The challenge of miking a drum kit is many-sided, but drummers can help themselves get better sound out of their drum kit beyond tuning the heads and good mic placement. Good preamps will bring out the best in a drummer's sound. Peter Montessi of A-Designs isn't shy about talking about the finer points of his company's mic pres such as the EM-Blue, which comes recommended for snares. There's also the EM-Red and EM-Gold, advised for floor toms.

Some drummers like hanging a mic or two and capturing the kit-n-room sound. But when it comes time to get fussy about drum sound, running separate mics and pres on each section of the drum kit provides much more control in the editing room.

"The magic comes in the mixing." according to Peter Montessi. "(Pres) put you in different frequency levels. You'll be able to pick out the kick drum from the bass. When you are mixing the separation is going to be phenomenal for you."

For the beginner, learning can be difficult because there's no one accepted way to go about enhancing a kit with preamps. While it's true that mic placement, pickup patterns, sound pressure level capacity, and other factors do have a science to them, what you do with the signal from those microphones once properly placed is more about aesthetics. "Pres are subjective." said Peter Montessi, "There's no real night and day difference between all of them . . . The transformers give you different flavors and frequency ranges."

Montessi says trial and error is the best way to find the right combination of mics and preamps. "Test other pres and test other mics and find out what is good for you." Montessi reminds drummers that good mic technique is half the battle, and a pre amp can't do anything to fix poor playing, shoddy kits, or other factors. As for mic technique, Montessi advises, "(Do) a lot of homework, boys and girls!".