the t.bone DC 1000

This drum mic set is really, really great! Don’t get too hung up on the quality of the sound and all that jazz . That might be something for recording engineers but, for live sound they make a noise and sound fine, are robust and so easy to install. The clips are also very good. I over-tightened one trying to fit the bass mic to the rim of a kick drum and thought it was broken but all that was wrong was that there is a small e-clip holding the screw in place on the moving part of the bracket and that had been pushed off (and lost on stage somewhere) … so, it is an easy fix for a few pence with another e-clip. All of the mics respond really well to high, mid and low EQ tweeks (you can hear the changes quite markedly) and they’ll certainly pick up all the finer nuances and ringing on a drum so, they have a good range. The kick drum mic is also fine and produces the crack well rather than being boomy ... what more do you want to get the sound of that kick drum out front? The four top of kit mics are made of some really tough resin plastic which is brilliant because they’re light enough to fix in place yet have enough substance to take a hit. The Bass mic is metal cased and relatively heavy enough to sit still. I love this drum mic set … it’s always in my PA kit should it be needed and it does the job very well … I Just wish there was a clamp for the kick mic. I got an extra clamp and I fit the bass mic to the leg of a cymbal stand and aim it at the bass drum port hole.

I've used e604's primarily on drums for both live sound and studio recording with the college I'm at and the clip on style rim mounts made it easy to set up. However these aren't clip on mics like the e604's, these clamp on instead which resulted in a problem when trying to attach to my snare (Tama SLP Power Maple) as it would only clamp on a diagonal rather than being vertical so a I had to use a mic stand instead, all other drums were fine.

The sound from these however is not unlike the e604's, they have a very good definition of stick attack and drum tone albeit it a bit loose on the resonance after the hit but with simple processing these can easily sound as good as anything you'd hear on an album.

My only real issue with them is the clamps themselves. The clamps are stylistic and curve inwards at the bottom then outwards at the top, this created a problem as I would usually have them closer to the heads for certain styles but in doing so (especially on rack toms) the mic ends up to close to the drum. The solution to this was to place the mics higher up the clamp (which is still a bit too far in for a 10" tom) and place them more on axis than usual which isn't the exact sound I desired from placement.

These are also more versatile than just drum mics, I've use both the CD55 and BD-200 to record guitars and bass with a very good result.

Overall these are great sounding mics on a budget and while a better clamp design makes it somewhat ill-efficient to what it is capable of you can't go far wrong with them. They are very well built, especially the BD-200, sound better than most other mic packs below £150 and are versatile enough to work on other instruments which is handy if your on a budget and can't afford a mic for each situation.