Small Town Sleeper - Day 3 - More Mic Shootouts

End of Day 3 right now, I am completely exhausted, but i'm determined to try to blog every day. Today was another microphone shootout day, but moreso a mic pre shootout. The only mic's in competition today were overhead cymbal mics and kick drum mics. I tried three different pairs of mics on the cymbals, Royer R122's, Studio Projects C4's, and Shure KSM 137's. I gotta say, the KSM 137's won hands down, no contest, so they are my new cymbal mics. Then, for the outside of the kick drum (with the front head on and no sound hole) i tried my favorite from the last shootout, the Rode NTK, against the Royer R122, and the NTK is still the reigning champion.

Now that my mic's are all determined (see the previous mic shootouts for what mics are on what, or read below and I'll post all the drum setup), i did a full on mic pre shootout. Here are the mic pre's used

GML 2032
Chameleon Mic Pre
Avalon 737
Oram Oramsonic
Sytek
Focusrite 428 Bluerange

I had the drummer hit consistently, one drum at a time, and one by one, the drum mics into each pre. Here are the winners...

Kick inside - Audio Technica AE2500 condenser - Chameleon
Kick Outside - Rode NTK Tube - Oramsonic
Snare Top - Shure SM57 dynamic - GML 2032
Snare Bottom - GT55 condenser - Oramsonic
Hi Hat - Studio Projects B1 condenser - Oramsonic
Hi Tom - Audix D4 dynamic - Chameleon
Mid Tom - Studio Projects B1 condenser - Focusrite 428
Low Tom - Sony C800G Tube Condenser - Focusrite 428
Ride Spot mic - Shure KSM 109 condenser - Sytek
Cymals Left and Right - Shure KSM 137 condenser - Avalon 737
Room 1 - Royer R122 ribbon - Oramsonic
Room 2 - Royer R122 ribbon - Oramsonic
Room 3 - Oktava ML52 Ribbon - Sytek

I have to say that i found not alot of difference in audio quality between the different mic pre's. Some you could hear a noticable difference on some things, sometimes it was really subtle. When we did the microphone shootout, the difference in sound from one mic to another was astounding, but that was not the case with mic pre's. Having said that, all of my pre's are supposed to be pretty darn good, so i guess thats not surprising. Maybe the results would be different if i threw in some real budget mic pre's, but i dont have any. Funny thing is, i found some of my best sounding mics were some of the least expensive. For instance the Studio Projects B1 is truly a great mic at any price, and its a $100 mic. The KSM 137's are fairly inexpensive, and they sound great! And of course, the Shure SM 57 beat about 12 other mics for the top of the snare drum, and its under $100.

Anyway, today, Day 3 was all about getting drum sounds (yes i realize this is taking forever, but this band only gets one chance to make their debut album), and we have the luxury of time, so we're getting the most amazing sounds we possibly can. And i'm completely exhausted from working 30 hours in 2 days. time for sleep, tomorow will be another long day, and we'll finally be cutting songs tomorrow. Have a good night.

-Ken Lewis