SM57 vs. E604

[ScienceOne]

Miking toms, Sure SM57's or Sennheiser E604's? What about floor toms? Could I just use one of those two mics? Or should i get a completely different type of mic?? Thanks.

[crawdad]

I'm going by the seat of my pants here. I've heard good sounding toms miced with 57s. I have some radio shack tom mics that are similar to the Sennheisers, and those worked well too.

A very long time ago, I borrowed a drum set and tried micing it with 57's and 58's with not much luck. A friend in the film business brought a case full of mics for me to try. Among them were some Sennheisers. The 421 ( The black one, with the 5 position roll off--I hope I'm getting the numbers right) was so much better on toms and kick, I couldn't believe it. I also used a 441 (? The square one with the leather on it) and it was great for hi-hat. I have no way of comparing these to the E604 's since I have not heard them.

Lately, I'm starting to buy into the idea of two condensers as overheads, plus a kick mic (or 2) and possibly a snare mic as a better approach to micing drums. If you can get the overheads positioned right, the toms sound great without separate mics on each.

I have a friend who is a pro engineer, who has worked with many platinum artists in LA. If he's micing a kit thats not hard rock or heavy metal, he uses two overheads and two kick mics--one inside and one two feet outside. Lucky him--he has things like vintage C12's and old Neumanns to work with--plus state of the art pres and 2" tape.

If you want to mic separate toms and you can borrow some 421's, try them. If not, experiment with what you have using overheads and a couple other mics. If you can find the right placement, there are very fine results obtainable.

[Neil Ogilvie]

The E604 is an excellent mic, especially for the price.
It out does an SM57 everyday.

[neirbo]

Both the 57 and 604 are good choices for toms, but each have a distinctly different sound. The 604 has a more pronounced high end, and almost sounds "condensor-like" to my untrained ears. The 57 will give a meatier sound. I personally prefer the 604 on toms, but that's just my taste. If I were in the market for tom mics, I'd check out those Radio Shack mics that folks here have been talking about recently. Also, I hear the Audix D2 is a great tom mic, but I've never tried it myself.

[darrin_h2000]

atpro25 on floor tom is a good choice.

[Mike B]

On our last session, SM-57's beat out the 604's on rack and floor toms. They just sounded clearer and punchier. I was a little surprised, but not much.