Building A Drum Room Studio

Recently it has become more and more trending to consider having a personal home studio – besides it is convenient and saves time, it actually can help you to improve your personal skills, is easily reachable any time and in terms of money, it will not bite your wallet!

However, building up your personal home studio (if willing to make it universal) requires plenty of different equipment, devices and etc. depending on the style you are about to work on music, interests, such as whether you are planning to record vocals and sounds etc. Therefore, at first you have to finalize your interests and goals and then dig up for ordering certain items. 

Best Drum Room Microphones

Anyway, when everything is said and done, we know how difficult it can be to look after drum room mic – despite the fact, recording drum sounds might be superbly hard due to different sort of types of the drums, there is a huge variety of microphones too for recording drums at home, thus managing and solving out which would be perfect choice can be really hard. 

All in all, please let us present you the greatest drum room mic available in the market in 2020! Please be noted that it will be at some point combined with the types of the drums, therefore making sure that if you have got certain equipment on your list, it would be perfectly suited for recording (due to the actual differences in the sounds due to the instruments).

Overhead / Room Mics

Shure KSM137

It shall be stated that overhead or room mics are nothing, but the standard solution for recording up your drums. To simplify, basically you have two channels to record an entire kit. Since their essential purpose is to make sure they will provide a balanced stereo image of the drum kit in overall, they most of the time are paired with condenser mics (depending on the personal wishes, they might be selected as the large or smaller ones).  

However, if you are struggling with your personal budget and do have clear limits on them, we may say that they could be too expensive for you. So, for us as an average / middle – class consumers, it would be possibly more beneficial to look after others from the same brands in line.

Kick Drum Mics

The kick drum shall definitely be considered as the most important element of the kit, that is hardly possible to record it clearly and does not have adequate coverage. For taking care of such recordings, the set – up of three channels would be recommended, leading with more microphone sets exclusively for kick drums. 

AKG D112

Just like with any bass instrument, with kick drums, a specific type of dynamic is typically used, that has a frequency response tailored to the low-end. In these cases it is highly recommended to use the AKG D112 model allowing to access the greatest results possible, which would give you the maximum satisfaction possible. 

Snare Mics

Kick drums are followed with other superbly important elements out of the whole kit, which is snare. It would lead in a total four channel set – up for the recording, which would definitely allow you to reach the maximum quality available. 

Shure SM57

Most commonly it is believed that snare is good enough to be adjusted alongside with other already set – up channels, but that is not recommended. Most frequently, throughout the studio set – ups, one specific microphone is used for snare typically. 

Of course, we realize that setting – up a personal home studio on a low budget might be too difficult to have that many different kinds of things settled down, but we assure, that such investment is highly recommended, making sure that throughout the final deliverable you would be satisfied with the outcome. Therefore, it is believed and by the pros and by the ones, who are sharing their personal references, that specifically Shure SM57 microphone works the best on that site and would be more than highly recommended. 

Alongside with it you would receive a possibility to handle loud volumes without any sort of distortion. In order to minimize bleed from other drums and in this way to be capable of handling more gain before feedback, tight cardioid patterns will come in for help. Durable casing will be applied in order to sustain heavy beatings without possibly suffering damages all over and getting out of the order while playing record other sounds too. However, all in all, the SM57 model is simply incredible when trying to work on snares. This is truly the right model to consider for drum room mic.

Hi-Hat Mics

It is often met that alongside snares, hi-hat drum kits are solely most important out of them all. Well, it really depends on the intensity of the instruments applied, but in some certain cases this sort of discussion would lead to basically anywhere. 

However, to state a fact, that hi-hat requires as a kit their personal microphone – well, that is the idea, which has to be confirmed. It truly deserves their own one due to the managing of the sounds and making sure they would not damage one to another. In this particular case nothing but cardioid small diaphragm condenser would be highly appreciated due to its’ possibility to capture high frequency details at the excellence and of capability to avoid and reject if noticed the off-axis sounds from other instruments.

Neumann KM184

Talking into the consideration of exact companies and their peculiarities, we believe it would be safe to say that perfect microphone for hi-hat recording would be Neumann KM184, which is not that cheap, but definitely worth your time at least to consider. However, if you still feel it might be too expensive, we recommend to consider other alternatives stated in the article or possibly think about recording sounds in different manners using universal drum room mic.

Tom Mics

SM57

Due to their capability of being covered by the overhead / room mics, in the majority of the cases additional set – up of the microphone for tom specifically is not needed. You would receive a decent outcome out of it anyway, yet if willing to make it superbly professional and still considering stacking up your home studio in a professional manner, then the SM57 model, which was described previously might be an option. 

Sennheiser MD421

As an alternative many people suggest going for drum room mic which would allow reaching a rounder sound, greater overall quality by using classic dynamic microphones, as Sennheiser MD421. 

However, there is a highly noticeable downturn regarding those, taking into consideration price firstly. For a low budget home studio they might seem too expensive and on the other hand in particular cases you might need more than one to actually be able to record and fully deliver it. It is sort of a hassle, at the end of the day, to add another two or three microphone stands to an already crowded room taking into consideration all the set – ups previously stated. 

Sennheiser E604

Personally, we would recommend the optimum solution of Sennheiser E604, which is great as mounts to the rim of tom and standing up cases become not needed.

Other Cymbal Mics

The same as with toms, to cymbal situation is applied without any changes. Music engineers most commonly avoid using exceptional microphones in order to make sure these sounds would be recorded. Trying to get a touch of the ride or crash out of the cymbals individually is not necessary as overhead / room mics tend to have great full coverage out of them individually. 

Despite the fact, if, however, you want it to make it superbly professional for you, a small diaphragm condenser microphone might be an option, but keep in mind that in some certain cases that would be too extra for the whole kit.

Conclusion

Taking into consideration all the steps taken into above, if willing to have all the kit of drums recorded properly, it seems that you will be suited with the necessity of having at least three to four microphone channels settled down. In this particular case, depending on your budget for setting up home studio, it might be costly and in some certain cases, additional investments would be needed to make sure that coverage would not be damaged throughout playing that much drums at once.

In these particular cases, we believe that recording separately could be an option, even though it would take more time, but you would save up financial costs summing up the purchases of drum room mics. All in all, you have to truly consider the necessity and if feeling that many microphones would not be a game changer for you, you may stay to three microphones, which would be the optimum solution. Have fun.