Astounding ORTF results from Audio Technica ATM450 pair

[mhschmieder]

I just completed a four-day recording session that resulted in my best drum tracks ever, by a factor of twenty from my last "live" session a few months back.

The centerpiece of my new drum miking setup is a pair of Audio Technica ATM450 side address condenser microphones, used in ORTF configuration behind the drummer at a height of about seven feet and centered on snare. [ CORRECTION: closer to 5.5 feet above the floor ]

These mics deliver more detail, by far, than the way more expensive Shure KSM141's that they replaced. I had originally intended to buy a pair of Beyerdynamic MC930's, but after trying a single ATM450 a couple of months back and reading what Warren Dent and others had to say about this mic in OH usage at Gearslutz and some vendor websites, I decided to buy a second one and give it a go, and am very glad that I did!

I paid roughly $140 per mic, as I recall. Certainly $180 at most. About the same as what I paid for the disappointing Aventone FET mics that I quickly sold after many failed attempts to get usable results (I found the mic extremely brittle, regardless of which capsule I used and irrespective of source).

The ATM450 is easy to place due to the side address design, and as it is tiny and light, this also makes various OH techniques easy to set up confidently and without hassle in terms of having to add vertical offset to one mic for clearance etc.

The image is wide and clear, with transparency throughout the frequency range, and no noticeable bumps (unlike every other OH pair I had tried thus far, over many years of recording, but bearing in mind that I have yet to use expensive boutique mics).

There is a slight breaking up of sound on cymbals over the long tail of decay, but nowhere near what I have experienced with other mics, and I use spot mics for ride cymbal and hi-hat anyway.

At roughly $300 a pair, this is a no-brainer choice for anyone not wanting to spend more than $1000 on a high-end pair of overhead mics.

I have also found this mic to be excellent for close-miking percussion instruments and also individual top kit pieces. Some like it on acoustic guitar and even guitar amps, but I have yet to try that.

Audio Technica mics have a habit of disappearing shortly after initial release, to be replaced by new models that only occasionally bear strong similarity to their predecessors. These mics are available quite cheap right now, so may be targeted for replacement soon.

[borjam]

This is funny. Next day I recorded a jazz trio (Albert Bover, Masa Kamaguchi and Jorge Rossy) in Bilbao, Spain, and I used ATM450's on the drum kit and piano, and the results are excellent indeed.

I didn't know those microphones, but seems they belong to the "best kept secret" cathegory together with my beloved CAD e100 (which worked wonders on Masa Kamaguchi's double bass)

[mhschmieder]

Hey, that's great to know this solution also works great for jazz combos, as I may be recording my jazz group soon and had thought initially that I'd use a different approach (and different mics -- perhaps ribbon mics in M/S configuration). Now I'll just start out by trying the ATM-450's.