beyerdynamic TG D58

I use a pair of this mic for a 143x6.5 snare/snom and a 14" Stage Custom floor tom. Each has hydraulic batter heads. Before I got the pair, I used sm58s. sm58 is almost a sm57 which costs about the same as this D58 mic. So why not compare?

One big plus (and this is not to be looked lightly upon) is how easy this mic is to mount. You just clip it on. Anyone who have tried to place mic stands in between cymbals and what not, knows how big of a deal this is. These are condenser mics. You need phantom power for them. With my current setup and a little eq-magic I can get a really nasty (the good nasty) thumby sound out of them. Still with stick def. They sound amazing. However they catch bleed. I have a closed 16" hat next to the tom. And this bleeds heavily. You probably can gate it. However I'm the kind of person who just cuts everything from the track but when I play the toms. Furthermore the D58 is made in Germany. This might matter to people that the product is made in the country of the maker.

I still use a pair of sm57s on the snare (top/bottom). I almost got more D58 mics for the snare until I heard the amount of bleed. The sm57 has an effective way of isolating - I don't bother gating or cutting the snare mic. Another thing about sm57 is how sturdy they are. You don't care if you hit them with a stick (even hard) or drop them on the floor. It is not that the D58 mic seems fragily. It's just that you have a hard time destroying a sm57. The sound of sm57 compared to D58: I don't think the sm57 handles low end that well. I would often miss some rumble. The sm58s I used seemed to catch more of the batterhead than the actual body of the toms which sometimes led to weird sounds/overtones.

I really like the D58 mics. However I don't think the mic is a no-brainer. I keep my sm57 for snare. Maybe the bottom one could be replaced with a D58. D58 sounds amazing and is extremely easy to clip on. So if you can handle bleed (very controlled playingstyle, auxillary drums that are not used constantly, gating or the like) just put these on there!