The Shure PG52 is Shure's entry level kick drum microphone, and before I go any further, if you want a kick drum microphone from Shure, look to the Beta 52A. The PG52 is not bad per se, however, in a world of fantastic kick drum microphones, it cannot win against its higher end competition, because it has broken the $100 threshold and will likely not be looked at as a cheap microphone, relatively speaking.

Now, onto the main course.

The Shure PG52 is a bass drum microphone. It is a dynamic microphone and has a cardioid pickup pattern. This is typical of kick drum microphones. While it is a kick drum microphone, however, it is curious that the frequency response only rises to 13,000 Hz. (It starts at 30 Hz.) I am only mentioning this because in the other kick drum microphones do have frequency responses that extend up relatively high compared to the Shure PG52. While it does include all of the nice things that a kick drum microphone should have, something weird seems to happen to the sound of the kick drum. I will get back to that soon.

The Shure PG52 indeed has all of the required things of a drum microphone, sturdy construction, compact size, simple adjustment mechanism, and most importantly, a very high SPL tolerance.

But the PG52 is strange, because compared to its competition, it sounds positively anemic on kick. It strangely finds its place mic'ing up floor toms, and, best of all, bass cabinets. This was odd, because a lot of bassists choose to use direct input rather than mic'ing up a cabinet like a guitar player would.

OVERALL OPINION

Understand what the PG52 is for. It may be just okay on a kick drum, but on a floor tom and a bass cabinet, you can get fantastic results with it.