I always recommend Shure as a non-classical music staple. After you have your Shures then you can branch out if needed but you always know you have a fall back.

7 mics for half the cost but inferior quality (and 2 of them are condensors you don't need anyway) doesn't seem like a good plan to me. You can never go wrong with a handful of 57s. If you need an extra one later on for a third tom, then that's easy to do and you aren't throwing money away on crap that will end up in a garage sale someday. The beta 52 is just fine for kick, and even if it's not the perfect kick drum mic for you it doesn't matter that much since these are only scratch recordings for archival purposes. I would get the Shure kit myself, since the 57s are so versatile and you never know what you may want to do later on - they will always find a good use in your studio and will last forever.

Not sure what other options are out there, I still use 57s on snare and toms and I haven't had any need to upgrade. I started with a cheap set of chinese mics for drums that cost about what that CAD kit costs, and they were terrible. They did the job for a while, but it really wasn't pleasant to listen to the results no matter how much time I spent messing around with mic placement and tuning the drums and EQ and on and on. Which reminds me, I need to have a garage sale.

I also notice in a quick search online that a lot of people are complaining about the threads stripping out of the plastic mounts on the CAD mics.

I'm sure thats not their only problem.

A bag of shures always.

A second on everyone else's thoughts.

I own the Shure kit you mention, and a "comparable" CAD kit (3xTSM411, 1xKBM, I believe). The CAD mics never come out of the cabinet. Sometimes I use the KBM as a bass cab mic for scratch tracking if I'm already using the 52 for kick. Sometimes.
Honestly, I prefer a 421 on the bass cab these days. On a lot of things these days... and I thought two of them would be enough!!

As far as other options, I know a lot of people like the Audix i5 on snare. Again, maybe the 421 on a tom (or floor tom). But then we've already surpassed the cost of the Shure kit w/ those two mics.
Save the 421 for that "extra one later on" that will NOT" end up in a garage sale someday".

Most "packages" are bad deals. Two things you don't want with three things you do. The Shure drum pack is an exception. The three 57s and the three clamps are worth the price alone. The 52 is a good mic even if its not your ultimate kick mic. Good deal. You'll end up keeping the 57s forever and the clamps until they wear out. (They're good clamps, but no mechanical device lasts forever.) The CAD package will all end up being trashed eventually.

Thanks, folks, the Shures it is.

Hi guys i know that cheap kit won't probably do the job as the "Standard" sets or other well-known mics do but i would like to know if anyone of you has ever used this kit... I'm on a budget and I could be interested... Here's their link: http://www.red5audio.com/
Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks a lot for your replies
:-)

Stefano

Here's my rule.

Everyone knows the sounds of the 56/57/58's. It's a given. It's recognizable. Everybody knows what they sound like on drums, everybody. If you want something else on drums it will sound like, well, like, something else. Great, if you want, something else. But it won't sound like 57's. I know when I get with a 57 & API or a 57 & a Neve, 57 with Mackie, 57 with Beringer's. But then, I'll use a half-dozen oddball microphones and still get a good drum sound. But I always feel at ease when I have a bag full of 57's. And a lot of this depends on whether I'm doing lives or studio work. But then I'm also consistently inconsistent and won't always use what I say I always use. So don't forget. Whenever I said?

Science mixed with art, is still confusing.
Ms. Remy Ann David