom stands may it be.

My list as right now is:

1 - Tascam US1800 ($300) w/ 8 XLR's w/ Steinberg's Cubase 5
1 - Steinberg's Wavelab Elements 7 ($100)
1 - Audix i-5 ($110) w/ stand and XLR
2 - Shure sm57 ($230) w/ stands and XLR's
5 - Shure pg56 ($320)
1 - Audix D6 ($230) w/ stand and XLR
4 - Karma K-10 ($260)
1 - MXL V63M ($100)
10 - Boom Mic Stands ($100)

Grand Total = $1,750

Not bad. ^^

You've been more than helpful guiding me, and I thank you all.



So... I haven't ordered my next tom heads yet. Maybe you can save me
before I order?

My entire drum kit (toms, snare, and kick) is made of Basswood, a plentiful species of hard wood that sounds similar to Maple or Mahogany.

This is the setup I plan on using:

Kick Batter - Evans EQ4 w/ Remo Falam Pad w/ feather pillow against the head rolling with the kick w/ wooden beaters

Kick Reso - I don't like reso kick heads for tracking, if I used one I'm sure I'd order an Evans Inked EMAD w/ a mic hole ^^
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Snare Batter - Evans ST Dry Coated w/ 2 Moongels

Snare Reso - Evans 300 Clear w/ D'Addario Blasters Series Snare Wire
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Toms Batter - Evans Onyx 2-ply (moongels... possibly, depending on how many overtones, which is why I'm ordering the onyx 2-ply, durable with low batter head sustain, since the reso head is really what carries the toms' sound, I thought I may get a unique sound this way)

Toms Reso - Evans G1 Clear

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Any thoughts with experience here? Thanks so much