Recording - January 2018 - 33

Studio and stage

In my DP30/C review I mentioned using said mics on three
different drum kits: a modern Pearl Masters 4-piece set with a
22" kick, a smaller 1966 Slingerland Be-Bop 4-piece set with
a 20" kick, and a loose, low-tuned kit of a touring drummer
with a 22" kick and only one tom. Luckily I still have the use
of the first two of those kits; I put the DK7 kit to work on them,
both in the studio and live in a church sanctuary.
Bottom line, the mics in the DK7 kit do not play favorites. Each
mic in the set captures the kit pieces, cymbals, and the whole
picture of how they sit in their space in a very honest way.
Starting with the DM20, I placed three of them on the snare
and toms and the fourth on the snare's underside. Like its
predecessor, the cardioid DM20 is very focused; with the exception
of some hi-hat bleed on the snare mic, each of the mics captured its
source with a great tightness and precision-even boldness, since
they offer no rounding or softening of the sources.
While they do not add any sound or tone of their own,
they do benefit greatly from varying their angle, distance from
the head, and positioning. Farther away from the head offers
more of a big natural shell sound, and up close highlights the
slap, ring, and tone of the head in extreme detail. Punch and
bite of the stick hit can be controlled by positioning and angle.
Moving to overheads, despite their extended high end, the
SR25 mics capture cymbals with an amazing detail yet with
zero clinical harshness. Because of their speed, none of the
high end is smeared, sluggish, or lingering. They work great
in a spaced pair, focused straight down at the kit to offer a full
and accurate image. Depending on the player, kit, and style
of music you are mixing, you can use them as the centerpiece
of the drum mix and just add in kick and kit pieces as needed
for reinforcement, and they also work well to just add cymbal
presence into the mix behind the close-miked drums. They are
quite versatile.
The SR20LS was the only mic in the set that had a learning
curve for me; it took a little fiddling to find the best spot on
the kick. This mic, like many pencil condensers, works great
inside the kick, up by the batter head for beater definition.
It also works well on the outer kick head, photographing an
image of the bass drum in its space. Its does not work well
just poking into the sound hole as a dynamic bass drum mic
would. In that position, it is prone to burps and blasts of air.
Like all Earthworks models, it captures what it hears and
is not kick-bass focused. On the inside, it is all about the
thwack and attack, but there is very little boom. Outside, it
does a great job capturing natural classic rock and vintage
jazz tones. Live, I found it worked best in conjunction with a
second, more traditional kick-focused mic to add the exaggerated
boom. It pairs magically with the Yamaha SubKick!

OK to EQ

Often with mics of this nature, their biggest strength of utter
honesty can, for some users, be a weakness if the engineer is
used to drum mics that add tone to drums (as most dynamics
do). In past Earthworks reviews I've always pointed out that
these mics add nothing... so great sources sound great, and

crappy sources sound like, well, great detailed recordings of
crappy sources.
This is still true, but I want to add that each mic in the DK7
kit takes EQ like a champ, especially the DM20 on toms. With
a few simple EQ tweaks, I achieved thunderous results that
made my drummer ecstatic, both with what he heard in his
in-ear monitors and what was felt in the room on playback.

Wrap up

With this kit Earthworks lives up to their reputation for
capturing sources, in this case drum kits, with the utmost realism
in an utmost hi-fidelity way. Of the whole kit, I can't decide if
I am more enamored with the DM20 on toms or the SR25 on
overheads, and while I am still getting the hang of the SR20LS
on kick, the good news is-with the DK7 kit, you get it all.

PRICE: $2999
MORE FROM: Earthworks,
www.earthworksaudio.com

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