Following the microphone questions here 🙂 -
I do some gigs with a triple-skinned Bodhran (yes..)
and most of the times the soundman gives me an
Sm57 for it.
Problem is - Sometimes it doesn’t amplify it enough
and sometimes it doesn’t get the mid and the highs
only the bass itself.
I know that in most cases it all depends on the soundman, but I was wondering if anyone here has a better solution.
I wish I could come up with something funny here. I did play a bodhran with an open penknife the other night and it was a little raspy, but if you use the backside of the knife you get an neat sound.
Anyway, I use a clip on AKG c-418. It’s good in almost any environment because I clip it inside the drum, so it’s not very prone to feedback (and my band’s sound guy has our monitor levels VERY high because both he and our flute player are a little deaf).
I’ve also used an Audiotechnica gooseneck mic, which works really well.
The advantages of these mics is that they’re designed to capture the low end very well.
I’ve also used SM-57s and loved them, but only at festivals, because the gain has to be very high to get really good dynamics from the drum. Inside pubs because of feedback you can’t get a lot of gain and so the drum has to be really close and I feel like you lose a lot.
About sound engineers, I’ve always made it a practice to butter up the sound guy by introducing him as “The one who makes us sound good” into microphones and such before I ask for changes.
If you develop a good rapport and are not rude or disrespectful, then sound guys will do anything for you.
I also might suggest correcting the eq curve. Boost the low end (~80 hz) and the upper mid range (~6K) and give it just a touch of high end (~20K) and it’ll bring out the full range of the drum.
Good luck,
Kevin
Thanks dirtyheel - You’re right about the Sm57, I played
it in a festival and it was good for hitting the lows..
The problem is, I’m one of those annoying Bodhran players who just have to use the Lows and the Highs all the time so
I really need a mic. that has the ability to get the maximum from
the drum..
I use one of these:
http://www.directproaudio.com/product.cfm?directid=53975
Works pretty good, but you might want an on/off switch or pedal because it feeds back when I’m not playing.
Yeah,
That Audiotechnica is the one I’ve used, it’s really good.
I really think it’s more about the interaction with your engineer than it is the microphone. A -57 is great for the full tonal range of the drum (but the AKG-c-418 is better, so is the AT), but ONLY if it’s mixed right. If the eq is flat or there’s not enough gain then you get nothing.
Be careful with penknife statements associated with the bodhran. We have a heat seeking predator watching. 😉
What do you guys think about the JTS CX506?
I do a bit of sound engineering and here’s my $.02. The SM-57 is a fairly good get-by mic for lots of things, but it’s grossly overrated as an “industry standard”. It doesn’t understand subtlety. It’s claim to fame, other than being indestructible, is that it sounds good for micing electric guitar amps and some drums. It’s useful in these cases partly because it doesn’t accurately reproduce the natural sound of the instrument. It smooths it out a bit. If you want accurate reproduction of the natural sound, use a condenser mic.
Dynamic mics, like the SM-57, have relatively poor transient response, so they miss some of the fine details of acoustic instrument sound. The 57, in particular, has a pronounced proximity effect, so at close range it will boost the low and low-mid range a lot. When the sound guy pulls down the volume to adjust to this, you lose upper-mid and upper frequencies.
As Kevin said, you can make the SM-57 work (better) for you if you tweak the EQ, but with lots of sound guys, that’s a dangerous puddle to step into. Most people at the sound board don’t really know how to properly EQ the signal. Better to send the best possible signal to the mixing board than to expect the sound guy to fix it with equalization. If you want to preserve the subtle details of tipper meeting goat skin, start with a condenser mic. You still might need some EQ’ing, but you’ll be starting with something closer to the truth.
The ATM35 Kerri mentioned looks handy, but it’s frequency response curve dips a little at the low end. Should be easy to EQ, though.
I’ve never used sm57, but I’ve heard that it’s ok - I’ve also heard that JJ Kelly uses one for his bodhran.
With my O’Connell bodhran I’ve used two mics. Inside I had sennheizer 602 - for a bass drum, and on the outside also sennheizer dynamic, for vocal - I don’t remeber the numer, and I’m to lazy to check it out - 400 something. Two cause I use a lot of brush - nice stuff, good sound.
I’ve also tried B-Band pick up for guitars - it’s a stripe of some kind of tape. I’ve put it on the skin - outside and inside of the bodhran, on a rim. And it sounded the best on the edge of the rim, inside the drum.
I’ve also tried Headway bodhran pick up http://www.headwayelectronics.com/acoustic_pickups_limpet.htm and I got to say that I’ve liked it but the highest tones didn’t sound as I’d wish. I must say it was better than mic. I’ve tried it on O’Connell bodhran, http://www.headway.altonex.com/bodhran.htm here you can find a photo how does it look on the bodhran, photo is at the bottom of the page. I think that this pick up will be great for some one who doesn’t change the tone too much, and uses mostly bass tones of the drum.
Two weeks ago I’ve played a gig on my new Metloef bodhran - and they gave me Shure condenser mic - sounded great. But I can’t remeber what was the number of that mic.
“Sometimes it doesn’t amplify it enough ”
Ooooo, an oxymoron.
KFG
“Oooo, an oxymoron.”
Finally! SOMEONE had to say it!
Very interesting. I just turn the bass down and blatter away, I use a peevey mic. Mind you we know very little about setting the sound, and are too tight to pay a sound person. Plus on Paddy’s night you could have Nicky Ryan doing the desk and it wouldn’t help, as JfiddlerH, with an eye on the ladies (laddies) dances about in front of the speakers causing feedback.
It is difficult to mic a drum without a sound person. I’ve seen people with pick ups and it sounded ok. But can you just imagine you know who’s face if you walked into a pub with a pick up on your bodhran?
By the way CC, dirty heel obviously plays the drum, so I presume he was joking about the pen knife. Mind you, I played the drum with a whistle, true, for about three months until I put a hole in it. Should have kept that whistle.
I haven’t seen enough oxymorons in my life
so I’m guessing -“Amplify Enough”.
Anyway, I think you’re missing the point here.
I’m missing something. Why is it an oxymoron?
When Min Gates, my wife, started playing gigs, we did a lot of experimenting with mics. We used the AKG C-418 for a while, then the AT35x Pro, and we still have both, and we know bodhran players who use both and are very satisfied.
Now, our fiddler, TJ Hull, uses the AT35x on his fiddle all the time and loves it. Not all players are comfortable with a mic on all the time (as noted here, above) and a n on/off foot switch (called a Cough Drop) can be a really good addition to it.
Now Min plays a Norbert Eckermann drum, and we’ve not found any lack of bottom with the AT35x.
Our current favorite is an EV 468, a dynamic mic made for drums. It’s odd-looking, like an egg in a stirrup. We usually use that on the back of the drum for live shows. When we use our own PA we run all three instruments flat, with the 75Hz hi-pass on the fiddle and zouk, but not on the drum. We do eq the monitors, tho.
We heard a rock engineer use the EV 468 on Paddy League’s Albert Alfonso drum at the Cincinnati Celtic Fest once and it was so nice and huge sounding that we went looking for one. They’re not real commonly found nowadays, but when I do find ’em they’re cheap, under $100.
In the studio, along with the EV we also used a Neumann KM-184 on the front of the head. Min uses a bundle of sticks made for her by Donnchead Gough, and the 184 picked up that sound nicely. I have also used an AKG 452 in that place, too.
You can hear the 468 and the 184 together on our album “Bruscar Bàn” and there are sound clips at CDBaby.com/Culchies. All the drum tracks are some mix of those two.
I’ve seen a lot of mics made for kick drums or toms used on bodhrans: Sennheiser 421s, Beyer M88s, and now there are lots of mics built specifically for kicks. Most of them work fine.
I don’t worry about dynamics vs. condensors (clearly <G>). I feel that placement is more critical than the type of mic.
As for festivals, gigs and the ubiquitous SM57/58, we spent a bunch of time, both in the studio and with a pal’s PA moving the 57 around until we found the best placement for it, then we took some pictures and printed them on a page. Min would carry a couple of these to shows and hand them to the audio guys. That worked really well because a lot of sound guys don’t see many bodhrans.
Smiles, conversations and good will also help, as mentioned. The better the communications with those guys the better everything goes. And festival/concert sound is a real long job and it can be a very lonely one, too!!
I made a stage plot with a drawing of how we set up and all our instrument outputs, and a page with a list of the mics and preamps we carry. When soundfolk have this in hand it helps a lot.
I hope this helps, now I’ll go see what I have in fiddlemic land.
<GG>
stv
So if I need to sum it up,
the ATM35 would be my first choice and
the sm57, assuming I couldn’t afford the atm35
should be my second choice.
As stv said, placement of the SM-57 is important. Try lots of positions and get familiar with that proximity effect.
“Why is it an oxymoron?”
A bodhran that isn’t loud enough? Come ooooooooon!
“I think you’re missing the point here.”
No, I don’t think I’ve missed it at all, although I may have chosen to observe it from a different perspective. 🙂
Sorry, I can’t offer anything positive from your perspective this time around, as I only play straight acoustic when working with my bodhran player. I’m looking at the possiblity of doing some recording with him though, so I’m actually very interested in the thread.
Go figure.
KFG
Bliss: It was my understanding that the penknife statement was from a bodhran player and I really do appreciate the self ribbing. Just like my previous joke about an bodhran emoticon with a goatee smacking itself on the forehead, I had no ill intent (as a bodhran player) but got quite an unintended anti-bodhran reaction.
Anyone know what microphone arrangement Donnchadh (of Danu) uses. He always gets a nice, crisp tipper sound (almost a slap tone) on their recordings. 😉
I’ve just seen the price of the pick ups. Just beat the drum louder.
Triple skin? You might do better playing a single skin drum ‘the sheep’.
When we saw Danu at the Old Town School of Folk Music (a year ago), they had a 57 pointed at him. (well, at -it-).
I thought they knew better, but … it sounded great.
Just goes to show … it’s just a mic. It’s the -player- that makes how it sounds. And Donnchead does make it great.
stv
do these things actually need to be louder?
haven’t they done enough damage already?
Dont take the mic