Drum Mic Choking My Tom

[drumminjc]

Greetings PDF!

I've been using Shure drum mics for quite some time and have a new issue that has me a bit stumped. Most of my kits consisted of toms 10-18 and on a recent order, I opted to get an 8" tom with my set. It wasn't until changing out drumheads yesterday that I discovered that my Shure Beta 98AD/C is choking the life out of my tom. It was very resonant before mounting the mic to the drum and once I did, it was a very short/choked sound. Almost no tone at all. Given the size of these microphones, is there possibly another mount I could get that would allow the drum to resonate a bit more freely? The drum is a 7x8 cherry mahogany shell running clear G2/G1 heads.

[MitchLyons]

Just get a stand or clamp it to the tom stand.

[dudme]

Just get a stand or clamp it to the tom stand.

+1
Or could you mount it to the adjacent tom rim? That might put too much dampening on the other tom, but it's worth trying. Unless of course you are doing the one up two down setup or something similar.

[drumminjc]

Just get a stand or clamp it to the tom stand.

+1
Or could you mount it to the adjacent tom rim? That might put too much dampening on the other tom, but it's worth trying. Unless of course you are doing the one up two down setup or something similar.

I ended up mounting it to the tom stand arm. The drum didn't really seem to open up as much as I anticipated. I may end up having to use a single ply batter head instead of the clear G2 that's on it now.

[MitchLyons]

I ended up mounting it to the tom stand arm. The drum didn't really seem to open up as much as I anticipated. I may end up having to use a single ply batter head instead of the clear G2 that's on it now.

That’ll make the biggest difference for sure. 8” toms need to breathe, so a single ply head will definitely work out best in terms of opening up.

[sinuatus]

Is it really necessary for DW to cram six lugs per side on an 8 inch tom?