Shure Beta 52 A

A-customs

Silver Member
Just bought this Bass Drum Mic, Have not received it yet Tell me i made the right choice??
 
There are better mics the Beta52 for the same mone, imo, but lots of people use it with great results (Questlove, dave weckl, simon phillips i think, etc., lots of people of this forum..). Its less suited for studio work than other mics. Its a great live mic though.

I'd say its more suited for jazz and lighter situations than rock.

I would definitely port your kick with the Beta52. It has a lot of mid range fullness and round punchiness. Lacks in attack when compared to say D112 or other comparable mics.

Just my experience/opinion..
 
There are better mics the Beta52 for the same mone, imo, but lots of people use it with great results (Questlove, dave weckl, simon phillips i think, etc., lots of people of this forum..). Its less suited for studio work than other mics. Its a great live mic though.

I'd say its more suited for jazz and lighter situations than rock.

I would definitely port your kick with the Beta52. It has a lot of mid range fullness and round punchiness. Lacks in attack when compared to say D112 or other comparable mics.

Just my experience/opinion..

Thanks for your imput.It will be for live stuff and it will be inside the drum.Paid 120.00 for a demo with a new 20 ft cord...Noticed on some vids of us,and we play in smaller clubs,bars.That the kick is just not coming thru enough and had to get something.
 
The Beta 52a is definitely a good mic!

I have used it during many LIVE events and recordings. We currently use a Beta 91a for our recordings and it is absolutely a beauty! Nice tone and it pics up like a charm.

I think you made a good choice. (I would just upgrade to the 91a whenever you can! ;)

-Josh
 
thumbs down. I never liked the 52. I hope it works for you but there's tons better out there for the money.
 
The 91A is a little bit better overall than the 52A.. I have the 52A but I tend to like full, round sound with some boominess which that mic provides.

The Audix D6 is also a very very good mic, 3/5 studios I've recorded in where they use their mic's have used the D6.
 
The 91A is a little bit better overall than the 52A.. I have the 52A but I tend to like full, round sound with some boominess which that mic provides.

The Audix D6 is also a very very good mic, 3/5 studios I've recorded in where they use their mic's have used the D6.

Hear, here. D6 is what I have used for years.
 
Leaving aside things like the Beyer ribbon or RE20, there are three popular kick drum mics that get bandied about. The AKG D112, the Shure Beta52 and the Audix D6. And that is how they rank in terms of coloration. I have both the D112 and B52 and have used the D6 many times.

The D112 is the least colored. More colored than an RE20 which is what gets used most often for jazz, but still fairly neutral. I've had success with this mic in front of the reso head and shoved inside the drum fairly close to the batter. If you put it in the middle of the drum, it can get boomy and undefined.

The B52 is in the middle. It has a modern produced sound, but not as affected at the Audix. I've not tried shoving it way into the drum, but I've found it works best with the face of it even with the head. Not poked into the hole. You get a much better balance of attack and tone this way.

The D6 is highly scooped and modern sounding. Definitely what you want for a clicky metal sound. It's a bit more tolerant of being shoved into the hole than the B52.

If you stop and think for a second about how directional microphones work, you realize that partially sticking one into a fairly close fitting hole in a head isn't a good idea. Directional (cardioid) mics work by feeding sound from the sides and rearward end of the screen though vents so that it gets to the diaphragm out of phase with sound that went around the front, thus canceling out most of what doesn't come straight at it. When you block off the entry of sound from the back and sides, e.g. when a "singer" cups their hands around the ball of a mic or by having the front on the inside of the hole and the back on the outside of the hole, you turn the mic into an omnidirectional microphone. Meaning that it picks up equally from all directions. Which is why the B52 gets boomy and loses attack. It's larger diameter is more affected by how closely it gets sealed off by the typical 4" port hole in reso heads.

The other thing with a cardioid mic is something called the proximity effect. Where the bass is exaggerated the closer the sound source is to it. That big FM deejay sound you get rubbing your lips on a vocal mic. This is why the RE20 is popular with jazz. Those mic's were designed for broadcast use and not to have an exaggerated bass when the source is close. So you can put one right up to an unported kick head and get a natural sound. The D112, with it's not too exaggerated low end, works okay like this. But the B52 or D6 need to be put off to the edge of an unported head or they will have a really loose boomy sound.

Oh, one other common live technique (often mixed with a normal mic) is to put a Crown PZM in the bottom of the kick on a towel. My personal experience with this hasn't been good. You have to gate it heavily or it booms like crazy. At which point you are entirely changing the sound character of the drum. It works where there are giant subs cranked up and booming like mad. Using the hangover of the subs to substitute for the sustain of the kick. We've all been to shows like this with the over the top booming kick drum.
 
Back
Top