the t.bone DC 1500

I used the t.bone DC 1500 microphone set for alot of recording sessions and live gigs for over 3 years!
I learned with these mics how to record a drumset and found out that you can also create with cheaper microphones an acceptable sound.

The Set comes with a hardcase and the mountings for the mics, which is a very big plus! The mics are protected and you dont need any further accessories for the mics.

the mics on focus:

-BD300-
I only tested the BD300 on bassdrums. It offers a low-mid sound with no recognizable hi-kick. But with a little bit EQing and compression on your mixer you can make the sound more attackful and warmer than the original sound.
The quality of the material feels and looks heavy and almost undestroyable. Even the thread makes a really tough look.

-CD65-
This mic is made for toms and snares. For myself I like this mic more on toms because of the mid/bass tuned sound. unfortunately I miss the clarity here. If you use it on snares it sounds very flat and attackless.
A plus for this mic is the clip mount for the drums. You dont need an extra mic stand. Also the quality of the mic case isnt that bad! It can take alot of stick hits.

- EM500-
Is getting used as overheads for the drumkit (or other instruments).
The sound is not very clearly, more mid-lowish. I would set this mic more for percussions or acoustic guitars - ist not recommended for room recordings. The good thing is that the EM500 has installed a lo-cut filter- and a -10db switch.
Also this mic needs 48V phantom power! If you aint got this in your mixer, it´ll probalby getting hard to use these mics.

All in all i can say is that you cant make anything worng with this mic, when you´re in the beginning of exploring the world of recording.
Even if someone would ask me what kind of drum micset for beginners i could suggest, my answer would be: the DC 1500!

These are worth much more than the price point suggests. They sound great and in their own right you can do some great demoing just with this set.

However, with some careful adjustments, and if you can extend your budget to add 3 extra mics to the set (for approx. £190 extra), these can be used professionally for recording.

Firstly, when setting these up: I’d suggest getting an extra long extension for your headphones so you can sit in a different room listening carefully while the drummer plays. If you take the time to carefully place these mics and adjust the placements to taste, you can get a great sound out of them. These also need you to do more work EQ-ing, compressing, and either chopping up or gating (if gating, do it side chained to sample hits that have been accurately time-aligned and then muted - much more accurate) the Kick, Snare and Toms. This is it’s really worth the effort for learning a bunch of new tricks for getting the sound of each drum bang on in context.

My biggest gripe is with the overhead mics. Unfortunately they don’t seem to have enough headroom, so clip quite a bit. This is fine when just hitting K/Sn/Tm as it’s only the initial attack that gets clipped, which is quite a pleasant sound in context - but for cymbals it can create a slightly nasty effect, which in context isn’t great since the whole kit sound is getting clipped, sometimes quite badly.

To deal with this, I’d highly recommend either placing these a lot further away than you should [not an ideal solution] buying the t.bone EM 700 stereo pair (roughly £50 when I last checked + XLRs + stand, maybe £90 all in) to use instead of the overheads in this set. These have a better sound overall for OH mics, and more headroom - plus you can then use the included OH mics as a stereo room pair, in which case the clipping works in your favour and is less extreme since they’ll be at a distance. Although if you only have an 8-channel audio interface, having room mics isn’t really an option!

Additionally, if you have the budget, I’d highly recommend getting an SM57, SM58, or SM58 beta (my preference) to use for the top of your snare, with one of the included mics for the bottom. This will give you a better sound overall and free up a mic if you’re a three-tom drummer!

Overall, as I said, this is a great set in its own right for demoing - but if you spend a bit extra to add to the set, spend more time getting the setup just right, and get the EQs/etc right, you can use this same set to sound surprisingly professional. I’m happy with this purchase!

Just now we got to the recording of drums, the quality of the microphones is excellent, on the drums "Pearl session studio select" and snare "Tama SLP maple" the microphone for the bass drum transmits sound divinely, tom and floor Tom are perfectly readable, as well as excellent low frequencies even without processing, as for snare lacks clarity and high frequencies, but if you put it on the bottom of the drum to remove the sound of the string, it transmits it perfectly and also adds a lower volume. The overheads have frequency trimming, which helped a lot to get a bright sound of the cymbals. As a result, I am very pleased with the purchase for a small studio with a small budget, this is a great option, but I advise you to buy another Shure sm57 for snare for this set.

I bought these as a cheap second set of mics, just to use live, while switching use of using my 'decent' mics (AKG D112 kick mic, Rode NT overheads, Shure SM57 and SM58 on snares) in my newly set up studio.

I am frankly amazed at this mic set. from the moment I opened the nice padded carry case and picked them up - the tom and snare mics feel nice and reasonably heavy and robust, as good quality, vastly more expensive branded mics are. The clips are good quality and nice and secure when attached to the rims. The kick mic is extremely heavy and robust, feels great quality It also happens to fit through a kickport (which I was dismayed to find the industry standard AKG D112 wouldn't fit through!) which was very useful for me as I'd just fit one to my kick drum! The overheads by comparison are very tiny (the smallest I've seen) and lightweight, nicely unobtrusive over the kit. They would also make a nice unobtrusive hi hat mic...

Sound wise I was immediately impressed with this set! The kick mic is awesome, it has a larger diaphragm and more bottom end than most (I have achieved a very beefy sound through my band's 400w front of house PA speakers at gigs without using the extra subwoofer speaker!), and I think equally on a par with the AKGD112 (although it is not quite as defined so you may need to EQ it a little more to get a 'clickier' sound. The tom/snare mics sound great on toms, nice and warm but with plenty of punch still, although not comparable to an sm57/8 when used on snare if you're after a meaty crack (but you can hardly expect that at this price can you).- live, you can still get a pretty good sound from these on snare especially if you clip it to the underneath pointing right at the snare wires! The overheads are good too, and have unexpected roll-off toggle switches on the side. Again not as impressive my Rode NT's at recreating the cymbals but I think each of my Rode's cost as much as this whole set. These overheads are certainly usable and again unexpectedly good at this price point.

Overall I couldn't recommend this set enough to anyone wanting a decent sounding, good quality, comprehensive whole set of drum mics for live use (I am yet to record significantly with these [they sounded great unmixed but haven't spent time mixing with them] but reckon they'd be fine for project studios, demos, maybe not professional recordings for commercial release - maybe see other reviews from people who've recorded with them ) at a frankly crazily low price - basically for the price of one or two decent mics you can get this whole set. They're so cheap, you could just buy them for the great kick & tom mics!