Miking a drum kit?
[Someone check this! This is not my area of expertise! — DR] If you need to economize when miking drums, the best way is to use fewer microphones. With careful placement, you can often get by with four: snare, kick, and a pair of overheads. The canonical mic for snare drum is the Shure SM-57. They’re cheap, which is good, because drummers are always breaking them. For overheads, a pair of condenser microphones is almost compulsory. See the discussion above for ideas. That leaves the kick drum mic. What you choose for kick drum depends on whether you can afford to dedicate a mic to that use, or whether your choice must serve other purposes as well. If miking drum kits is a small part of your studio routine, it may make sense to buy a more broadly applicable microphone, even if it costs a bit more. One excellent choice would be a Sennheiser MD-421, which can also be used for voice-overs, female singers, miking guitar cabinets, and much more. For a bit more money, an Electrovoice RE-20 i
