frequency range

[pidoca]

gday fellow congaplayers.

I am wanting to know what the frequency range of congas and bongos. Ranging from the 10inch to the 13inch congas.

I am wanting to buy new mics and want to match the mics to the frequency range of the congas and bongos.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

thank you
god bless
pidoca
cabrita music

[Tonio]

You don't necessarily need to match the frequency on bongos, congas, or any intrument for that matter. As long as you are in the instruments range that you want to capture.
Congas are anywhere from 100hz to about12khz, Bongos are higher from about 200hz to 18khz. Though there is lower and higher frequencies of the fundamental notes, you shouldn't be too worried about the whole spectrum.

What are you trying to do? Record or for live purposes?
Just for congas depending on how its captured(w/ mikes) it could make a big difference. Is it one mike for each drum? Quinto, Segun, Tumba sepreate or one for all of them? Each drum has its fundamental tones.Plus you need to consider the slaps and open tones ect. Open tones on quinto is around 500 to 1khz. The slap is around 800 to 10khz ro so.

For live situations you can use any standard dynamic mike e.g. Shure sm57, 58. Bongos also.
But for recording in a studio or such you may want to go for a small diameter condensor mike e.g SM81 or the like for bongos. AT 3000 or 4000 series are good also.

It all really depends on what you are trying to do.

Do you have any budget, and is there any mikes in mind?

T

[pidoca]

hi tonio,

I am going to be buying some mics in the near future, as for a budget, I havent got one at the moment, but as I have been doing research, there seems to be so many mics from shure, CAD, Beyer, A-T, senheiser, EV, Audio Tech, AKG and Audix etccc. There are profesional percussionists endorsing all of them.

At the end of the day a mic is a mic, and they all do the same thing. The mics will be used for live purposes only as usually in studios they have their own mics. All of the above manufactures say they have percussion specific mics, But their frequency range seem to vary some what.

I want to have one mic for each instrument, i.e. one for each conga, bongos, toys, chimes. And the mic not be too big.

Thank you
Richard Cabrita cabrita music

[Tonio]

Richard,
live ok. There is alot of mics out there!!
For congas I would suggest Sm57($80), Audix D2-Qinto and segun, D3 tumba(they might have a package deal, seperately about $150?). Or you can try Senn e609, e604 e609 is really meant for guitar cabs, but the predecessor 504 was used alot for congas. Now there is two models-black, and silver under the e609. the silver is suppossed to be a better emulation of the old 504 and cheaper $99. 3604 is nice, real small and great for congas. Sorry these are US prices, hopefully you could find some down under for similar prices. You could go for EV's also, the 468 is nice for congas all around., kinda pricey though @$200.
I haven't much heard the CAD's mikes yet. AKG is a good mfg, though I would'nt go for their sub $400 stuff. Beyer's are great, but expensive and hard to get(at least here in the US). They are known for their ribbon mikes, but that shouldn't be a consideration for percussion -live. m201/m88 would be good, I don't know much about the other dynamics.
For bongos and chimes, toys look for AT 4041@$200, AT3031@150? or even the Pro37r . Any small diaphram condensor should be good. Sm81, BG4.1. m201 would be good for bongos, but not the chimes, toys.
The SM81 is a standard mic, you probably see them alot for live and in the studio. @$320 might be pricey, but it will last you a lifetime, they are great for just about anything, and have many variables, 3 low pass switches, attenuation switch.
I did suggest them for bongos and other perc, but they are even good for congas, acoustic guitar, piano, drum overheads, etc.. If your'e budget doesn't allow for that look into AT's or Studio projects C4, Rode NT4 etc..SP and Rodes (hey made in Australia) are rather new to the scene, but make good products.
Most of the mics I noted are industry standard, so they won't fail you. Its a matter of personal tastes and budget. There is alot of new products out there that I may not be familiar with.

Good luck, and if you have any more questions, I can definately try to help you .

T

[pidoca]

thank you, You have been of great assistance.

God bless
Richard cabritacabrita music

[zaragemca]

It looks like Tonio have done a lot of homework,congratulation,just to point out that in the equation it is important to find out which is going to be the equalization of the system,since the reproduction of the frequencies obtained by the mic's,need to be matched with a good equalizer set up,otherwise it wouldn't obtain the best results out the mic's.



Edited By zaragemca on 1085584631