Greg,
You mentioned it as a good mono drum over head - is it good (if you had a pair) in an M-S or just any stereo drum micing? I've never used one before. Or room

mics?
Like Mike said, it wouldn't work very well for m-s (with another BK-5). You could use another mic as the mid mic, then had the BK-5 as a side.
When I said overhead, I really meant single kit mic. I use it roughly in front and above the kick drum to capture the whole kit. I've used it for ambient mic'ing on electric guitar with success. It would probably do well with anything loud. On quiet things, you might run in to more noise than you'ld like.

greg wrote: You could use another mic as the mid mic, then had the BK-5 as a side.

Hi Greg
Im just a little confused here, maybe Im missing something. Wouldn't the BK-5 be the mid mic since it is a cardiod, and the other mic (a figure 8 ) be the side mic? The BK-5 is cardiod, right?

mtar

... I had to put a space between the "8" and the ")" or else it would have done this:

Or if you had three BK-5s, you could do faux M/S.

Chris

as a related question - chris - i know you're a big fan of the oktava ML52 - any success with that mic in the mono kit position? i thought i remember you not liking it as an overhead. i used it once as part of an MS setup that i liked - as an room ambient setup - but was thinking about trying it in the more dedicated mono setup greg describes. do you guys think the cardiod patten is what helps the BK-5 sound nice as a mono kit, or is it more the element type? just wondering if the fig 8 pattern of the ML52 might let in too much room. debating whether to put that or the beyer M500 in the mono position (M500 usually goes on a guitar).

i'll relay my findings at a later date. unless i'm too drunk.

sincerely,
jar-jar binks

Yeah, relay your findings, Jar-Jar. Actually, no I haven't used the ML52 as a mono kit mic because A) I usually really like stereo kit representation, B) I've got a pair of them and when I'm tracking drums, they're usually on guitar amps, and C) the only session I've done since I got them where I was tracking drums alone (or to a sequence, actually) seemed like the wrong time to go for that type of sound. I don't like to EQ mics if I don't have to and the ML52 has just seemed a little weird-sounding to me on drumkit. I imagine that they'd probably make for a nice stereo pair of ambient mics on a kit, but I haven't tried that yet. I've been too busy comparing the early Stapes mics to B&Ks in this application. Now the Beyer M160, there's a great drum overhead mic!

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

nick92675 wrote:as a related question - chris - i know you're a big fan of the oktava ML52 - any success with that mic in the mono kit position? i thought i remember you not liking it as an overhead. ? just wondering if the fig 8 pattern of the ML52 might let in too much room.

Nick, I did a recording with the ml-52 this way recently.. The room I recorded in is mostly dead, so I wasn't too concerned about room tone. I could see this maybe being an issue in certain rooms.

Anyway, it sounds good. the set sounded really heavy.. the bottom end is really intense, like there is a mic in front of kick drum mixed in. The cymbals are maybe a bit too dark for conventional rock purposes, but I had interesting results playing around with mixing in the high end from a condenser.

michaeltheangryrussian wrote: My new favorite would have to be the EV RE-55s. Those mics are astoundingly astounding. Omnidirectional dynamics that have excelled on evertyhing I've put them on (so far), particularly awesome on guitar amps and as overheads. In an overhead application they seem to posses the smoothness of a ribbon with the high end frequency response of a condensor.

Have you tried the re-55 in any sort of snare/hihat setup?

I've used the RE-55 on a snare, didn't like it that much. But its frequency response is pretty amazing. It's pretty good on vocals, good guitar mic too.
RE-20 is still my favorite kick mic though. It really picks up all the colour of the drum.
I've grown to hate SM81s. can anyone else concede to this? Theyre pretty useless. I'm not a big shure fan though.


C. Harding

I'm not a big shure fan though.

The Shure sm7 is a very cool mic, it sounds great on aggressive vocals. It also sounds great on a twin reverb amp in conjunction with a ribbon mic.

admittingly I've never used that microphone.
I know there's some high end condenser they have that I've used, and it was nice. But it didn't do anything one of my other mics did just as well, if not better.