Audio-Technica ATM4050

Producer / Engineer with recording studio. Monitors are Mackie HR824's. I record to a Nuendo-based DAW.

This review is narrow in application so keep that in mind.

The Audio Technica ATM450 is a side-address small-diaphragm condenser mic. Until this mic, the only other side-address SDC I'm aware of was the $1100 Josephson e22s. At a street price of about $150-$225, the ATM450 is definitely more attractive budgetwise. I bought it for miking the batter head of snares when recording tightly configured drum setups where good placement of a '57 is impossible. Rock and metal drummers tend to set their drums up really close without a lot of room to place classic drum mics into their sweet spots. The side address configuration of this mic solves that problem, allowing you to squeeze the ATM450 into the tightest configuration. It's a condenser microphone so it's a little bit more open and detailed than a '57, which isn't necessarily a good thing when you're spot miking drums because the mic captures a lot of bleed and ambient noise but I was able to moderate this "problem" (if too much detail could be called a "problem") with the use of a foam baffle between the mic and the hihat stand. All in all, it's a very articulate mic. It's clear and natural sounding, not brittle or overly bright. Definitely a problem solver when I am unable to place a '57 due to a dense drum setup. The best results I've had with the ATM450 is as a second mic over the snare running through an uncompressed ADL600 in conjunction with a '57 compressed through an Avalon 737. The uncompressed, open sound of the ATM450 complements the dry pop of the compressed track and the resonant frequencies of the drum stack really nicely. Overall it's a great mic, worth the money and then some. This is definitely a mic I'm going to be seeing a lot of in the cutting room.

PROS:
Reasonably priced
Crystal-clear, open, detailed sound, not brittle or toppy
Rugged, sturdy chassis
Small size, side address capsule allow easy placement

CONS:
More bleed than a dynamic when spot miking snares & toms