Microphone shootout: Taiko edition!

For our design-your-own shootout, I decided to look into something that’s always been a mystery to me--recording taiko drums. Even looking on the internet, there aren’t a lot of professional articles at all about how, or what microphones to use, in order to properly capture the sound on a taiko drum The sound itself consists of the sound of the bachi hitting the head, as well as the low boom creating from the large drum. This can be really hard to capture all the sounds at once, so I’m going to go through a lot of different microphones to see which ones are best, and what combination of microphones would create the full range of sounds produced by the drum.

Before I got in the studio, I looked up what I could about what other people had used in order to record their taiko drums. I’ve also given it a few tries in the past, but so far I haven’t come up with a great set-up. One of the resources I found was an article that captured taiko for a video game. They themselves said they mostly placed the microphones by ear. The most important thing for them was to capture the very low sounds of the drum, and as such placed both up close and room mics. The mics they used were the Neumann U87s, KM86s, and Sennheiser 421s. Definitely a lot of condenser mics. You can find the article here!

After that one article, I couldn’t find much more than some comment threads on sites such as Geatslutz and SweetWater. A lot of these communities reinforced the use of the large condenser microphones. A lot of people put the mic a bit farther away from the drum (3 feet or so) and the use of a close mic is often disputed. Ambience and a room mic is recommended as well to achieve the full sound of the drum. Also, as for polar pattern, omni was reoccmended to help out with recording the low end of the sound. You can find a few comment threadshere and here!
From this research, I will create my shootout. I went to choose 6 microphones to test out. I’m curious about the close mic controversy, and definitely want to try all the microphones out at the close miked position. I will also test each about 3-5 ft away. Hopefully, this will help me decide which microphone works best to capture the sound of the stick on the head, as well as what could be used from a distance to properly capture the low frequencies. Here are the microphones I will use:
-SM57 (it works on snare, will it work on taiko?)
​-Sennheiser E602 (I want to try out a kick drum mic to see if it would be accurate)
-Sennheiser E604 (How about a tom-tom mic?)
-Neumann U87 (I’ve always had success with this microphone)
-Royer R122 (The close distance is only about 1 ft away from the head to protect the mic)
​
After testing each one (with my gracious friend, Anthony Miozzi, playing the taiko), I can definitely hear a lot of differences in each mic! The SM57 wasn't too great of a mic to use for taiko. You could hear the rim clicks alright, but the sound of the taiko was all attack. There wasn't much pitch in the sound or any rumble from the drum. It didn't get any better at the longer distance; it sounded even worse for the drum. There was almost not low end or boom, it was just all the stick hitting the drum.

The next microphone I tried out was the Sennheiser E602. This was an improvement on the SM57; the rim clicks sounded a bit thinner, but overall the sound of the taiko was a lot better. The taiko sounded round and had a kick to it; there was a lot more low end in the sound and had a bit less attack. From farther away, the sound changed a lot. Now the sound is more like the SM57; there isn't a lot of pitch in the sound of the drum anymore, and it sounds more like just attack and rumble got captured. The most prominent sound is that of the stick hitting the head of the drum.

The Sennheiser E609 was up next. This microphone captured a lot more mid-range and attack than the 602, which makes sense since it's a tom mic and not a bass mic. It has a little less boom than the 602. It is a nice mic when it's close miked, however, from far away it sounded pretty awful. The only thing you can hear is attack, but with no pitch or any sound of the drum to go along with it. Even the sound of the stick on the head wasn't there. The clicks also sound very thin, and all around it sounds thuddy.

The U87 was next on my list, and it had been recommended on a lot of the websites I researched. However, I wasn't that impressed by it at the close mic position. It sported a lot of attack with even less boom and sound of the drum than the SM57. However, it made up when it was placed at the farther distance. Here, it sounded very nice; it recorded a nice middle ground between some attack, but also a bit of the pitch of the drum. There wasn't a lot of rumble in the microphone, but the rim clicks sounded pretty good as well. This is probably the best all-around microphone at the farther position.

The last microphone was the ribbon, the Royer R122. For the close miked position, I took it a foot back so as not to hurt the ribbon at all with how loud the taiko was. This was the microphone I was surprised at the most. I was sure it was going to capture the rim clicks as well as the attack of the drum very well, and it did that at both positions. However, the drum also sounded very good at both positions as well. The drum is very round, and the only thing it doesn't really capture is the low and boomy side of the drum. 

Overall, the microphones that stood out to me as being the best for close position are the E602, E609, and the Royer R122 at the distance of one foot. For the farther away position, the mics that were the best were the U87, the Royer, and the E602 if you are going for a dirtier sound. However, a lot of these microphones work our depending on what kind of sound you want. The taiko is such a complex sound that you would have to combine a lot of these microphones in order to get the whole sound. The attack was captured well by the SM57 and the E602. The Royer excelled in an all around sound; the rim clicks sounded awesome and the drum also sounded pretty good on this mic, but the taiko sound was very much a pitch. The E602 captured what the drum sounds like without the pitch of the drum being prominent. So, as you can see, many microphones do many different things. If I were to choose a set up from these microphones after this shootout, I would do a pair of Royer R122s at a distance of 4 feet to capture the rim clicks and the nice attack of the drum, a pair of U87s spaced a little closer (3 feet or so) to capture a lot of the boom and rumble of the drum with a bit of the pitch in there, and probably an E602 or two close miked in order to capture a lot of the sound of the stick on the head of the drum and to balance out the pitch of the drum in the Royers.