Live recording Drum Microphone Choices

At this stage, I felt it was necessary to consider what microphones would be best suited for recording a band in a live setting. White (2000) recommends using microphones that would be normally utilised in a live setting for example dynamic cardioid or hyper-cardioid microphones. He also states that some elements in the recording may benefit from capacitor/condenser microphones i.e. vocals.

Taking this into consideration allowed me to make my selections for microphone choices in for this specific application. I will firstly discuss my microphone choices for the drum kit.

For the Kick Drum I decided to utilise the AKG D112. Information regarding the D112 can be viewed at http://www.akg.com/pro/p/d112mkii (AKG, 2016)

The D112 is a cardioid dynamic microphone designed specifically for the kick drum in live and recorded situations therefore I felt it would be the most suitable choice for this application.

Due to limited space and resources, compromises had to be made as regards to the individual drum microphones (toms and snare drums). It was decided that it would be best to utilise clip on drum microphones that are preferential in live recordings based on the initial research. The AKG D440 is a durable dynamic cardioid microphone intended for on stage use and is now discontinued. Further specifications for this microphone are available here http://cloud.akg.com/9557/d440_cutsheet.pdf (AKG, 2016)

For Overheads I decided to utilise the AKG C451 which is a small diaphragm condenser microphone with a cardioid polar pattern. Futher information can also be seen here http://cloud.akg.com/10243/c451_manual.pdf (AKG, 2016)

Although marketed as a vocal microphone, I selected the AKG C451 to record the overheads based on its pick up pattern and frequency response. I have aimed to utilise mainly cardioid microphones for this purpose due to their directionality, hopefully minimising spill from other sound sources. The raised high end frequency response (roughly 5kHz-15kHz) suggests that the AKG C451 will pick up the high end frequencies produced by the cymbals.