I just recently bought an AKG 420 and have been recording with it. yesterday I tried to record hand drums and I had to turn the mic all the way down because it was too loud and making a static noise when I recorded. I got one rack recorded after I turned the mic down and set it at a distance. When i played it back it still had a slight static sound. I tried to do some test recordings with my voice and they were very staticy, my voice was almost drowned out by it. I was wondering what could have happened and if the volume of the drum could have damaged it.