I'm lucky to have a guitar player in my band that works for Marshall Amps. He has a connection at Shure Microphones and was able to get me a pair of SM-81's directly from Shure at $280 a piece a few years ago. I noticed that the price has gone up $50 on them. From $350 to $400.
Goes to show talent means more then anything. You can have all the best equipment and recording techniques in the world but without good song writing and talent it means nothing. SM81 is a great mic, some of the others that sparkle more on the high end become harsh.
Absolutely right. The most expensive vocal microphone in the world will not sound better than an SM58 if you can't sing. Chris Cornell once said, "There's no guarantee that an album that costs a million dollars to produce will sound better than an album that costs $500 to produce." I totally agree with that statement.
Thanks for the video. I am getting a lot of bleed from the hat into the sm81 on the cymbal (I am going straight down 90 degrees) to the point I am losing the ability to pan the cymbals correctly. I know OTRF is 110 degrees. Have you tried 180 to get rid of bleed?
It may be enough. It will depend on the type of sound you are after. It would be tough to get booming modern toms with this type of set up unless you augment with samples. If you are going for a Led Zeppelin type of sound this would be perfect.
If youre strictly going for a 4 mic setup, yes, sm81 overheads, 57 on snare and something on the kick (re20? Beta52? 421?) Will do the job, and do it well
We just bought four of these one for the high hat one for The ride cymbal And two over the drum kit exclusively to pick up the cymbals. Where should the BASS roll off switch be set at for these applications - We have no desire to use these As room microphones for the drum kit we already have room mics for that - thanks
Hello, I noticed the levels were pretty low in the sample recordings. Do you find that you need to use mic preamps with these mics? Thanks, I like your content. 👍🏻
Thanks so much for the compliment. Much appreciated. Basically every mic needs a pre amp. The preamp could be built into an audio interface or in the case of digital mics, its built into the mic. In this case I used my console pre amps. So in short every mic needs a preamp. These mics also require phantom power which is built into most ausio interface preamps and is on my console as well. I hope that is helpful. Sincerely, Paul
@@SmithMediaSolutions yes it does help, I was trying to ask about a separate preamp in addition to the one that your console has, so the answer is "no". You were able to get the gain you needed with the console preamps, and without adding too much noise in the process. Thanks!
I'm lucky to have a guitar player in my band that works for Marshall Amps. He has a connection at Shure Microphones and was able to get me a pair of SM-81's directly from Shure at $280 a piece a few years ago. I noticed that the price has gone up $50 on them. From $350 to $400.
Goes to show talent means more then anything. You can have all the best equipment and recording techniques in the world but without good song writing and talent it means nothing. SM81 is a great mic, some of the others that sparkle more on the high end become harsh.
Absolutely right. The most expensive vocal microphone in the world will not sound better than an SM58 if you can't sing. Chris Cornell once said, "There's no guarantee that an album that costs a million dollars to produce will sound better than an album that costs $500 to produce." I totally agree with that statement.
Thanks for the video. I am getting a lot of bleed from the hat into the sm81 on the cymbal (I am going straight down 90 degrees) to the point I am losing the ability to pan the cymbals correctly. I know OTRF is 110 degrees. Have you tried 180 to get rid of bleed?
If i wanna do a 4 mic recording will two of this, sm57 and a kick mic for snare would be enough
It may be enough. It will depend on the type of sound you are after. It would be tough to get booming modern toms with this type of set up unless you augment with samples. If you are going for a Led Zeppelin type of sound this would be perfect.
If youre strictly going for a 4 mic setup, yes, sm81 overheads, 57 on snare and something on the kick (re20? Beta52? 421?) Will do the job, and do it well
What setting do you have the SM81 set at on the roll off switch? I use my SM81s set in the center. Rolling off a little bit of the low frequencies.
We just bought four of these one for the high hat one for The ride cymbal And two over the drum kit exclusively to pick up the cymbals. Where should the BASS roll off switch be set at for these applications - We have no desire to use these As room microphones for the drum kit we already have room mics for that - thanks
Hello, I noticed the levels were pretty low in the sample recordings. Do you find that you need to use mic preamps with these mics? Thanks, I like your content. 👍🏻
Thanks so much for the compliment. Much appreciated. Basically every mic needs a pre amp. The preamp could be built into an audio interface or in the case of digital mics, its built into the mic. In this case I used my console pre amps. So in short every mic needs a preamp. These mics also require phantom power which is built into most ausio interface preamps and is on my console as well. I hope that is helpful. Sincerely, Paul
@@SmithMediaSolutions yes it does help, I was trying to ask about a separate preamp in addition to the one that your console has, so the answer is "no". You were able to get the gain you needed with the console preamps, and without adding too much noise in the process. Thanks!
@@BillMoorehouse I get it. Yes, these mics do not require large amounts of gain. :)
@@SmithMediaSolutions Thanks! A little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous! :)