Shure DMK57-52 Drum Mic Kit  

I've used these for snares, I don't know about these being on toms but they sound great on snares, the kick mic is awesome! big boom! the only thing is mounting them on drums, bad Idea, the grille rattles a lot, You'd have to use a boom mic stand to put the up close.

The Shure Drum Mic Package is an excellent choice for any style of music to record. Although it makes my band's low tuned hardcore drums sound great, in a full band mix, drum solos up for recording are made easy. The Shure Beta 52 makes for a nice punchy kick drum and the SM 57s are universal mics that can be used to mic either side of the snare, toms, or hi hat. My recording studio is also my practice space and they can double as vocal mics. this is an all around good beginning mic set

As an engineer in live and studio situations, I have never been in a situation where we didn't have an extra 57 to save the day, or the ability to use the 52 on the kick or a bass cab. These mics are everywhere and are quite universal to the world of sound engineering... so the idea here is that if you're going to get them at some point anyway, then why not save a hundred bucks and get them altogether?!  The mic clips aren't good for 57s, since they are slightly larger than something like an e604, so you might want to invest in some stands dedicated stands eventually. This is a great mic package for starting a small home setup that requires drum miking. These mics will still be very helpful for other applications in case you consider upgrading. The 57s are the swiss army knives. The 52s tend to be used for more bass-oriented applications, although I find that if there is something that innately has a lot of bass frequencies that accentuating it is overdoing it. Each to his own!

Getting these 4 mics for less than four bills is the best deal out of this package.  Using the mics with the drum mounts is when you run into problems. First, SM 57s weren't designed to be mounted directly to a drum, and old school studio cats will always say "never have any part of the mic or the stand touch any part of the drum kit." SM 57s have loose grilles.  When these mics are mounted to the toms, the vibration transfers from the tom, through the mount, and eventually to the mic. This vibration will rattle the grill and cause a very audible and awful "farting" sound. If it were not for the grille being loose, there would be no problem. Shure has a fix for this; it involves gluing the grill to the screen with Duco Cement.  SM 57s are great mics and sound best on a floor stand, because you have greater positioning flexibility and most importantly the mics aren?t touching the kit.

Shure has fantastic quality microphones at a great price. The SM57s are nearly indestructible, and the Beta 52 has never failed me. This drum mic package does have it's problems though- The mounts take time to set up. That means if your on a live stage and trying to change them fast, it's very difficult. The mics are somewhat large for a live sound setup as well. The mics are fantastic for the price, but lack a certain "depth" to the sound on many drums (especially those that are poorly tuned, which you encounter often as a sound engineer). If you have the money save up for an Audix DP 5A Drum mic kit. The sound is way better, and the D6 blows the Beta 52 out of the water, but they are also in excess of $600 for the same number of mics. The SM57 is also a more "wide" snare mic than the Audix i5 in my opinion. I now use my SM57s as guitar cab mics (fantastic) and the Beta 52 as a bass cab mic (fantastic). The Audix kit replaced them as my drum mics!