10db pad with overheads necessary?

[guttapercha]

Just curious - I picked up an at3035, and am using it for a drum overhead placed about 5 ft in front of the kit. Does anyone have an approximation of the SPLs at that distance for an average to heavy hitter? I noticed that the hi-hat doesn't come through as crisply with the 10db pad on. Does the pad somehow protect the mic? This is probably a dumb question, but there is no explanation of "the pad" in the literature for the microphone.

JD

 

[chessrock]

It lowers the volume of the signal coming out of the mic. Really really complex and highly-technical stuff.

 

[sile2001]

The pad doesn't "protect" the mic at all. The pad just attenuates the signal to control the level running into devices further down in the signal chain. If you are recording an extremely loud signal, then you might find that changing the gain on the mic preamp a fractional amount creates a drastic difference in the final result. If you pad the signal, then it gives you a little more leeway to use the preamp's gain.