Snare Mic Shoot Out

Today in the studio I was with my recording 2 group trying out different mics and placements for snare recording. We used the following microphones:

2x SM57

2x Beta SM57

1x Beyerdynamic M 201

1x Rode NT5

We had one 57 and one beta on both the top and the bottom, the beyerdynamic was also on top and the NT5 was on the bottom. We tried 2 different angles for the mics on the top skin yielding very different results but the results were inline with what we expected. On the whole the more vertical microphone picked up more of the overtones of the snare which were in some places pleasant, it did however reveal some resonant frequencies; ringing tones. The shallower angle picked up much less of any ringing and the note felt more percussive, it did however lose some of the character.

Was a group we came to find the SM57s were far better at coping with the more vertical angle, the sound was by no means easy to tame coming into the console, some quite precise eq choices were made to reduce the ring as far as possible. The beyerdynamic however was near useless at this angle, the snare sounded splashy, and with just the top skin isolated it sounded as if the snare wires were in the mix as well to the extent where I wondered if we had patched everything through correctly. The Beta 57s sounded acceptable at this angle but again, they didn’t quite match up to the 57s. When we went back to the live room and moved the microphones around we found that with a shallow angle the Beyerdynamic sounded far superior to any of the others we used. It sounded more natural, and the 57 sounded quite dull in comparison.

We also used some outboard equipment, a warm audio 76 (an UAE 1176 clone) and the warm audio clone of the pultec eq. In this single session I have changed my view on the use of 1176s.  I could not get it to sound how I wanted, it coloured the sound so heavily with even a small amount of gain reduction. It felt very different to the software versions I have used on snares in the past. I asked my lecturer about this and he said that this is just part of the sound of an 1176, and the software versions don’t always react in the same way. He agreed that he wouldn’t use an 1176 when compressing spot mics for a drum kit. When I used the bus compressor on the SSL console this sounded much better to my own ears and he agreed with my observations.

As a group I think we were glad to have the opportunity to spend an hour experimenting with mic-placement and to talk to such an extent about the sound. In the next week we are going to start thinking about our plans regarding tracking for our project this year.

After this session I decided to upload last years track as it is instead of continuing to spend time on it. You can listen to Boulevard of Broken Dreams here.