Toms and room view larger image note.
Floor tom mic placement.
Where the re20 truly shines.
Or you could get radical and place the mic under the drum throne perhaps slightly towards the floor tom.
Ok so to be open with you i m not necessarily finding out the best floor tom microphone.
The e604s have clips which enable one to affix them directly to the rim of the drum.
Like so many others i like the u87 on floor toms.
It s affordable has universally great reviews from home recording enthusiasts and professionals alike.
August 31 2020 the best microphone for recording tom toms for most people is the sennheiser e604.
Placed tight on the shells.
If you use two mics place one above each drum about 1 to 3 inches above the head.
Frankly their e604 is just about as high quality as it comes for tom mics and deserve to be recommended as the best microphone for toms and even for snares as well.
The second microphone is placed on the floor tom side of the kit.
For the mounted toms the ones above the kick drum you can use one or two mics.
The tom toms sound best when using a dynamic mic.
This placement offers a different kind of natural representation of the kit this time favoring the kick over the snare.
For me at least is vocals.
They are flexible enough to work in both live and studio applications.
Since these are not exact placements so you ll need to find what works for the kit the player and the goals of the session.
When placing drum mics it s important to remember that sticks and hands and cymbals will be falling very hard near them so make sure your mics aren t in the way of the player or a rogue ride cymbal.
If you use one mic place it between the two drums about 4 to 6 inches away from the heads figure 3 shows this placement option.
One thing i learned from michael stavrou s book mixing with your mind about recording drums in general is to find the best placement for the set in a room by walking around banging on the floor tom until you find the most resonant spot easier to do with two people one to bang and one to listen then placing the floor.
But i am testing five mics that can be used on floor toms and i ve tried to make it as useful as possible.
Experiment with placement by moving the mic over the front rim of the snare drum moving it more to the right side of the drum or over the drummers knee.
So each mic is positioned the same distance from the drum head as much as possible and pointing towards the centre of the drum.
You could take the front facing position and push the mic right up between the kick and snare.
