Drum Mic Placement part 2

To continue with Drum Mic Placements – Bongos

Bongos are next. I was a little surprised with the results .

I forgot to take a picture of the placements of the mic for the bongos.

Ch 1  is the mic placed in front for the playing surface of the bongos.

Ch 2 is the Mic on the back or below the playing surface.

As you can see the waves formed are very similar.

When you listen to the two clips there is no noticeable  difference between the two. So placing the mic on either side of the bongo will give similar sound as to make no difference.

 

Overhead Mics on a Drum kit

For this one I wanted to see if there was a difference between a condenser mic and a dynamic mic.

When placing an overhead mic, I try to place them as close to the kit as can be. This keeps everything in phase as much as possible. For this demonstration I had a SM57 and a Behringer C-2 beside each other, about 12″ above the highest point on the drum kit. In order to capture the same sound as much as possible I had the mics on the same stand over the centre of the kit.

This pic shows the SM57

This pic shows the C-2

As you can see there is very little difference between the two.

Now lets have a listen

The only difference I found was the sensitivity of the two.  The SM 57 needed the gain turned up to a higher level.

To conclude this section: if you need an overhead mic for your drum kit and don’t have a condenser on hand, a dynamic cardioid  would work just fine.

This last comparison is to show how I like to mic a Kick drum and why.

As mentioned in “part 1” I used a Shure PG 52 for the front of the Kick.

For the back side I used a  SM 57. You could use a Drum mic like a PG 56 but if you don’t have a spare, use a SM 57 or similar mic.  As you can see I have the mic placed a little more  then  radius of the hole away from the Kick drum port.  Look a “part one” to see why I did this.

Now to look at the wave forms.  In the picture below the top channel is the PG 52 and the lower channel is the SM 57.

 

There is a slight difference between the two. It is because of the difference I like to use two mics on a Kick drum with the back side mic  phase reversed to the front mic. See “part one” for why I phase reverse the one mic.

Now lets  listen to the differences

This is the PG 52 on its own .

It sounds decent on its own.

Now for the SM 57 on the back side by the pedal .

This one also sounds good on its own, though I find it is a little fuller sounding.

Here is the mixed file of both the PG52 and the SM 57.

With this one I find you get the most complete sound of the Kick drum. For me personally, I like to mic a Kick drum this way whenever possible to get the fullest sound from the Kick drum.

 

Stay tuned for more posts. After I return from Breakforth 2108 I will be doing a post on proper soldering techniques for replacing cable ends and wire splicing.

Again please feel free to comment on this or any other post or ask me any questions regarding  sound or related issues you would like me to answer.