MELBOURNE, Australia – As James Taylor and Carole King kick off their Troubadour Reunion Tour, they are relying on the knowledge and experience of FOH sound engineer David Morgan and his Earthworks DFK1 Drum FullKit microphone arsenal.
It can be argued that miking a drum kit is both a science and an art. If you cut corners here, you inevitably find yourself listening to someone pounding on trashcans. Along with mic placement, selection of the microphones is important. If the microphones can't handle the instrument's sharp attack transients, the best frequency response in the world means very little.
Morgan has more than 30 years of service to the professional touring side of the business, mixing for the Doobie Brothers, Paul Simon, Bette Midler, Lionel Richie and Steely Dan to name a few. He's also received eight TEC Award nominations and has won once.
With credits like these, he can use any microphones he wants. When it came to miking session drummer and producer Russell Kunkel's drums on this tour, he chose the Earthworks DFK1, which includes four DP30/C DrumPeriscope mics, one DP25/C microphone, two SR40 High Definition Microphones and two SR25s.
"Close miking drums is always a challenge," Morgan said, "and it's easy to lose the natural sound of the drum to the coloration of the microphone, since much of this is the result of proximity effect and/or skewed frequency response in an effort to tighten up the polar pattern.
"When I first started using the DP30s on toms, I was pleased to discover that the microphones' response to off-axis information actually made the drums sound far more natural than mics that rely on rejecting everything around them. By opening the pattern of the microphone to the surrounding ambient field, you achieve a far more realistic sound.
"If the mic's frequency response is true-as it is with the Earthworks mics-across the entire 180-degree pattern, dead on everywhere, the result becomes the illusion that you're actually listening to a drummer playing right in front of you as opposed to coming through a PA system."
"When I first heard the Earthworks mics through the PA," he continued, "I thought, ‘my God, we just lost the box and we are listening to drums.' For any engineer who hears these mics, I believe that will be their first reaction. In terms of their ability to handle the sharp attack transients characteristic of a drum, I think these are the most accurate and natural sounding mics you're likely to find for sound reinforcement use."
Morgan reports that he has the Earthworks DP25/C placed on the snare drum, positioned roughly three fingers above the instrument's top head, with the two SR40 High Definition mics serving as overheads and placed about two feet over the drum kit. He also has one of the two SR25 microphones underneath the ride cymbal and the other stationed at the hi-hat.
"We love the sound from the DP25/C's wide cardioid pattern on the snare," said Morgan. "Russell plays a lot with brushes and sidestick and this mic picks up those sounds beautifully. We get so much detail out of the snare with this mic-we're very, very pleased."
As for the Earthworks SR40s, "we're extremely happy with them," Morgan said. "They are amazingly good drum overhead mics, and we couldn't be happier with their performance. There is a depth and realism to their sound that I have never experienced with any other product in this application."
While the James Taylor and Carole King tour is just getting started-it kicked off in Melbourne, Australia March 26 and comes to the U.S. in early May-Morgan described Russell Kunkel's reaction to the Earthworks mics during the rehearsals.
"Ultimately, we judge everything by how happy the drummer is with his sound," Morgan explained. "Russell was initially skeptical about using microphones other than the one's he's most familiar with, but after hearing about them from his friend Steve Gadd and other engineers and producers, he became more open to the idea.
"But the real change came during the second or third day of rehearsals, during which Russell came up to me and said, ‘You gotta come and hear my in-ear mix. These mics sound amazing. You gotta hear this!' He was so excited. At this point, I knew he was a full-blown believer."
For more information, please visit www.earthworksaudio.com.
