AKG C518 ML

Playing music for 15 years (piano for 4 before switching to guitar/bass for the next 11 years). Recording and work live sound for 8 years (4 as a volunteer then 4 as a professional for local and nationals).

I have a Pro Tools Digi 002R for recording into a mac, mostly for mixing of demos of my own bands (up to 6 so far), I own a Beta 52, Beta 58, and a sm57. I have access to other thru my other band mates. Listen thru either Sony or Direct Sound Headphones or computer monitors.

I work live sound with many different rigs, JBL, EAW, McCauley, EV, Ramsdell, Mackie, Behringer, Peavey, Yamahas (from speakers on sticks to full line arrays), small format to large format consoles, digital to analog, FOH & MON. I have used mic by Shure, Peavey, Sennheiser, AKG, Audix, Neumann, EV.

I take miking every instrument very serious and drums I find is the one most people have the hardest time getting right.

This will be mostly to compare other mics to the AKG 518 and give some help to those thinking about getting this mic.

The AKG C 518 is a cardioid small condenser drum clip mic, if you want specs. go here, http://www.akg.com/site/products/powerslave,id,982,pid,982,nodeid,2,_language,EN.html. I will add is comes with the AKG phantom power adapter (reason for making review here, later). They have better output then the Shure Beta 98s (been my favorite till now, for sound), More Top end then the Beta 98s, according to Freq Response they don't go as low as Beta 98s, but who is to say I find them equal in response here. These are used on Toms and Snares at the club I work at on a DW drum Kit. The club has a Yamaha O2R consoles (soon to be the M7CL and PM5D consoles) into a EAW Line array and EAW monitors and a McCauley Drum Fill.

Now I have used
Shure Beta 98s, PG56, SM57s
Audix D2, D4, i5
Sennheiser e609s, e604, MD421 (recording), e604s
Some Peavey mic of some sort
And now the AKG C 518

On all kinds of drums DW, Yamaha, Tama, Pearl, Taye, Mapex, Premier, Sonor, etc. etc. etc. Some with Wood hoops some not.
I used the PG pack by shure the most as that was what I got most of the time, I find the PG56 could work well for toms but the PG52 was not good for kick (distorted too quick and not great response, I own the Beta 52 for this reason). I loved it when I got the Beta 98s as they were easy to place, sounded good and rejected well. Gates and compressors are important for great sounds out of drums (after the well tuned kit and good drummer)

Now the AKG sound like the Beta 98s but with more top end, more output, and easier placement. The clips are adjustable to work on wood hoops too (a probelm I found with any of the other mics, I had to get creative in mics on wood hoops, broke a few shure clips), they seem to have better protection from hits than the shure do too. I would give them a great sound for Toms and Snare haven't used Beta 98s on snare yet, but I now know that it would sound good and not need a bot mic like with a sm57. The only thing on sound is there is alot of high hat bleed in these condensers due to the increased high end response and polar pattern, but...

Reliability - Not so good, at the club I work at we have had 6 (4 originally) of these go thru the door, 3 went bad in a month, 2 within a week of each other, and one of the replacement 2 had a bad cable that had noise. Now I don't like the small XLR cables that come with these small clip on condensers they seem flimsy not up to abuse. These are being returned and we are looking into the Beyerdynamic Opus 88s, while we have gone back to using the Shure Beta 98s that we originally had on there. The Shure have withstood abuse in setups for tours and festivals and shows after shows, we only need replacements due to losses. The AKGs sat on the toms with no movement or tear down or setup, 1 month on the drumset and all but 1 died so far. So it is the reliability of these that in question, we sent 2 back to AKG to get replacement and as stated one had a bad cable. The cable seems to be the problem with these, but the shure ones have lasted years so I kind of question AKG quality control, and I know they pride themselves on being one of the best microphone makes out there. Shure seems to have reliability down , I hear Sennheiser (I had Sennheiser e604 go out in 4 years of use) and Audix got it too, just haven't used them as much as shure.

Sound I would give a at least a 9 as they sound great, but the reliability would get a 1, so the total is 5 or lower. Again sound great but don't last, the cable is part of the mic and without it they don't work. I wouldn't recommend them, hopefully AKG will improve the design as they sound great. For now I would recommend the Shure Beta 98s as the best option (will have a slight problem with wood hoops) that I have tried. Really looking forward to the Beyerdynamics as they just won best Drum Kit mic package this year.