Drum mics and miking. TAKEN snare drum.


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This is the third installment of our sound recording presentation focused on the drum kit where we will share information, sounds and photos about recording snare, kick and other drum parts that will make it easier for clients and producers to plan their drum recording sessions, choose their snares, mics and micing (miking) strategy way ahead of their time in the studio.

Drum micing Part 1: Joey Jordison snare

Drum micing Part 2: GMS snare drum

Our third installment on this series of Drum Mics and Miking of Snare, Kick and the Drum Kit will focus on the TAKEN vented snare drum by TAKEN Custom Drum Company. This is a 6.5″x14″ 20-ply maple snare that has 2.5″ vents on the side. The drum heads are **verifying**.

TAKEN snare drum

The TAKEN snare drum gets the star treatment due to the fact that its sound covers a wide spectrum. It has to have body and sizzle, allowing for a snare crack sound that will truly drive a beat and carry a tune. The snare drum, due to it’s loud sound (high SPL) capability usually gets picked up by every microphone in the room – from the kick drum mic to the overhead mics, thus – the snare sound will be present even further in the drum kit’s sound. For this test and samples, we provided the following:

  • direct snare sound
  • direct kick sound (we’re skipping the direct kick sound to avoid redundancy, please refer to Part 1 for individual kick drum micing sounds)
  • overhead mic sound
  • mixes of direct mic with overhead mic sounds

Drum Miking signal chain & Mic positioning.
Please refer to Part 1 for info on microphone positioning and drum micing signal chain for the reason that the main difference is we switched a different snare drum for this batch of sound files. Same mics and mic positioning on the snare and kick. For the overhead mics, we chose to use 3 different sets of mics.

Direct mics on TAKEN snare drum .

  • Shure Sm57 to Chandler Germanium preamp (thick switch OFF).
  • Sennheiser MD421 (dynamic) to PurpleAudio Biz
  • AKG C414 in cardiod position (condenser) to A Designs P1
  • Beyerdynamic m160 (dynamic dual ribbon mic) to Great River MP NV 500 format
  • Royer R121 (ribbon mic) to AEA TRP (The Ribbon Pre)

Now that you’re heard the TAKEN custom vented snare drum through a variety of mics, listen to the sound of the entire drum kit as captured by the overhead microphones. Still using the same TAKEN snare drum, still the same drum performance.

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