Shure Microphone technique User Manual

A Shure Educational Publication

MICROPHONE
TECHNIQUES

DRUMS

1

Microphone Techniques

for

DRUMS

GENERAL RULES

Microphone technique is largely a matter of personal taste — whatever method
sounds right
microphone to use on any particular instrument. There is also no one ideal way to place a
microphone. Place the microphone to get the sound you want. However, the desired sound
can often be achieved more quickly and consistently by understanding basic microphone
characteristics, sound-radiation properties of musical instruments, and acoustic
fundamentals.

reinforcement.

for the particular instrument, musician, and song is right. There is no one ideal

Here are some suggestions to follow when miking musical instruments for sound

• Try to get the sound source (instrument, voice, or amplifier) to sound good acoustically
(“live”) before miking it.

• Use a microphone with a frequency response that is limited to the frequency range
of the instrument, if possible, or filter out frequencies below the lowest fundamental
frequency of the instrument.

• To determine a good starting microphone position, try closing one ear with your finger.
Listen to the sound source with the other ear and move around until you find a spot
that sounds good. Put the microphone there. However, this may not be practical (or
healthy) for extremely close placement near loud sources.

• The closer a microphone is to a sound source, the louder the sound source is
compared to reverberation and ambient noise. Also, the Potential Acoustic Gain is
increased — that is, the system can produce more level before feedback occurs.
Each time the distance between the microphone and sound source is halved, the
sound pressure level at the microphone (and hence the system) will increase by 6 dB.

(Inverse Square Law)

Drums

3

Microphone Techniques

for

DRUMS

• Place the microphone only as close as necessary. Too close a placement can color the
sound source’s tone quality (timbre), by picking up only one part of the instrument.
Be aware of Proximity Effect with unidirectional microphones and use bass rolloff if
necessary.

• Use as few microphones as are necessary to get a good sound. To do that, you can
often pick up two or more sound sources with one microphone. Remember: every
time the number of microphones doubles, the Potential Acoustic Gain of the sound
system decreases by 3 dB. This means that the volume level of the system must be
turned down for every extra mic added in order to prevent feedback. In addition, the
amount of noise picked up increases as does the likelihood of interference effects
such as comb-filtering.

• When multiple microphones are used, the distance between microphones should be
at least three times the distance from each microphone to its intended sound source.
This will help eliminate phase cancellation. For example, if two microphones are each
placed one foot from their sound sources, the distance between the microphones
should be at least three feet. (3 to 1 Rule)

• To reduce feedback and pickup of unwanted sounds:

1) place microphone as close as practical to desired sound source

2) place microphone as far as practical from unwanted sound

sources such as loudspeakers and other instruments

3) aim unidirectional microphone toward desired sound source (on-axis)

4) aim unidirectional microphone away from undesired sound source

(180 degrees off-axis for cardioid, 126 degrees off-axis for supercardioid)

5) use minimum number of microphones

• If the sound from your loudspeakers is distorted even though you did not exceed a
normal mixer level, the microphone signal may be overloading your mixer’s input.
To correct this situation, use an in-line attenuator (such as the Shure A15AS), or use
the input attenuator on your mixer to reduce the signal level from the microphone.

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