Beta 91 piano placement room
Place microphones as far as possible from reflective surfaces to reduce Comb Filtering. When using directional microphones, work closely to the microphone for extra bass response to take advantage of Proximity Effect. Avoid excessive handling to minimize pickup of mechanical noise and vibration. Do not cover any part of the microphone grille, as this will adversely affect microphone performance. Applications and Placement Location and room acoustics strongly affect the sound quality of microphones.
To achieve the best overall sound for a particular application, it may be necessary to experiment with microphone placement and room treatments. Application Tone Quality Kick Drum Inside drum, on a pillow or other cushioning surface, 25 to mm 1 to 6 in. Full, natural sound. Contour switch activated; 25 to mm 1 to 6 in. Experiment with lid height and placement to hammers for desired sound.
Bright, well-balanced, strong attack; excellent isolation. Full, natural; excellent isolation and minimal hammer and damper noise. Mounting the Microphone If desired, attach the microphone to a prepared surface using the mounting holes on the bottom of the microphone. Half-cardioid Polar Pattern This boundary microphone has a cardioid polar pattern in the hemisphere above the mounting surface. My notes put the D19 in the bottom. I wanted to approach these recordings like a typical indie session that I or you might do with an artist or band.
Stan and I used some standard techniques to close-mic the drums, and we wanted to get sounds quickly, and not fuss too much with mic placement remember time is of the essence. In addition to hearing the drums on their own, I picked out one of my instrumental songs to play drums to so we could hear how everything sounded in context of a song recording it is about the music right!?
After recording with the Beta mics, we later changed the microphones to one my typical recording setups with other mics, to compare sounds with the Betas. Beta 91A The Beta 91A is a boundary microphone that has a solid build and it feels like it could survive a war zone. It is designed to rest on a pillow or padding inside of the kick drum. It has one option, a contour switch which cuts 7db at Hz. Engaging this switch did add a bit more punch on the top and bottom end, but it was not a dramatic difference.
Having the contour switch engaged did sound better however. We placed the mic about 3 inches from the batter head. We got a great sound quickly that had lots of bottom and a good click sound too. This obviously works on kick drums that have no resonant head, or at least have a hole big enough to get the microphone through. Kick drums with no hole in the resonant head would require a different microphone.
I taped it onto my live room window which essentially turns the entire window pane into a microphone. Here are two examples with the Beta 91A. The first is a mid tempo rock groove played with sticks. The second was a tom driven groove played with blastics.
Since the window was at the hight of the cymbals, the cymbals came through a bit strong, but, with some compression and eq, you can give treat these room mics to create some character and depth to a drum sound. It features an integrated preamplifier, and the A75M microphone mount that clamps onto the rim of the drum.
This mic and especially the mount feel solid and well manufactured. The gooseneck of the mic is strong and flexible, and in combination with the mount which features a mic clip on a pivot , allows for quick and easy changes of mic position. This a welcomed change to standard mic clips and mike stands which are often awkward to use when repositioning a microphone. We put up the Beta 98AMP along side a trusty SM57 on the top side of the snare for comparison, and we were both initially shocked that they sounded quite the same.
Upon closer inspection, the Beta 98AMP does have a small high end boost above 8k compared to the SM57, and I found it also has a bit more high hat bleed than the Also, probably due to the clamp mount on the drum, there were low end frequencies even below HZ that translated through the mic. Putting a 98AMP on the bottom snare head proved also to produce a great sound: plenty of punch and top end too.
Again you would most likely need to engage a high pass filter at some point on the signal flow because there was a bit of unwanted low end frequencies coming through. Beta 98A On toms we used Beta 98As. It comes with its own mic cable that has a proprietary connector to the mic on one end, and an standard XLR connector on the other. It ships with the A98D drum mount which clamps on the rim of the drum as well, but unlike the mount for the 98AMP, the base of it is fixed and can only be positioned vertically or horizontally.
To compensate, the gooseneck is longer, but I did find this design to be a bit more difficult to position the mic than the one included in the 98AMP. Once the Beta 98As were in position, we recorded a test, and I was immediately impressed by how punchy, full, and bright the toms sounded. I like that part a lot! Again on a technical note, the Beta 98A has a high output level not as much as the 98AMP, but it still more output than most mics.
Beta The Beta is a small diaphragm side-address condenser microphone which has a sleek design and unique look that I like. It features an interchangeable capsule design which makes the mic even more appealing and versatile. We had the standard cardioid capsule, but Shure also offers omni, supercardioid, and bidirectional figure-of-8 capsules. We set the Beta s up as a pair as spaced overheads over the drums, and like all of the mics in this review, we set them up, and Voila!
I took to the sound of these microphones immediately as they have a clean, open sound with a great mid to lower mid presence that captured the body and punch of the drums well. Cymbals translated with great clarity and without sounding too bright or harsh like overhead mics can often sound like.
The Full Kit I cued up an instrumental song of mine to play drums to so we could hear how everything translated in a musical context. Beta 52 has a good bottom mids, but could use more click. SM57 has a bit more punch and slightly brighter. Unidyne III sounds a bit fuller in the mid frequencies, and has more attack.
Tom 1 — 98A sounds brighter and bigger in the lower mids. Sennheiser e could use a bit more attack. Tom 2 — 98A has a better bottom end.
