MOTUnation.com

i gatta say i love my RE20... its very sculptable and is great for so many more things than just what involves bass (good for floor toms, guitar amps when mixed w/ a condenser, trumpets/horns, and spoken word), unlike the D112 or D6, which are tailored for kicks. sounds good for most drum styles, too.
i usually mic tube amps with an RE20 and a C200B with the high pass and i barely need to touch the eq at all...

TheHopiWay wrote:I'm surprised no one's mentioned an EV 666r. Great midrange focus and definition.

I end up picking the EV 666 90% of the time. Has less bottom octave, but what's there is very present and easy to work with. A pair of these for kick and bass amp seem to self-mix better than anything else I've tried. Look elsewhere if you are after extreme low sub.

I should probably sell my D112; forgot I owned one. Hasn't been used in probably 3 years. I much prefer the Sennheiser E602 in that comparison.

I stumbled across a cool set up for mic'ing the kick a while back. I had picked up one of those Blueball mics from BLUE for $99 and I spent a day with my drummer experimanting with different mics and placement. The best results for my taste was my Beta 52 on the front and the Blueball on the beater side. I was pleasantly surprised when I listened to what the Blueball had picked up. Mixing in the brilliant snap that the Blueball was picking up with the nice thump of the Beta 52 gave me what I had been looking for for quite some time.

I was looking at the D112 and the D6 myself last year. Used the former quite a bit, had to be very specific with where to put it, but got great results. With a CLOSED bass drum, never got a good sound. Used the old cube AKG D12 for that with fabulous results.

Got myself a D6 last year, have done several drum kits with it, from country to hard rock to funk to jazzy. Everything is ••••ing awesome. Had to unlearn all my placement rituals used with the D112, but it's so easy to use. Found myself cutting more than boosting like I used to have to.

Get a D6.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned an EV 666r. Great midrange focus and definition.

It's been a long time... doesn't the 666R roll off the low end compared to the 666?

I like the Beta 52 for a lot of uses. Also, nobody mentioned the EV868. Has a kind of eq'ed sound that you might like. The AT2500 is versatile... good for more than bass drum. Someone mentioned the ATM25... I got one on ebay, and a/b'ed it on drums with a 421. Couldn't tell the difference and it's about 1/3 the price. Also, if you have access to a 441, give it a try. It helps to have a few choices for different drums. I'll have to check out the D6...

peace

Hi There,

Funny to see someone else make recordings of the same drumkit I use:
Premier AKP.

I use a not yet mentioned Opus65 from Beyer Dynamic to record my basdrum.
listen to it just for fun:
http://homepage.mac.com/arjen_vanderree ... nly_CF.mp3

I totally love the way my kick sounds and I'd never look for something else.
I have recordings with the D112, but it's too middle of the road to me.
Whenever I get the chance I'll compare it to another kick-mic but I don't know many people with drum mics, let alone be it a different drummic than a D112.

They don't manufacture the Opus65 anymore. But it rocks for me.

Arjen

I remembered it too late but I also tried a boudary-layer microphone and that also has a real nice low-end and nice punch. You just lay it down on the bassdrum and of you go (no stand required), check it out:
http://www.shure.com/microphones/models/beta91.asp

I'm not sure how much it costs.

Arjen

I used to use a D112 exclusively until I experimented with my AT4047sv with the 10dB pad engaged. Now that's my main kick drum mic. I get a full frequency response and trim EQ to taste. The 4047sv handles high SPLs like a champ and sounds fantastic for kick drum... and vocals, too!!!

Jeff

I just got a new D6 with a Christmas gift certificate that one of my customers gave me from Musician's Friend. I can't wait to see how it compares.

well, i love the d112. very dry and natural sounding. All of my kits love it. pipe through an API into my ADL for a little roundness and call it a day.

FrankD wrote:I'm surprised no one's mentioned an EV 666r. Great midrange focus and definition.

It's been a long time... doesn't the 666R roll off the low end compared to the 666?

peace

yes, the 666 is the flatter version, 666R is low-cut.

After being unsatisfied with the coloured sound from the AKG D112 and the Shure Beta52, a couple of years ago I did a lot of research and it came down to three mics, two of which I own (the third is a traditional bullet mic for kick drum by Sennheiser).

I have achieved excellent results with the very neutral ElectroVoice N/D 868, which is a relatively new kick drum mic on the scene.

Recently, I had a very stressful session where my CueMix wasn't working at a session and I made some mistakes due to the pressure of frustrated clients. What happened was I accidentally mixed up my bass cabinet and kick drum mics.

Surprisingly though, after some clever tweaking with DP's Master Works EQ, the results were the best I've ever gotten for kick drum. This was with the good-at-almost-everything Sennheiser MD421 mk II dynamic mic (very flat).

The results on the bass cabinet using the EV N/D 868 were less than stellar, even after EQ, so I do not expect to repeat this experiment (though I may buy a second MD421 mk II). And hopefully my improved mixing and mastering skills will bring the best out of the 868 the next time.

The RE20 recommended above shows up in some excellent recording articles in Mix and other magazines, primarily in relation to toms. But I notice that the low toms often get the same mic treatment as the kick drum, in close-miking the whole kit.

I have noticed recently that there is a trend towards recommending and/or using boundary mics for kick drum. Sennheiser has a fairly new one in their Evolution series, and a few other manufacturers have introduced kick drum specific boundary mics as well.