Drum Micing

A

Ashtrey

New member
Hi. I was in the store to buy some drum mics. The manager gave me a SM94, SM57, Beta52 and two NT3 mics.

I suggested a SM57 for the snare drum, but he said he worked in this area.. my english isn`t so good but he said something like, the snare needs a mic that capture its dynamic and that the SM57 didnt do as great job with it as the SM94. Is this true in your opinion? :confused:

The SM57 he said was good to have just incase I needed it for toms or something.. and the NT3s are for overhead, and the beta52 for kick ofcourse.
 
If the SM57 sucks for snare, then thousands of engineers have been doing it wrong for a LONG time.

His personal preference might be an SM94, but I promise you that the SM57 is perfectly capable of doing the job (along with a lot of other mics).

Sounds to me like he's trying to unload some Shure mics. :rolleyes:


:D
 
Thanks for answering! :)

I rigged it as he said though, and the SM94 seems to do a good job for snare, it seems that the sm57 captures more sound then the sm94, from the whole kit instead of only the snare? That`s a good thing that the 94 mostly captures the snare I prosume?

Here`s an example; http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1090810

Haven`t got the Rode NT3s in the mail yet so Im using an NTK instead.
 
Last edited:
Ashtrey said:
Hi. I was in the store to buy some drum mics. The manager gave me a SM94, SM57, Beta52 and two NT3 mics.

I suggested a SM57 for the snare drum, but he said he worked in this area.. my english isn`t so good but he said something like, the snare needs a mic that capture its dynamic and that the SM57 didnt do as great job with it as the SM94. Is this true in your opinion? :confused:

The SM57 he said was good to have just incase I needed it for toms or something.. and the NT3s are for overhead, and the beta52 for kick ofcourse.
Click to expand...
SM94 is a condensor mic and good for an ambient or overhead mic. it's not made for close miking a snare. The guy who said sm57's suck for snare will get arguments from many sound engineers with experience. That's like saying a pickup truck is bad for carrying stuff...
I used to use a very simple setup: Beta 52's on kicks (if you have a single kick you only need one), an sm57 on snare and an sm94 for an overhead. That worked well for live gigs. Nice and simple to setup, great sounding, and it works. The sm94 will pickup the toms and cymbals well, but you have to EQ it so that both sound good. I used a parametric EQ to remove unwanted frequencies and it sounded beefy and clean. Using more mikes for a beginner is a waste of time and money imho. Just trying to help. I've been playing drums live for 27 years. This setup should work for a home studio. Don't waste your money on extra mikes unless you have a good handle on how to avoid phasing problems and really know what you're doing. It's unneccessary.
 
Thank you, when you say it I believe you ofcourse..

I tried switching, using the SM94 between the two toms as Ive got the NTK as a sort of overhead, but that didnt work very well.. the sm57 seemed to pick up more sound from the toms.. maybe I just need to work with positioning. =)

Actually I think the SM94 gave a dull sound of the snare (as in the soundexample) so I will try it as you said from now on.
 
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