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SO! I'm thinking of getting two decent mic preamp's
either 2 Bricks, or a Sebatron vmp-2000 to go with my firepod

what parts of the drums should I record with the 2 good mic preamp's (the rest will go through the firepod's mediocre/bland pre's

Ususal set-up being:
kick
hats
snare
2xrack toms
floor tom
2 or 3 overheads

I was thinking either kick+snare, or kick+overheads with 1 large diaphragm mic - would I be better off trying to blag the drums with just 2 mics - could I still get a decent sound?

any thoughts? HELP? massively appreciated

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Guest Tue, 06/14/2005 - 18:22

the_gid wrote: kick+overheads with 1 large diaphragm mic

You will get a great sound if you do like you said in the quote above.
1 condensor on the kick about 3 feet away and 1 foot off the floor. And 1 condensor mic over the entire kit perferably directly above the snare if possible. I use a boom mic to do this
As far as the Brick Vs the Sebatron...sorry I don't own either :x

J-3 Wed, 06/15/2005 - 09:13

get cha two good sd condensors (omni if you have a good room) run them as overheads thru something like MP2NV etc. I'm afraid the seb would be too colored and the brick a little too murky for my taste. put one of those (brick or seb) on the kick and it sould sound pretty good. you must have killer drums , player, tuning, heads , room, etc or none of the above matters much. Fill in with snare top /bottom and tom mics when the budget allows. it helps to make the drums more in your face and punchy sounding . good luck.

dudge Thu, 06/16/2005 - 17:46

My favorite use for my Sebatron on drums is on the overheads with -30 pad and air switch engaged. It's nice and airy and big and softens transients a little. I also like it on kick set flat with -15 pad. I like my ISA 428 on kick also.
I prefer the ISA 428 on snare unless I want a little less crackin' fatter snare.
I really love the Seb the most on overheads though. :D

BDFitz Thu, 06/16/2005 - 19:10

Factors to consider:

The sound you want. Listen and learn from how these drums were recorded and imitate. Example. If you want "When the Levy Breaks" you'd better have a big, tall room, some incredible overhead mics and killer compressors to emulate the sound on that track. Many have tried and failed but you may discover something new.

A great sound can be had from only two mics but you'd better have a great drummer too. The drawback is very little (save EQ) ability to mix the drums later. If there's too much hi-hat, well that's what you have.

With more mics comes more phase issues but you can usually remove 5 mics from a 9 mic set up. You can't add another on the low tom if you didn't get it.

Limited to two mic pre's I would either:

A. Use them on the Kick and Snare if going for a tight, fat K/S dominant mix. or

B. Use them on the overheads "if" I had a great pair of O/H mics and wanted to blend but predominatley feature the room as opposed to the kick and snare separated.

Markd102 Fri, 06/17/2005 - 04:30

That would be the obvious choice.

It will depend though on how good your overheads are sounding, and how good your room is.
Experiment a little. (you can experiment now with the Firepod pres.)
Maybe even Kick, 2 OH and 1 mic a couple of feet above the rack toms but angled towards the snare.
Or kick, OH and a room mic.
Try a few different configs and see what floats your boat.

Can depend on the type of sounds you want too.

anonymous Sat, 06/18/2005 - 09:35

jamiey wrote: The point is, you should be bypassing the preamps in the firepod. You should be able to connect the Sebatron outputs into the Firepod's line-leve inputs. I'm not familiar with the Firepod, but to do this it looks like you may need to enter it with TRS connection via the front panel.

From what I can tell from the diagrams... it looks like the Line Level inputs are TS connections. I don't know if that makes a difference. Line level inputs for channel 1/2 are on the back, and the other 6 on the front are line as well (1 and 2 are instrument pre-amps).

anonymous Sun, 06/19/2005 - 14:55

yeah?
i don't think my chances of getting rid of it are that great to be honest.
I got it off ebay and, though the warranty is not registered (and still isn't) -I was the only person who bid on it.

I need to have my setup ready and working for 1st/7th July kinda time.

WOULD IT REALLY BE WORTH THE TROUBLE!?