Drum Kit Mic For Toms

I don’t have a real drum kit – though I have always wanted one (He’s whining. Ignore him). I mean a full dit with a kick drum, snare, toms, hi-hat, and crash and ride cymbals.

There has always been a female in my life to stop me owning my own kit. First it was my mom. Now it is my wife. She says if we ever get a house with a basement, I can have a drum kit. Shya. Anyway…

I mostly record small drums (bodhran, dumbek, tupan, tamborine, etc.) the “real” way, meaning with an actual microphone. If I want to record a rock or pop song, I use sampled drums, typically in the form of Storm Drum (what I used on my cover of My Eyes, from Dr. Horrible, and That Thing You Do, from The Movie of the same name, which you can check out here and here, respectively), Jamstix (what I used on my cover of You’re All I Have, by Snow Patrol, which you can hear and read all about in this article).

However, if you are fortunate enough to have a real drum kit that you can record, here is a tutorial one recording just one of them, the tom. You typically mic each drum nowadays, and there is a different mic for each. For example it’s common to use a Shure SM81 on the snare (though it is also common to use a Shure SM58 as well), something like a Shure Beta 52 on the kick, and as in the following video, a Sennheiser MD421.

So here is the video – another form WinkSound. Enjoy!