Freesound Forums

Hello all,

I'm on the lookout for a good microphone for recording percussive sounds in the home studio. I've had a Shure SM58 in the past, until it was stolen at a gig, and I wasn't too impressed with it.. seemed to have quite a lot of background noise when using it in the studio. I'm looking to spend up to a couple of hundred £s (or $). I've been looking around at various Audio Technica mics but I was wondering if anyone can offer any recommendations for me?

Thanks

SM57/58 is as classic as it gets for drum sounds. I suggest learning up on recording techniques. If you weren't getting acceptable results with an industry standard microphone, the problem lies elsewhere.

Thanks for the reply, that's good to know. I might give the SM57 another try in that case... and makes sure it's set up properly!

Hi subv,

I use SM57s and are pleased with the results (You can check my sounds, or search sounds, SM57, SM58, to see what others achieve.) A problem is they are quite low output and need a low noise, low impedance pre-amp to get the best out of them. Straight into the mic inputs of my cheap Mackie mixer I need to up the input gain to a point that I'm beginning to hear the hiss from the noise of the mixers input stage. I usually use a home made transformer coupled mic-amp based on a design I did for a Midas Mixing Console in the 1970s. It's really stone age technology, but it's probably 10dB quieter than the modern electronically balanced Mackie. (The transformer changes high current/low voltage from the mic into high(er) voltage/low(er) current, reducing the need for 20dB (10x) of amplification from the input amplifier.)

As far as I know SM57 & SM58 should be electrically identical, the difference only being in the vocal pop shield. They are highly recommended by many people for drums because they are so rugged and difficult to overload, and the loud source should mean the low sensitivity is not a problem.

There is the possibility that you have cheap Chinese counterfeits, which are very commonly sold. They will look like the real thing but can sound like a 2 dollar karaoke mic. You can google "fake sure mics" and find articles which show how to spot the differences. If you you bought them cheap they almost certainly fakes.

Hope info is useful,

Wibby.