stop romanticizing mic dropping… damage to sound equipment is no joke
Modern stage microphones for concert use are actually designed specifically with mic dropping in mind. When the move started to become fairly popular amongst performers back in like the early 90’s manufacturers started making their products more durable so that sound technicians didn’t have to buy a new mic every concert. The biggest concern most sound guys have when mic dropping is concerned is actually the feedback that’s going to be coming from the mic when it hits the ground. That’s why you always see the performers hold the mic out for a second before they actually drop it, to give the dude at the soundboard time to mute!
thank u sound technician side of tumblr
On the other hand, DO NOT DROP your instrument microphones. They’re often ilttle condensers and they prefer more care.
That classic SM58, though, you can probably drop kick.
A little SM58 story…
So many years ago (in another life) I was setting up a recording studio as part of a business I was a partner in. We decided to offer a free recording session to some friends-of-friends to test out the kit. In our house – because we’d not got an actual studio space yet (long story, not funny).
So the group turn up and we mic up the drum kit and connect up all their gear and then we discover the drummer likes to play with the wrong end of the drum sticks because the normal drum hitting end is ‘not loud enough’.
May I point out that this is taking place in the bedroom, that we’ve cleared specially, in a small victorian terraced house.
After several painful, painful hours our SM58 mics had stood the test really rather well. Our ears, not so much. I have now blanked the phrase from my mind, but the song’s chorus was a chant that I think our entire street was begging to get out of the brain for the following few months…While they waited for their hearing to recover too.
Sadly, while the SM58?s had done well and survived the lead singer attempting to eat one, and the drummer’s historic onslaught on the drumkit, our shiny shiny JBL monitor speakers were fucked. Completely.
And our housemate nearly killed the drummer.
