How to mic the steel pans

Steel drums or steel pans are instruments with a very wide tonal range from bass to soprano, and a tonal quality with lots of complex harmonics.

This is all best captured from a little distance with a good central stereo pair as a matched pair of 4011A cardioids or 4006A omnis.

Steel pans can also be close miked but preferably with an omni, since they don’t have a real sweet spot that can be captured with a directional microphone without loosing vital information. The spot mic can be mounted on the top of the pan where it gets most of the bright harmonics, or underneath where it gets more isolation/less bleed.