formats

Shure Beta 52a

I have a production coming up where the visiting engineer wants a Shure Beta 52a for the kick drum. I could substitute an arguably “better” mic but I happen to like the sound of a Beta52A on kick drum and it around $125 street price, it doesn’t hurt to have an industry standard mic in my collection. One of the things that manufacturers do to “kick drum” specific mics is to PAD them down so they don’t overload an input. There is usually some extra low end involved.

As a reference, there are many kick drum specific mics on the market and then some non kick drum specific mics that have been used for that purpose such as the EV RE20, Sennheiser MD421 and Beyer M88.

Here are some articles on kick drum mics, none of which provide more than opinion about the difference between the mics they compared:

recordinghacks.com – kick drum mic shootout

gearslutz.com – 11 kick drum mic shoot out

soundonsound.com – bass drum microphones

What does it all mean without measurements to see what is what?

INSERT Beta52A measurement data
INSERT D6 measurement data
INSERT RE20 measurement data
INSERT MD421 measurement data
INSERT AKGD112 measurement data
INSERT E901 measurement data
INSERT Earthworks SR25 data
INSERT Earthworks TC30K data (for reference)