Epic Drum Mic Shootout

[El Borrachito]

On Friday Charlie Waymire, Tyler Walton, and I did an epic drum mic shootout.

The audio files (48k .wav) can be downloaded as a .zip archive here:
files.me.com/scotbox/6o7clq

The kit was positioned at the far end on my 10’x19’ studio. The ceiling vaults from 8’ to 12’ at the peak.

In the interest of being scientific, we tried to position all of the mics as similarly as possible.
All recordings were made with a Millennia HV-3D directly in to Pro Tools HD at 24bit 96K. No compression or other processing was added.















Things we learned:
All types of Shure 57s sound totally different.
There are lots of reasonably priced great-sounding mics out there.
Audix mics totally suck.
Charlie can eat a whole bowl of mini-candy bars in one evening.

These were my favorites:

Kick
1. 421
2. 2. ATM25

Snare
1. SM57 Unidyne III
2. ATM25
3. MXL Fox

Rack Tom
1. 421
2. ATM25
3. MXL Fox

Floor Tom
1. ATM25
2. MXL Fox

Mono Overhead
1. MXL Revelation - figure 8
2. Audio Technica 4047
3. 3. AKG 452EB

Stereo Overhead
1. AKG 451B-452EB
2. Audio Technica 4050

Stereo Room
1. Audio Technica 4050 –ms
2. MXL V76N – spaced omni
3. AKG 451B-452EB – xy

Mono Room
1. Pearlman TM1 – omni
2. Audio Technica 4047
3. MXL V87

Here are Tyler's picks:

Floor Tom:
ATM25
ATM250DE cond + dynamic

Snare:
MXL V67 card
MXL V67 hypercard
AKG451B -20 with 150hz roll off

Rack Tom:
AKG451B
Audio Technica250DE cond + some dynamic

Kick:
421 in/out
ATM25 in
ATM250DE cond + dyn in hole
MXL A-55

Mono RM:
Pearlman TM1 card

Mono OH:
AKG451B -10
AKG452 card
MXL V87

OH:
Audio Technica 4050

Sterio RM:
MXL V89xy


Overall, I liked the MXL's as overheads and stereo room mics, thought they sounded pretty good on the drums too. The Audio Technica's were very solid too.

Thanks to Charlie, Tyler, and Mr. Wein for their assistance in this noble endeavor.

[Mark Wein]

Thats killer. Tyler put the clips in iTunes on the studio machine here..I'm going to go listen in a bit.

And yeah, the Audix mics that I sent up are pretty lame.

[T-BoneBarnet]

Interesting to see the MXL mics make the list. I was looking into these at one point.

[Mark Wein]

Apparently Charlie is really into those.