FOH Audio Engineer Chris Edrich mixes for some of the hardest-hitting artists in European metal. To optimise the experience for bands and audiences alike, Edrich chooses AUDIX microphones including the D6 on kick drum, i5 on snare top with D2 on snare bottom, D4 on toms, SCX1 on hi-hat, SCX25A studio condensers as overheads, and even the ADX60 boundary mic.
“With most of the bands I work with, drums and vocals are almost the only stage sound,” explained Edrich. “Guitarists, for example, are usually playing through modelling amps such as the Kemper or AxeFX, going straight into the console. So, there’s not a lot to bleed into the drum mics, but it also makes getting a great drum sound that much more important.”
“I use the D6 outside the kick, but inside the drum I have the ADX60, which is a boundary microphone,” he said. “It’s very tiny and easy to place, and gives me a nice, bright attack because it’s a condenser. It’s a great complement to the D6, which gives me the big body of the kick.”
Edrich also found an AUDIX mic known for its performance on toms was perfect for a source living just next door. “On the bottom of the snare, I use the D2, which people think of as a tom mic but is in fact great in this application. It has a lot of air but not too much aggressiveness in the high-mids,” he added.
For the hi-hat and accents such as splash cymbals, he prefers the SCX1, a compact small-diaphragm condenser. “I used to use the ADX51 for this, which also gave great results,” he added. “The SCX1 gives me similar results in an impossibly compact form. They’re fantastic.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise yet in Edrich’s kit is his pair of SCX25A which he says is right at home sitting above some of rock’s loudest live drummers. “Everything over 10kHz is crisp without being harsh. It’s a very produced sound I have to do almost no work to get,” he enthused. “As far as rejection goes onstage, they’re as good as a condenser can be. I can even compress the SCX25A a little bit, getting virtually no bleed from outside the drums. I realise they’re very well known as piano mics and sometimes used in audiophile reference tests, but they’re my favourite drum overheads ever. I think people should be more aware of them for that.”
