I've read where some suggest recording trumpet with a kickdrum mic
since those mics are supposed to be built to handle high SPL's. Well,
has anyone reading this actually tried this? How did it sound?

Well,
has anyone reading this actually tried this? How did it sound?

I have had good luck with a Beyer M380. I actually use it more for saxophone
than kick drums. I don't believe they're in production anymore, but you might
find one on ebay.


Joe Egan
EMP
Colchester, VT
www.eganmedia.com

Doc wrote:

I've read where some suggest recording trumpet with a kickdrum mic
since those mics are supposed to be built to handle high SPL's. Well,
has anyone reading this actually tried this? How did it sound?

It's hard to answer. "Kick-drum mic" is a very broad and vague
term. The AKG D-112 is designed for kick-drum use. It has a
very distinctive frequency response, which can be very good
for kick-drum. I would never consider using it for trumpet.

The ElectroVoice RE-20 (and its sibling the PL-20) are excellent
kick-drum mics, and are also quite common as vocal mics,
expecially for spoken-word recordings. They are also excellent
for trumpet. As is their smaller cousin, the PL-10 (which is
NOT the sibling of the RE-10). The Shure SM-57 is a good general-
purpose mic which can be very good (but perhaps not excellent)
for trumpet. The Sennheiser MD-421 is popular for drums, can
handle high SPLs, and is a great choice for any brass instrument
or saxophone.

You can often get a much better sound from a trumpet if you record
it with the microphone several feet away, in which case is is
less important to be concerned with SPL than if you mic it a few
inches from the bell.

It's not as simple as it might appear from the wording of the
question.