Hi Rick,

I understand why you want to do this, having played played tabla with a rock band and live with other amplified instruments, BUT..

putting the mics inside the tablas????? first of all you wouldn't get the sound with a cable rammed between the head and the rim and secondly i think you couldrun into all kinds of trouble just taking the heads off and putting them on again (unless you are very experienced or knowsomeone who is). your best bet is to get 1 or 2 of the small condenser mics that are kicking around these days (AKG makes good ones). they have clips which attach to the strans of your tablas and are pretty good for close-micing quiet hand drums. These mics come with small AA battery preamps and have plenty of gain. have a look into this and take yr tablas into a shop to try em out.

good luck!

brian

I'm a tabla player and a full time sound guy, so I understand your frustrations.

I would advise against putting mics inside of the tablas for two reasons. One, you run the risk of ruining your drums by drilling holes and mounting stuff inside them. And two, I suspect (though I'm not sure) that with an internal mic you would loose a lot of the qualitys of the non resonant slapping strokes (te re ke te, kat ect.) and they would end up sounding muffled insted of crisp.

Condenser mics are great for recording but they can pose problems in live situations because they are more prone to feedback, especially if you have to turn them up loud. My favorite solution for live situations is one single dynamic mic on a short boom stand placed between the two drums about 6-8 inches above the heads. This placement picks up both drums nicely and keeps it out of the way of the players hands. My favorite mic for this so far is the Sure Beta 57, the old standard Sure SM57 is also a decent choice.

I would love to hear what solutions other people have come up with

I believe Karsh Kale has worked out some kind of contraption with mics inside the tabla..so you might want to get in touch with him.

And post your experiences, if ever you try mik'ing the tabla. I think there is a lot of scope there for expirementation and sound exploration.

On a sidenote, check this academic thesis :

www.cs.princeton.edu/sound/r...ndex.swf

might start the wheels turning... :)

nikhil

My tabla player and I are trying various methods for getting his tablas into the PA. We've tried SM57's, an AKG D112, AKG C-1000's... and we have not achieved the sound that we really want. This week we're going to experiment with K&K Sound Sweet Spots. I use K&K Sound pickups on all of my acoustic instruments and I love them. I even made a stomp box with a K&K classic double. So... maybe there's a way to get them to work with tablas, udus, etc.

We've got 900 watts to play with, so we're going to find any way possible to get the tablas to rattle the rafters.

If you are looking for a good reliable condencer mic the AKG 535 is a great choice for percussion (or any acoustic instrument for that matter). It's a little pricey $300-400 but woth every penny.

Anyone had any more experience with this in a while?

I am again, working on making the internal mics work better for the tablas...

Unable to get the small "bongo" like knock out of the Dyan or tabla drum, I have decided that after the internal dynamic mic, an external treatment is necessary
to get the sound as close to normal tabla as possible, (although this is never going to be the case ONLY using internal mics- the idea of the internal is to achieve an "electric" tabla sound, mainly for volume and power, also to be able to effect the sound of the drum using delays, compressors, etc etc like electric guitar players do.

So far, I have just been experimenting with external pre amps, and a POD, to have a lot of options available for sound treatment. It has been working great to tweak out the bongo like sound that is SO annoying and pull more tone, as we all know is the main defining characteristic of 'Na.' Anyway, it sounds MUCh better and I believe that this is closer to what Karsh Kale and Talvin Singh etc are doing.

I have been using a set of bolt tuned tablas as my prototype, so it is easy to get the heads on and off and I am not concerned about drilling and redrilling into the shells, as once I settle, I will buy a newer bolt tuned set to do it cleanly.

Also, drilling holes, small ones will not ruin the sound of the drums. I am about to experiment with a couple of B-Band Ukko mics that are pick up mics that stick to the inside of the shell and then drill a small small hole to pass the wire through to the outside, which then attaches to a pre amp made for the Ukko mic. Pekka at B-Band, the owner, said he doubted the ukko will work on the small tabla, the dayan, as the shell is so thick and does not resonate like a tom or a thinner drum would, but alas, I am going to give it a shot, while leaving my other mics inside for comparison.

Condensor mics, should in my opinion, not even be considered. I have tried and because of the sealed nature of the shells, no air holes, the mics pick up too much unwanted noises...or should I say, they produce too many negative tones. The bongo type "knock" is even more accentuated and they sound like the mic is over powered while its actually not running hot. Anyway, It was a very unpleasant sound. I will say, condensors sound GREAT in udu's and with this idea of running them through pedals and effects, they would sound great in this same vein.

Dynamics work better for the application, and the mic choices I have in there currently are the mics Karsh is using as he talked about it in an interview but thats all he gave away.

Anyway, hope this helps if anyone is still interested!

**I will say, to achieve a true tabla sound, as they sound without mics, then one should use one or two on the outside combined with the power and effects driven internals...but you can get pretty close with just the internals and I have seen Karsh using only the internals on occasion.

garett