Suggestions for micing toms?

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:23 pm

I've been muddling along for a while now with a basic 3 or 4 or 5 mic setup for drum kit. OHL-R + Kick + snare + HH. While I like this KISS strategy and have been pretty pleased with the results (or I would be if I liked my HH sound) I've blocked out some time this weekend to do some experiments with mics on the toms. I'm open to any interesting suggestions but here are a few questions I thought I'd throw out.

Do any of you use a single mic on the rack pair? How do you position a 57 for this? I'll probably end up with one mic on each, but I'd like to try one for the pair as well.

I got an interesting suggestion of a D112 on the bottom of the floor tom with the phase reversed. Anyone tried this? Since my RE20 pushed the D112 off the kick and into the closet, I hope this works. Cool idea at least.

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:05 pm

i've never tried the single mic on a pair of toms, but if i was to give it a go, i'd place it at the very top of the two toms up about 5" or so up and pointed to the spot in the middle where they meet. as far as the d112 on the bottom of the floor tom, i've never tried that BUT i have tried it on the top of the floor tom about 4" up and pointed straight down about 1" from the rim. it was a big floor tom (i think it was an 18") and it gave me a good amount of attack while still keeping the bottom and not as much of the woofly boing.

good look and looking forward to your results,

-d.

edit: if i'm not mistaken, do you have a pair of nt5's and a pair of nt55's as well? when i was in a studio recording an ep for my old band, the engineer used a pair of se electronics se1a sdc's and they sounded AMAZING!!!! I'm doing a recording this weekend where i'm gonna try using a pair of nt2-a's as OH's and my nt5's on the toms just to see how it turns out, but it may be a test you might want to consider as well if you have that pair still available.

Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:09 pm

Where have you been? Over the years, it was normal modus operandi to cover the 2 rack toms with a single 57 or, 421.

Miking the floor from underneath with phase inverted is rather boomy sounding so I generally Mike it from the top with a 57 or, 421. Of course you might want to try both at the same time if you really want that monster floor tom booming away?

Try everything. Use everything. Love everything
Ms. Remy Ann David

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