Kick drum mic opinions?

[Rich Farrell]

I am in the market for a kick drum mic for a dw kit. anyone have any luck with mics currently in production? (would love an old out of production d25 or d12 but not many available) sorry if this has been covered before, but im new here.

 

thanks a bunch, rich.

[bleen]

I've used an Audio-Techinca ATM25 for a number of years and love it - it doesn't have the "basketball-boing" or weird response of a D112 - and is very natural sounding.

 

I'm quite curious to try their new dual diaphragm kick mic (AE2500), and also the Audix D6, which I've heard many good things about.

 

Are you looking for a mic for live sound reinforcement or recording?

[Rich Farrell]

Originally posted by bleen:

I've used an Audio-Techinca ATM25 for a number of years and love it - it doesn't have the "basketball-boing" or weird response of a D112 - and is very natural sounding.

 

I'm quite curious to try their new dual diaphragm kick mic (AE2500), and also the Audix D6, which I've heard many good things about.

 

Are you looking for a mic for live sound reinforcement or recording?

Largely for recording. will be using a pair of rode NTK's and a pair of akg 1000s's for overheads (4), beta 98ds for snare top, sm58 for bottom of snare, sm81 for HH, and some akg 409 and a 418 for toms, and a d112 on kick. but, i really don't like the sound of the d112 all that much. However, the AE2500 does looks sweet! does it have a 5 pin so it can carry the dyn and the card signals? thanks for pointing that one out to me, id never heard of it before!

 

thanks, rich.

[bleen]

The AE2500 does indeed have a 5-pin XLR on the mic that splits into separate XLRs for the dynamic and condenser signals.

 

Why four overheads on your kit? Or are you using two for room mics? I'd lose the C1000's for overheads - very "spitty" sounding on cymbals - maybe move them out into the room and crush them with some compression for effect.

[henryrobinett]

I love the ATM25. What type of music are you doing?

 

I was warned off the AE2500. The studio owner I work at more than occassionally had that mic for a while and sent it back. He said "nine out of ten people didn't like it."

 

Also recommended highly and little talked about is the Sennheiser e602. The EV RE20 is also very good.

[Jazzman]

I've been recording in my studio for years with a ATM25 on the kick......Sounds great.

 

All of my drum mics are AT's.

 

Jazzman

[nhcomp45aol.com]

I use an ATM-25 in the studio and a Beta-52 for live aplications. I like my RE-20 more on vocals than kick. Paul.

[where02190]

Largely for recording. will be using a pair of rode NTK's and a pair of akg 1000s's for overheads (4),[/QB]

why 4 overheads? the phaing must be rather draumatic. move oneof those NTK's about 8 feet in front of the kit and point it at the players chest. You'll be amazed at the kick drum sound you'll get, that will accompany the rest of the kit through this ome mic, provided you have a good sounding room.

 

Personally I generally ue a Shure Beta52, combined with either a Shure sm91 (for rock/pop where there is either no front head or a mic hole) or a shure Beta56 micing the beater side(for jazz/funk where there is a full front head.).

 

Also, the NTK, placed a foot or so in front of the kic, works killer as a kick mic as well.

 

the keys to a great drum sound is looking at the big picture, the kit as one big instrument. Capture the entire kit sound with overheads and room mics, then sweeten individual drums with close mics as needed. You'll find many of the mics you track, botom snare, hats, toms, are often not needed during the mixdown, and your drumkit sound will improve tremendously.

 

Also key is a doog sounding well tuned kit, and a good sounding room. remove any of these key items, and the sound will suffer.