| I think you are getting to the right idea and you have an excellent starting point.
The D112 and SM57 are industry standards. I think by learning simple 3 and 4 mic techniques and nailing them will get you farther than that 7 piece CAD kit. You'll be surprised how much better you sound with this new setup and it may be all you need.
With the overheads you may want to try various mics and "return" them till you get the right ones. I've used a lot of overheads and still haven't found THE ONE but I really like the KEL HM1 (they are guaranteed or you can get your money back, talk about standing by your products) and the ATM450. Another possibility though it may not be the very best sounding (but will sound excellent at any price point) is finding a used pair of SM81 mics or possibly KSM32 if you can stretch a little bit. Getting the industry standards is great because you know what you are getting and you know they will still have value the next day even if YOU don't "like" them. The KSM32 would be my top choice actually if you are going with 3 or 4 mics. I like the way they capture the kit better as a cohesive instrument. Your toms will sound better with them but again this is personal preference. My best advice is try it out till you get what you want. I'm not saying that the Oktavas are bad mics but I am saying especially when starting off it's good to invest conservatively with gear. Get something you know will be good and that will still be in demand tomorrow. A lot of products like the Oktava mics come and go with time....things like the SM57, D112 (and it's predecessor D12, a better mic but that's another thing), SM81, U87.....these are names most people are familiar with simply because they are legendary products they hold their value forever and they will always be good products. Despite what some people think LDC mics are great overheads (tell me how many pros use C414, AT4050, KSM32, KSM44, U87, etc as overheads??? yeah that's what I thought A LOT)
I might also suggest getting an Auralex mic isolator kit, if they are still available (it's possible they've been discontinued) but while they aren't crucial they can help in bad sound spaces to isolate your mics from the room when a drier sound is preferred. My kit works especially well for drums and I think that was the main application for most of the kit's components.
FOCUS ON QUALITY NOT QUANTITY.
Like I said buying gear will not mask bad tone. Placement will not truly mask bad tone. Editing and adding effects does not eliminate the fact that it sounds bad to begin with. Learning recording techniques is a lot easier when you have good stuff to work with and will yield much GREATER RESULTS. Again I'm not trying to sell a DW set and a high end studio room and see you spend $20k.....though we'd all love to see pics of all the cool toys.... I'm merely emphasizing making your own gear and room sound as good as possible to your ear naturally. But that doesn't mean that none of those things are important to obtaining good tone. I am saying that nothing should be ignored or displaced over anything else. If not for anything sounding good should be your priority because chances are you play out and practice more than you record. At least for me I always want to sound my best so tone is critical to me. I don't want to play for people when I'm not at my best I want to make a lasting impression. Of course I'm not saying I've never played on bad days I've had auditions where I was sick and yada yada and same with gigs and the like. I'm just saying ideally you want to be perfect. And any professional will tell you that you will practice it till you don't get it wrong, believe me I've spent my days and nights playing the same thing over and over and over and over again (even more repetitively than that). A lot of professionals will spend hours tweaking and tuning their instrument(s). That's why professional ensembles sound different than a middle school band. Why should you rely on other things to sound good when you play? Music is not luck, it is what it is. And despite what anyone says it requires hard work and discipline, yes talent helps but even talented people have to practice. Work on playing the best way you possibly can until you can't get it wrong. Placing mic placement above playing, tuning, etc is like an amateur saying they practice till they get it right. Well if that's the only point you practice to you can still get it wrong and most times they make mistakes when they do it for real (I know from experience both with myself and others as my career has evolved). Really if you are recording bad sounding stuff you aren't learning the true art and science of mic placement because you are learning to mask bad sounds. While in some cases that can be useful you are creating more work for yourself. Most mics are actually pretty forgiving with placement on good sources, on bad sources yeah they are super touchy and millimeters and slight angle adjustments are HUGE!!! That's because at one point the physics and acoustics will yield different sounds (at some points they probably sound more pleasing than at others) hence that "sweet spot". I could go all science and mathy on you but I won't for the sake of my sanity.
Like Bowie said a great way to learn mic placement and technique is to focus on one mic at a time then work with two mics and start to see how they correlate to one another in a mix and as individual units. If one mic sounds bad on its own it won't sound good with 2+ mics together. Even taking strange approaches like just your snare mic or snare and kick together etc will really help you out. It'll take a while to pickup the learning curve but once you start figuring it out it becomes loads of fun.
IE MIC PLACEMENT IS ABOUT USING YOUR EARS TO GUIDE THE MICS.
If you are into really weird things one time I setup a LD Tube Condenser in my chimney and recorded my drumset in another room in my house through the chimney mic and added some reverb and a phaser for a really cool sound. It fit really well into one of my songs, obviously miking under sinks, in pipes, chimneys etc is not always practical or useful.
I still would like to get some condoms and mic something under water with my SM57's a friend of mine told me to try that for a neat effect. Apparently that was the original underwater miking method.
My point with that is don't be afraid to be adventurous or unconventional when you approach miking your kit. There really aren't rules or ways to do things, just experiment till you get to what you like. Because sound and all this stuff does come down to subjection and it's a matter of personal preference what one person considers crap could be another's treasure.
As far as heads on a lot of the intermediate kits (like your Rockstar or my Export) something like a Clear Pinstripe or Emperor (Evans G2 or EC2) work great for tom batter heads because they kind of nautrally dampen unwanted overtones (which happen with lower end shells) and give you more of a professional tone, if you play a nice kit and then your rockstar you will probably know what I mean (even with stock heads on a nice kit). I also like Coated Ambassadors/G1 for batters but these may be harder to work with on a low end shell because they tend to resonate more freely.
For bass drum my top two choices are the Evans EMAD and the Remo Powerstroke 3 (clear or coated). With a kikbrik for dampening.
For snare usually the best choice is a coated ambassador, for metal snares I like Powerstroke 3's to give a little balance to the sound but that's preference.
Single ply heads are usually the best heads to use, and I'm a heavy hitter, if you bust through heads you need to evaluate your technique because that shouldn't physically be happening when you are playing (and tuning) the "right" way.
I'm not a big fan of Aquarian heads btw, their stuff in my experiences tends to be over-rated. remo has always been the most reliable for me and I actually switched back to remo after using evans exclusively. My Aquarian phase was very very short lived. Though some people love them so it's all up to personal preference. I cannot comment on Attack products simply because I have limited experience and cannot fairly judge tone and durability. |