The ksm27 is a large diaphragm condenser microphone that is often used for recording and sometimes for live too. It is mostly used for music but I have a friend who uses it for the theater stage as well. It is a cardiod microphone so it mostly picks up what is right in front of it. The fact that it's a condenser makes it useful for things with quick transients and high frequencies. This being the case it is used for drum overheads a lot of the time. Again since they are cardioid, you can get away with using them live since they won't be picking up all of the spill from the other parts of the stage. There is no polarity switch unfortunately so if you want an omni or a figure 8 mic you won't be able to have that kind of flexibility with this one.

OVERALL OPINION

I don't own this mic but my band has recorded with it using it as drum overheads, and also I have played shows where these had been used as overheads. That's been over the past few years so I've encountered them plenty of times. The sound of them is very clear and works very well to capture the shimmers of cymbals and crack of the drums. They are very quiet as when playing back the recordings, I couldn't hear a lot of static on the tracks. I have encountered a good deal of other condenser mics, and this one is sort of average. They are very sturdy, you could drop it and it seems like it would be fine which is nice. It doesn't really do anything to the sound, but it's more like a mirror. Some would definitely prefer a more animated sound, while this one is almost transparent to a fault. These are not very expensive for the sound quality, so they're certainly a good value. I don't own one myself, but if I ever wanted to get drum overheads these are one of the first types I would consider.