Advice for rental mic selection

gafftaper

gafftaper

Senior Team
Senior Team
Fight Leukemia
My kids' school does a big festival in the Fall with carnival rides, art show, car show, food, and live music. We purchased a small sound system last year for the school. This year instead of paying a outside company I'll be running sound. There will be 8 bands over the weekend playing a variety of musical styles. I'll have 20-30 minutes to strike, setup, and test mics, all with the audience eating their dinner and watching. So I need to plan things out well. I've been running sound for over 30 years (since 5th grade), but my real talents lie more in lighting and in the shop. So I need a little advice to help me as I'm preparing:

1) I have limited channels so I'm going to have to go with 3 mics for the drum kit. I've been studying on-line about the various drum mic techniques ("recorderman" and "Glyn Johns" for example) but I'm concerned about not having the time to properly tweak the position of two overheads to prevent phasing issues. So I'm thinking that one overhead would be quicker to position and less potential troubles. (Note my house sound will be mono so I won't gain anything from panned overheads). Am I foolish to go with a kick, snare, and one overhead technique vs kick and two overheads?

2) If I do go with kick, snare, and one overhead. Considering I'm going to have a lot of different styles of music, different types of drum kits, and no real opportunity to re-position mics once we are rolling. Where should I position that one overhead mic as a general strategy?

3) If I go with one overhead mic, which model should I rent?

4) If I go with two overhead mics, which model should I rent?

5) If I go with a kick, snare, overhead technique. I'm assuming an SM57 would be just fine for the snare. Any complaints with that choice?

6) Kick drum mics. I'm thinking whatever is cheapest/available from: Beta 52, D112, E902. Favorites, Complaints, or others I should ask for?

7) I'm planning on an SM57 for the lead guitar amp (if it doesn't have a direct out). Any complaints with that choice?

8) Choice of mic on the bass guitar amp. I'm thinking whatever is cheapest/available from: Beta52, D112, MD 421. Favorites, Complaints, or others I should ask for?

9) Finally I've got one horn band with a trumpet and two saxes. My strategy for micing horns has traditionally been "It may not be perfect but you can't screw up too much with an SM57". But since I'm renting I have lots of options. What else should I consider for one trumpet and two saxes?

THANKS!
 
You can never go wrong with a KSM32 or a 414 on overheads The 414 comes with a wind screen, so that might be important to you. The 32 will be a bit cheaper to rent and will work just fine. It has a pretty wide pattern that is rather even so you should be in decent shape. 57 is all you need on the snare. Even the guys that bring in the Beyer mic kits still put a 57 on the snare. For the kick you can not go wrong with a 52. However, unless you are doing hard rock on large kits the "jazz/folk" standard is an M88. They make the smaller kits sound great.

57 on the guitar also works great. The only other place I would go is an E906. However, that will rent for a bit more so just go with the 57. DON'T use the direct out on the guitar amp, that defeats the purpose of the amp all together.

For the Bass guitar, an RE20 is the standard. They really do wonders on anything related to bass.

For the horns, 421's work well. A 57 will work too.
 
Footer said:
DON'T use the direct out on the guitar amp, that defeats the purpose of the amp all together.
Click to expand...

Believe it or not two of the bands have specifically asked for direct out XLR lines. Whatever.
 
I'd still mic the amps. Sometimes the direct out is fine, other times not. Someone shows up with a Mesa Boogie amp or a Fender tube amp, you want those mic'ed. Someone shows up with a $100 cone in a cabinet with knobs on it, I'll take out a DI box and insert it after the pedalboard and be done with it.

Had an issue last week where someone's direct out had a huge amount of noise on it. Had a mic in front of the amp so I used that instead and didn't have any problems after that.

It all depends on the amp and whether the musician gets their effects processed with pedals and/or within the amp's built-in effects.
 
Since you mentioned a small sound system, how much do you really have to mic the drums? IMHO you could do nicely with just kick and snare for a little extra oomph. You will still be getting a lot of drum in vocal mics. If you should have a singing drummer, see if you can get a Heil PR35. A dirty little secret of some live sound engineers is that the drum overheads are nothing but eye candy.;) The Glyn Johns technique is for recording, not live. The original technique used three mics and did not use close micing. As I recall it used one mic at floor level in front of the drum kit, one off to the side aimed mostly at the snare and one over the drummers shoulder(left I think). Placement was critical and required lots of futzing around to avoid phase cancellation. The drums were mixed mono in the center of the mix. Further drum trivia, most of the drums on Abbey Road are mono, but McCartneys drum solo is in stereo and was spliced into the master tape.
As far as he xlr for guitarists, perhaps they are using emulating amps such as Line 6.
 
I like the audix i5 for horns. I have had reasonable luck micing a drum kit with two overhead shure condensers(sm94s perhaps) and a sm 57 on kick. I also usually mic the guitar and bass cabs instead of using a DI, especially if they are using little tube amps. If someone shows up with a Marshall stack or a big @$$ peavey, I don't bother micing.
 
It sounds like you definitely are on the right track. Kick, snare, and 1 overhead should work fine on a gig like this. I always prefer a small diaphragm condenser mics on my drum overheads, as do most riders I see. Something like a Shure SM81 or KSM137 would be good. Although the KSM32 or AKG414 Footer mentioned would work fine. They are just a lot more pricy to begin with. And, since they weigh a lot more, they can sometimes be a bit of a bugger to deal with in a festival style set up where they are moved around quite a bit. If you do use them, hopefully you have access to a boom stand with a counterweight on the boom arm to help balance them better.

A beta 52 would be a good choice for your kick mic and for a bass amp mic. I am surprised that many of the groups have not asked for a direct line for the bass. This is very very common. Although, I always try and use a bass mic in addition an any bass DI.

The Sm57 is by far the leading choice for snare mic, and will be a good choice as a defacto guitar mic. And you are right, you can't go wrong with using it as a horn mic in a festival set up either.

Good luck with the show!

~Dave
 
As with most things concerned with audio... it all depends...

3 mics for the drum kit might work. If its jazz/folk music then you can make it work. If you are doing blues/rock then you are going to really miss those tom mics and the other over head, especially outdoors. If you really can only do 3 mics then I'd probably go with 2 over heads and a kick. For the over heads you want a small diaphragm condenser. My favorites are the Shure SM-81, Sennheiser e914 or AKG 451. Yes you do get some degree of phasing with two over heads but its really the best way to capture the entire sound of the kit. With a single over head (above the players head) you going to lose the outside tom (lowest floor tom) and the outside cymbals (which may be the ride, depending on the drummer). I do many jazz shows with just two over heads and kick, but ideally you want to find a way to get a snare mic in there two.

SM-57 is the standard snare mic. Its really your best option. It sounds good and it'll survive being hit a few times by over enthusiastic drummers.

There are lots of good bass drum mic choices. The Beta 52 is fine, I like Sennheisers e902. An RE-20 is a great mic for jazz/folk type kits. If its the same kit all day and you know you'll have a hole in the front head then I'd be tempted to use a Sennheiser e901 or a Shure SM-91.

A 57 will work great on lead guitar. I usually use a Sennheiser e906. Its a great mic and it can be drapped over the top of the amp, saving you a stand and some stage real estate. You also don't have to worry about the stand getting bumped or moved. If you're renting anyway I'd consider getting the e906 (or the older e609). I'd avoid direct outs for lead guitar. Most players have a tone they are trying to achieve with their combo of guitar, pedals, an amp. So you really want to get that entire sound.

Anything that will work well on kick drum will work on bass cab. I like an RE-20 for this. I prefer a direct out or a DI on bass but if I'm mic'ing then I'll use an RE-20 or a Sennheiser MD-421. One advantage of having an RE-20 on hand for bass is if someone shows up with an acoustic upright bass you can mic the instrument and get a much better sound than the pick-up or micing the cab.

For horns there are several good choices. I'm not a big fan of the 57 on horns but it'll work if that's what you have. I like the Sennheiser 421 for sax and my go to trumpet mic is the RE-20.

Don't forget to include enough stands and cables in your rental order. Also make sure you account for DI boxes. You may have a guitar player or bass player show up who wants to go direct. I've even had bass players show up with no amp, and just want to plug into my DI. I'd go with active DIs like the Countryman 85 or Radial J48. You should have a couple of stereo passive DIs on hand for keyboards too (if you are going to have any keys).

When in doubt throw a 57 on it. Its not the perfect mic for anything (except snare) but its an ok mic for everything. I used to work in a hall in Oklahoma and we'd tell people that we have both types of mics... 57s and 58s!

-d
 
dshriver said:
When in doubt throw a 57 on it. It's not the perfect mic for anything ... but it's an OK mic for everything.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if truer words have even been spoken. We really must engrave that axiom in stone someplace around here.
 
derekleffew said:
I'm not sure if truer words have even been spoken. We really must engrave that axiom in stone someplace around here.
Click to expand...

Amen to that. I overall like the 57 better than the 58 but their both very flexible. Add some sm94s, and you can mic literally anything decently.
 
Well it looks like I'm going to end up with a set of Beta 52's for the kick drum and Bass Amp and a pair of KSM27's for overheads. The other overhead suggestions you had were out of my already strained budget range. The rental guy says that the KSM27's for drum overheads are essentially a budget version of KSM 32's and Radiohead uses them so they really aren't too bad.

Everything else will be 57's and 58's.
 
That should work out well for you. The KSM 27 is a good mic. You will be happy with it.

~Dave
 
sounds good, what's the rest of the system like? Just this weekend I ran sound for our community day, and they had rented all behringer stuff. Absoulty horrid sounding.... :sick::cry:
 
I put it together last year with the help of good old BillESC. The idea being an expandable system and highly portable system under $6k, which is simple to learn and operate. We started with a donated set of JBL SR 4725A's. Then we added a Yamaha MG206C, QSC RMX 1850HD amp (running bridged), and a Driverack PA+ (making it easy for kids and parents to run things). Then a got a set of EV ZX1a's (which I often use for mains for most school activities plug in a mic and daisy chain them together and you've got the perfect small gym sound 1 mic sound system for school meetings). There's A Yamaha CDS300... which is a sweet little cd/usb stick/ipod/mp3 player. Plus a few mics(including 1 AT handheld wireless and three AT U853R's), cable, snake, DI's etc. I put it all in a rolling rack with a pop up top, and a drawer to store stuff in the bottom. It's not perfect by any means but it's pretty hard to beat for the price and for the needs of 250 student K-8 school. For this event I'm adding a couple of 15" Mackie subs, a 2 channel/4 speaker Mackie monitor system, and the mics discussed. Off to the side of the stage there is a Beer garden and for that area I'm renting two Mackie 450s and my EV ZX1A's.

Hopefully we'll have a little money left over that I can use to add some gear to the system when the event is done and we won't need to rent any thing down the road.
 
Last edited:
Aman121 said:
sounds good, what's the rest of the system like? Just this weekend I ran sound for our community day, and they had rented all behringer stuff. Absoulty horrid sounding.... :sick::cry:
Click to expand...

I have to ask, did it sound bad because it was a Behringer, or because you wanted the Behringer to sound bad? Yeah, a lot of is is cheap, but it isn't "Absolutely horrid with a [noparse]:sick:[/noparse] smilie" bad.
 
chausman said:
I have to ask, did it sound bad because it was a Behringer, or because you wanted the Behringer to sound bad? Yeah, a lot of is is cheap, but it isn't "Absolutely horrid with a [noparse]:sick:[/noparse] smilie" bad.
Click to expand...

I'll admit some of it probably was in my head. Some people low behringer and while I agrees they do some things right I am not a fan of their pro PA gear.
The event people rented powered behringer subs and tops, which had almost no punch when you got more than 100ft back and had a kinda muffled sound overall. (the aim was to cover a colt certified baseball diamond from home plate) The mixer and system eq they rented had an extremely cheap and rough feel to the controls, and also were not that great sounding, when I plugged in my earphones to listen to the monitor mixes the sound was staticky and narrow sounding. Compared to my personal setup (aged sound craft mixer, big old crown amps, and high performance speakers, the system was just pathetic. Also, I had to wrestle with the eurolight console they rented, which probaby added to my hate. I was originally supposed to bring my own equipment, but then someone somewhere decided they should rent equipment and just have me run it. And since the local rental house is almost exclusively behringer, we ended up with behringer everything.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Ken Porter
Mic stand opinions re: tight quarters
Replies
7
Views
613
macsound
macsound
Hugtrain
Mixers/Consoles Roland V Mixer M300 multiple mics to an effect.
Replies
3
Views
285
TimMc
TimMc
Rip Van Winkle
Acoustics and flat construction
Replies
5
Views
728
MNicolai
MNicolai
Ravenbar
Wireless mic issues only when there's an audience in the space?
Replies
6
Views
492
themuzicman
T
C
Wireless System Questions
2
Replies
32
Views
5K
Rod Reilly
Rod Reilly

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back