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[Steve Mason]

Doing sound this week for a band that uses a Vibraphone on some of their stuff.  Given the gear I have to work with.  57's 58's and 835's I am thinking two 57's at about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way along the bars. Hanging towards the front with the mics angled a bit towards the middle of the two rows (not direct overhead.)  I am thinking I can get in a little closer this way and hopefully reduce some of the ambient sound rather than trying to do a direct overhead where I have to worry about clearance for the mallets.    I have a couple of small condensors in a CAD drum mic set if they would be any better (budget mic set).  I saw another thread on this matter but it was 10 years old and the OP had different equipment to work with.

Thoughts

[Roland Clarke]

That will work.  Make sure you do t get too low or you will get blower noise and the wrong position can make them pick up too much of the metallic ‘plink’ sound.  Condensers can work remarkably well too.  Good luck!

[Justice C. Bigler]

I just did a jazz quartet with vibes last weekend.

You should check with the band ahead of time, these days alot of vibes players are using sets that are already equipped with a pickup and all you need to do is take a 1/4" or XLR out. The one I had on Friday had a whole series of EQ and compressors pedal boxes with a small 2 channel mixer at the end of the signal chain. I put up a pair of KM184s for a high and low mic, but basically just used the DI output on the set.

In the past I have also put the mics under the keyboard, either facing the pipes, or facing up towards the keys in front of the pipes.

If the vibes set doesn't have the vibrato built into it (or it's broken) be prepared to add a pretty wet reverb and a chorus effect for the player in both the FOH and monitor feeds.

[Rick Earl]

Doing sound this week for a band that uses a Vibraphone on some of their stuff.  Given the gear I have to work with.  57's 58's and 835's I am thinking two 57's at about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way along the bars. Hanging towards the front with the mics angled a bit towards the middle of the two rows (not direct overhead.)  I am thinking I can get in a little closer this way and hopefully reduce some of the ambient sound rather than trying to do a direct overhead where I have to worry about clearance for the mallets.    I have a couple of small condensors in a CAD drum mic set if they would be any better (budget mic set).  I saw another thread on this matter but it was 10 years old and the OP had different equipment to work with.

Thoughts

I work with a couple of vibe players on a regular basis.  Your suggested method should work fine. I prefer top micing as it gets the sound of the mallets better.  Each player is going to have their touch, some mallets are harder than others, resulting in a different attack. And some players hit harder than others.  I have great success using a single ribbon (AEA N8) at head level, the back side is facing up and the rest of the band is in the null. Next it is 57's if ribbon isn't available or for softer players in low ceiling venues, and condensers if I want a slightly better impulse response.

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