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Published on 07/19/11 at 02:49
The Sennheiser E 604 is a microphone from Sennheiser that is specifically designed to mic up a drum set. The microphone itself comes with a clip specifically designed to mount it to the drum kit, and as far as I am concerned, the less microphone stands, the happier the stage looks, although I do admit that having less stands does make the stage seem far less intimidating, hah. In a nutshell, these microphones sound great on both snares and toms, but are not quite as complete sounding on toms as the Sennheiser's own legendary tom microphone: the MD 421 II. However, another reviewer for this microphone described these microphones as "thunderous" on drums, giving an unbelievable sense of punch and explosiveness.
The Sennheirser E 604 is a dynamic microphone specifically designed for snares and toms. It features a very standard cardioid pickup pattern. It has a very nice frequency response that goes all the way from 40 Hz to 18,000 Hz. This is very nice, because compared to many of its competitors, its frequency response is extended enough to make the microphone sound very big and clean without getting too caught up in the muddiness of many of the its competitor's microphones.
As it is a drum microphone, it is necessarily and expectedly engineered to handle extremely high SPL's. Sennheiser mentions that it is capable of handling SPL's in excess of 160 db! This is remarkable, considering there is not much in the world louder than that, let alone a drum set.
OVERALL OPINION
I was a big fan of the Sennheiser E 604, just because of the thunder it lent to the drum set. The E 604 on snares is pretty much Zeus flinging lightning bolts straight into the XLR cable, and it fares well on toms as well, although knowing that the MD 421 II exists is a little painful.
The Sennheirser E 604 is a dynamic microphone specifically designed for snares and toms. It features a very standard cardioid pickup pattern. It has a very nice frequency response that goes all the way from 40 Hz to 18,000 Hz. This is very nice, because compared to many of its competitors, its frequency response is extended enough to make the microphone sound very big and clean without getting too caught up in the muddiness of many of the its competitor's microphones.
As it is a drum microphone, it is necessarily and expectedly engineered to handle extremely high SPL's. Sennheiser mentions that it is capable of handling SPL's in excess of 160 db! This is remarkable, considering there is not much in the world louder than that, let alone a drum set.
OVERALL OPINION
I was a big fan of the Sennheiser E 604, just because of the thunder it lent to the drum set. The E 604 on snares is pretty much Zeus flinging lightning bolts straight into the XLR cable, and it fares well on toms as well, although knowing that the MD 421 II exists is a little painful.