Not much written about this mic yet, and yes this product is not brand spanking new, but it deserves a thread.

I picked this mic up a couple weeks ago and used it at a few live gigs, in a room I have worked in for 5 years. So, I tried the PM10 out on probably about 15 different drummers/snare drums.

Now, I have tried pretty much every reccomended snare mic on the planet and keep on coming back to the sm57 or beta 57. Generally speaking I default to sm57 in smaller drier sounding clubs, and I usually use the beta57 in larger murky sound rooms (1000+ people). I was testing the pm10 out in a 500 cap venue, through an Avid SC48 and ground stacked Clair Bros i3 rig.

Compared to an sm57 I found the mic to be a) clearer and more realistic. b) I would say it is beefier than an sm57, but not in a way that is proximity effect based. Meaning part of a sm57s snare sound is the proximity effect mud- that has been exploited and put to good use on millions of mixes. Contrary to this the pm10 has a thicker sound that seems to be more consistent in relation to proximity to the source. Im not saying that the Pm10 has no proximity effect, I'm just saying that it doesnt really do the sm57 thing in this regard. It has its own flavour in the upper lows/low mids. Without Question I would say that the PM10 captures the snare drum at hand with far greater accuracy than an sm57.

The flip side to this coin is that a shitty snare drum/ shitty drummer are exposed in ruthless detail. I put the PM10 up on 15 or so snare drums played by drummers ranging from full time touring/session pros, to, well... drummers who have an impoverished sense of tonal,rythmic, and dynamic self-awareness. And you guessed it... on the top tier players the miktek yielded some killer snare sounds, and I did not miss the sm57 in most cases. On the shitty players, I really just wanted my sm57 back up there so I could more easily obscure and hide how much they suck. Beyond this I found that of the good players the miktek was best suited to roots/folky/reggae/jazzy type music. Even on some of the good players I missed that boxy chewy compressy splat that an sm57 has for rock and discoteque/electronica snare sounds.

Overall, reaching for the sm57 over the pm10 would totally depend on genre and the calibre of musicianship. On a given night where I 've got five local amateur bands I would probably pick the sm57 on snare.

Last night (even though the drummer was an established, well known , top shelf Canadian drummer) I did exactly that-I put up the sm57 on snare, freeing up my pm10 for guitar cab. Now this is the game changer here. The guitarist was a solid player, playing through a '65 deluxe reverb reissue with whatever crappy stock 12" ceramic jensen c12n approximation came loaded in the amp. IMO a fender 65 deluxe RI is a mediocre amp at best. The PM10 sang on this amp. I mean, it blew me away. What it captured was dimensional, deep whatever. The icing on the cake here is that I'm not comparing the PM10 to a 57, rather I've used my own well cared for m88's on guitar in that room religously for the last couple of years- and my m88 is no slouch at capturing killer cab tones. The pm10 made the m88 sound lifeless in comparison. You now that feeling the first time you put a royer in front of a nice amp, and you are kinda like "whoa!". While sonically it does n't have any comparable signature to a royer, it does give you the same kind of 'where have you been my whole life" vibe.

Having only put it on a couple cabs thus far- it may be a little early to comment about how it sounds on different amp rigs. But it does n't surprise me that every user on Miktek website is plugging it as 'great on cabs'.

Like I said we'll see how it sounds on a few different rigs, I'll post back soon with more details.


Cheers

I spent the day with the Miktek Drum package. I also really like the PM10 on snare over the SM57, and equal to the Beta 56. The PM11 was a bit scooped for my needs on bass drum(great for metal) but the 11 was GLORIOUS on floor tom! I'll be buying some of these ASAP, and thanks to Kathy and Mike for the demo.

An even more trusted use of the sm57 is guitar cabs. I wonder how this mic would work against one of those. I've tested so many mics on cabs vs. the 57and 99% of the time the 57 wins. By itself, right in front of the best cone. To get that magic with more detail, why not? But often, the extra wasn't wanted, and the 57 won against mics like that.

Yes!!! ? This quote..

“The flip side to this coin is that a shitty snare drum/ shitty drummer are exposed in ruthless detail.”