Miking a Drum Kit

by Joel Johnson
(Columbia, SC)

What is the best mics to use for cymbals, toms, snare, and kick. I also have a yamaha subkick. What type of amp is the best to pick up all of these? What other equipment do I need like a mixer? I do not even know what to ask here because I am not totally sure of everything I need to mike my drumkit and the mix and amplify the sound from my drums. I would appreciate any help from anyone suggestion wise from a to z, everything that is neede to mike mix and amplify the kit and what in your opinion is the best of all of these?? I have a Yamaha Phoenix kit that sounds awesome but want to get the absolute best sound possible after miking, mixing, EQ-ing and amplifying. Help???

ANSWER

Hi, Joel--

That is a lot of questions! The first thing I thought about was that maybe you would be interested in using triggers on your snare, Toms, and Kick. I thought about this because there weem to be a lot of electronic drums in the music that you listen to.

With triggers, you can use your drums either as electronic or acoustic. Basically the triggers are little mic chips that attach to your drums and then are hooked to a sound module which acts sort of like a synthesizer in that it creates different sounds whe n you strike the drums. You have full control over what sound each drum triggers.

Then, You run the sound module into the PA system or through an amp. You could mic your cymbals and
put the cymbal mics and the sound module into a mixer and then into the PA.

For starters, check out this triggering system:


Alesis DM5 Module with TK-5 Acoustic Triggers

As far as microphones go, I think these are the best:
SM 57 Drum Mic Kit


If you want to mic all your drums, you might have to buy additional mics. The kick drum mic is really nice.

You could start out with a relatively inexpensive mixer--this one has 12 inputs, which should be plenty:

Behringer 12 Channel Mixer

Like I said, you would most likely want to run your mics and/or sound module into your mixer and then run the mixer into the PA system, so you would not have to be concerned with an amp.

Hope this helps!

Lynne