Re: microphone: a professional percussionist replies

[Ronan Chris Murphy <looper@venetowest.com>]

On May 13, 2007, at 2:31 AM, andy butler wrote:

( and you can even use the 421 on kick drum)

You are so right Andy, They are great kick mics, amazing for toms and electric guitars and bass amp. I love the 421

As far as I know, the frequency deviations from flat for a studio condenser are in a whole different league to those of a cheap hand held dynamic.

The flattering part of a large diaphragm condenser is a subtle presence lift.

The Sm57 colors the sound considerably.

It's not just the frequency response here, it's also significant that a condenser has a very even phase response, and a dynamic mic doesn't.

All mics color. That is the fun of it all. Where a mic dips is just as important as where it lifts. Its the coloration that makes people spend $5-10,000 on a nice U47 or C12. Its the coloration of a lot of the cheapo condensers that keeps them out of my studio (cheap condensers often have really ugly abrasive high end coloration) They all color in different ways. Not sure what you mean about even phase response, do you mean off axis response?

That would be fascinating.

I'm sure I've heard the "whole album with an SM57" claim before.

( I suspect that having every sound colored that much by the same mic would

make very fatiguing listening)  

I am insanely busy and booked with other projects for the next several months, but when I get a little bit of free time, I am actually going to try and do a 100% SM57 song, just for the fun of it. I am really curious about this myself. The 57 is not always the best tool for the job, but so often its at least very good and most importantly the tracks usually work well in the mix.

There is a cool Australian singer songwriter I did a record for last year which features tons of 57s.I am pretty sure the things that were SM57: All vocals, all acoustic guitars, all electric guitars, all keyboard amps, all pedal steel, and snare drum. The upright bass was mostly a old SM58 style unidyne. The overheads, percussion overdubs, strings and mandolin were Shure KSM 32s. Really I do not work for Shure, I just like their stuff. You can hear it here with crapy myspace compression

http://www.myspace.com/mattellisband 

Did you try any of the newer "stage condensers"?

No, but I have never seen too much of the appeal, but that said, being on stage is about 5% of my life. I mostly make records.

Ronan Chris Murphy

www.venetowest.com (Production & mixing: King Crimson, Chucho Valdes, Steve Morse, Terry Bozzio, CGT...)

www.homerecordingbootcamp.com (Workshops around the world teaching the art and craft of recording )

www.livesofthesaints.net (The hottest ambient noise duo since Sonny & Cher)