Is it the inability to make subtle mic movements to chane the sound, or is it the selection of mics that I don't care for?

http://www.dwdrums.com/may/index.htm

I'm having a hard time with that statement.

Sure, there is a sound inside the drum...but seems to me, our ears are NOT inside the drum...they are on the outside...and often at a distance.

And yes...that systems does appear to "lock you" into to a specific sound...'cuz you ain't gonna' pop those heads off in a flash if you need to adjust anything...though I guess their "sell" is that you don't ever need to adjust anything...?

It could turn out to be an expensive and time consuming experiment...
...getting all the mics and hardware...mounting it into your studio kit...and then finding out you hate the sound...

I have worked with these a lot. They have more use in a touring situation than in a studio. It looks much cleaner on stage and the drummer can have his drums angled any way he wants with his cymbals sitting right on top of the toms. (making it impossible to mic any other way) It also insures that you have the number and type of mics you need, no matter what venue you end up at.

If you are talking about a tour, you are dealing with only one drummer and how he needs to sound. That takes care of having to move the mics to find the right sound problem.

There are two big problems I've run into with this system.
1. During transit, the D112's will sometimes droop or sag, requiring you to yank off the head and reposition it.
2. If you position the mic too close to the center of the tom, you get a hollow sound due to phase cancellation of sticking the mic in the center of a tube. With big toms, you can get around it pretty easily, but there isn't much room inside of an 8x6 inch tom to move the mic.

Thanks for chiming in, Jay. I can absolutely see how handy these would me for live.

BTW, who needs an 8x6 anyway?

Being a 'completely undruming' audio engineer, I enjoyed setting the different drummers kit overview! Then again, I rent a movie is someone told me there's a scene shot in some studio...just to see their gear.
blas

These things work fine for metal. You end up with a very attack-y sort of sound. Not much warmth. The only time I would use them in the studio is if the drummer has his drums set up in such a way that it makes it impossible to mic normally. Most of the time, in those cases, I just put triggers on it and use Drumagog to insert the sounds.

Don't most metal mixers just use triggers and/or sound replacer/drumagog anyway?

I remember playing with putting mics inside drums back in the 70's.
Certainly mics in the open bottoms of concert toms (one-headed toms) and mics inside two headed bass drums were nothing all THAT unusual.

Billy Cobham did it with Ken Scott... and Billy was telling me about it, back then.

And that certain hard rock/metal bass drum sound only seems to come from that technique with the dangling AKG on a wire inside the two-headed drum.

but I don't WANT a mic inside a sealed tom or ESPECIALY a snare... and I have to laugh at "inside, where the sound is.."!!!

so all these years no one in the audience has been hearing "the sound" and no manufacturer is designing an instrument to sound good projected into the hall? it's real sound is INSIDE????

cool, i can't wait to hear the real sound of the violin or trumpet, from INSIDE.
yikes.

I expect the next generation to include some "tube" mic choices for that "warm, vintage" "inside" sound.

ps, in MY picture *I* am really jumping! ahem.

Not as much as everybody thinks. Live, everyone seems to use Ddrum, but in the studio, mics are still the way. (as well as gates, compressors and a ton of EQ)

Speaking of 'back in the 70's', in the studio I was working at, I designed and we had a guy make us these pointy cones of metal that were deaden by this special paint (picture Tom Terrific's hat, those that old) that had a clip that snapped on the mic itself. This were for some front address AKG's, which made the 'cone' sit about 1 inch above the mic. Our idea was to remove the direct air pressure from completely collapsing the diaphragm, yet capture the full sound. It seemed to work for us, but wasn't earth shattering enough to trying to sell the idea! Besides, years later drummer started going back to sealed drums.