Snare Drum Miking – A Comparison of Sounds

This entry is titled “Snare Drum Miking” but is not about how to mic a snare. That’s easy enough to do. Also, this entry isn’t about shooting out between mics to find out which is “best” for a snare drum. All mics both add something to and subtract something from the sound source. This entry IS about hearing different microphones on the snare drum so you can hear and learn what each mic offers in the way of creatively reproducing a snare drum.

In these examples, we are using a 5.5×14” 1960s Premier Royal Ace maple snare drum. It has a coated Remo Ambassador head for the batter (with a little toilet paper and gaff tape to muffle some overring) and an Evans Hazy 300 snare side resonant head. It is tuned to a medium-high pitch (with the bottom head tighter than the top head in reference to a previous post on tuning snare drums). All microphones are placed in the same approximate position above the batter head and are recorded through the same Vintech x81 mic pre at approximately the same apparent loudness. No eq or compression has been added so that we hear only the mic.

Shure SM57

What a mic! Cheap and ubiquitous, this mic has been used for everything in studios from guitar amps to drums to vocals. A dynamic mic, it doesn’t mind high SPLs and has a pleasing clarity and midrange. This mic has long been a classic for snare drums because of the way it picks up the snap of the snare and highlights the upper mid frequencies.

Shure SM7b

A close cousin of the SM57, the SM7b features a larger capsule that is fixed behind a foam-encased metal screen (keeping it further from the sound source). This mic is great for vocals and used quite frequently in broadcast. In my opinion, this mic is a little warmer than the 57 with more lows and low-mids. This can be a great mic for snares – especially when the snare sounds too bright or tight in the room.

Sennheiser 421

A German dynamic microphone, the Sennheiser 421 is another favorite for drums. These days it is mainly used on toms. Sometimes, it can be fun to put on the snare for a different sound. Notice how the low-mids are really warm and present, but that there is an odd little peak in the high end. If you have a dull snare, this might make it better. However, I still use this mic on snare primarily as an effected second option rather than the main mic.

Blue e100

A hefty dynamic from Blue, when used for snare drum miking, this microphone is much darker than a 57. As a result, the transient of the snare is not quite as snappy, but that’s not always a bad thing. I feel it is not unlike an SM7b, but with a bump in the lows instead of the SM7b’s bump in the low-mids. Add some high end eq to this mic and you have a really nice, meaty sound.

Sennheiser e906

It is sometimes fun to use mics that most engineers would never put on drums. The e906 is a guitar cabinet dynamic microphone with a selectable high frequency switch that toggles between a shelf boost, flat (used here), and a shelf cut. For snare drum miking, it sounds a little thin, filtered (or mid-heavy in the 500Hz-2kHz) region, and seems to highlight the rattle from the bottom snares. This can be cool if you want a messy snare sound or something that sounds both angry and “vintagey” (read as a lack of high fidelity across the frequency spectrum).

sE2

sE is a killer microphone company if you haven’t ever checked them out. I use a lot of their mics. The sE2 is from their earlier days as a company. You can’t even find them in their legacy product list online anymore. The mic is a small diaphragm condenser. It’s really bright, but not annoyingly so. It’s fun to pair this mic with a 57 on the snare and mix them down to a single track. The 57 provides the snap and meat and the sE2 gives you this pretty high end sheen.

Blue Mouse

The Mouse is a squatty condenser mic from Blue. Large diaphragms can be fun on drums as long as the player doesn’t hit the mic. The Mouse features a low end bump and a high end bump – almost the opposite of the SM57. You do have to be careful since the mic is very hot (output signal – not temperature) and the pre needs to have a pad switch or be capable of a wide range of gain settings. If you want a mic that picks up some high end and hears a little more of the whole drum and not just a focused spot (like a 57), this could be a fun choice.

Neumann U-87Ai

The U-87 is a heralded microphone. A lot of people use it for vocals or acoustic instruments. The Ai edition builds on the vintage U-87i (switched the original 7-pin tuchel connector for the “i” – an International XLR connector) by adding circuitry that ups the internal voltage and the output signal by 10dB. The capsule is the same as the vintage mic. Most agree that the Ai has a little more “air” than its vintage counterpart. On the snare, it is interesting. It does not sound hi-fi or focused. It sounds filtered without a lot of high mids and any top end. If you’re going for an old sound with less focus for snare drum miking, this is the mic.

No-Name Pulpit Dynamic

Here’s a generic pulpit/lectern microphone. This is fun because it’s poseable and doesn’t fear the high SPLs drums dish out. It has a real “pop” to it. It has a little pinch in the high mids that, depending on the song and how much the snare needs to cut, could mean it’s the right mic or the absolute wrong mic.

There are so many other mics I could have demoed, but the point is to show how unique and sometimes refreshing different mics can be on the same drum. I hope it was informative.