Snare mic shootout

K

kaide

Member
Hi,
I recently recorded 11 popular snare mics with 3 different tunings. There are high-end mics and some bargains.
I was surprised by how good one of the bargains sounded. And these are without any eq, you can download the raw files from the link in the video description and try some eq/compression to your taste. Listen also how much hi-hat bleed there is, usually mixing engineers are happier if there's less bleed :)

 
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Honestly I didn’t hear one example where the 57 wasn’t the right choice. I liked all of them but snare drums just seem to love 57’s.
 
JimmyM said:
Honestly I didn’t hear one example where the 57 wasn’t the right choice. I liked all of them but snare drums just seem to love 57’s.
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SM57 is The snare reference mic and there's a reason for that! I think that cheap Vocaltone SM57 copy sounded almost better, with more highs & lows. I paid 10 € for that mic :)
 
kaide said:
SM57 is The snare reference mic and there's a reason for that! I think that cheap Vocaltone SM57 copy sounded almost better, with more highs & lows. I paid 10 € for that mic :)
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That was a great one, too, but I thought the real 57 took the edge off the highs, which I tend to favor more.
 
This is very well done! I would be interested in hearing these in the context of the full drum mix too, though. What mic pre are you using here? I do notice that my 57s can sound pretty different depending on the mic pre.

I really liked the M201 and the 441 with the high boost on. One of these days I'll finally up and get me one of those Beyers...
 
dwsabianguy said:
This is very well done! I would be interested in hearing these in the context of the full drum mix too, though. What mic pre are you using here? I do notice that my 57s can sound pretty different depending on the mic pre.

I really liked the M201 and the 441 with the high boost on. One of these days I'll finally up and get me one of those Beyers...
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Thanks! I decided to leave the full mix part off the video because it would have been so long and there aren't so big differences when you have overheads covering the snare mic details. I used Universal Audio Apollo x8p and their API Vision preamp (no eq/comp/gate). I didn't drive the channel too hot, tried to get a similar balance between mics.

I think MD441 with a high boost on is really good on most stuff, very little hi-hat bleed and nice sound without eq. I didn't like M201 too much even I have used it quite a lot in recent years. SM57 is the one I'm currently using (again) and with a little eq, it's a great mic.
 
kaide said:
I think MD441 with a high boost on is really good on most stuff, very little hi-hat bleed and nice sound without eq. I didn't like M201 too much even I have used it quite a lot in recent years. SM57 is the one I'm currently using (again) and with a little eq, it's a great mic.
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I agree on the 441 with the boost engaged - nice and present with decent rejection. (y)

BTW, if you like the 57, have you tried an SM7b? I think it's a bit better than a 57 on snare and like it on kick, too.
 
jdavis said:
I agree on the 441 with the boost engaged - nice and present with decent rejection. (y)

BTW, if you like the 57, have you tried an SM7b? I think it's a bit better than a 57 on snare and like it on kick, too.
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I haven't tried SM7b yet, it's a little bulky sized if I want to have it near the hi-hat. I usually boost a little bit of 100 hz for the SM57 (Chris Lord-Alge does that often) to make it bigger sounding and cut around 350 or 500 hz and boost from 6 k a little bit.
 
Cool video, but good god, I cannot imagine trying to cram a 441 or even a 421 on a snare (and *gasp* what a bummer if they hit it!).
 
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