Sennheiser e901

I have been a roadie and a live audioengineer for the past 5 years on roughly 600 gigs and been mixing variety of bands deep from the underground to bands with internationally semi-named status for the past year on clubgigs and smaller festivals.

After last years club touring I decided to buy my own mic-gear and to use minimal amount of house gear, because in some places where the bands were playing, the equipment was so bad, so that this decision seemed like the only option (for example in one place I had to use a 10??? vocal microphone on kickdrum).

Long story short: Sennheiser e901 is a half-cardioid boundary microphone that needs phantom power and is meant especially for kickdrum.

Sennheiser e901 was not my first option, not even in my Top 10 of the mics. Hell no, why would I want something nobody I knew used, is more expensive than most of the kick mics and looks like a clam-shell? I was more fond of the idea of getting one of the more popular ones, like AKG D112 or Shure Beta 52A, but then I noticed that a few bands I knew used the Shure counterpart (Shure Beta 91), including my favourite band and it got me interested. B91 was not available at the store where I was shopping, but they just got Sennheiser e901 the same morning and I took it for testing on two gigs.

I phoned the first band that I was supposed to try it on the same day, but then I discovered that they used two kickdrums, so I thought it was pretty much a no-go, but I still decided to take it with me. The venue had two Shure Beta 52As, but when we were setting up the mics, the second B52 had its adapter missing, so I couldn't use it. I was glad that I took my e901 with me.

The installation is very easy, as it doesn't need an external mounting stand like B52. You just connect the XLR-cable, put the mic on the bottom of the drum, put +48V phantom power on and its ready to roll. You must have some soft material beneat it (like a piece of foam) so that it won't cause any extra noise (or damage to the drum/mic). But as there usually already is something inside to damp the sound, its not that big of a problem in my opinion.

The band was playing quite fast deathmetal stuff with a lot of double kick action, so I was a bit worried if the sound was totally different than the sound on B52. Well, it was. For the better. The room itself had a nasty resonance at 70hz that I had to remove from both of the kick-channels, but when it came to the snap, e901 was a clear winner. The sound was already awesome as is, I didn't have to do anything with the EQ on e901, but the B52 was a pain. I had to screw +7db at ~6khz and +3db on the highshelf to get similiar snap out of it.

As you can guess, I didn't return the mic to the store.

PROS:
After you have removed the room resonance (if there is any), and possibly added a noise gate, the sound is pretty much there. Also the benefits from not needing a mounting device and that the sound doesnt change, even if bassplayer kicks the stand (or even the drum itself) because the mic doesnt move, is a clear bonus. The mic also has two screw-holes on the back for wallmounting applications, but I most propably will never use them.

CONS:
As almost all of the modern mixing consoles have phantom power option, the only cons that I can think of are that because of the colored sound and highly boosted snap, the mic is not very good for organic sounding music like jazz, but otherwise its pretty damn good for pop/rock/metal music.

I must take one point away, because you pretty much can't use this if the kickdrum is shell-less (like Arbiter Flats drums that I have) or if the drum doesn't have a hole on it. Otherwise e901 pretty much is the ultimate livesolution for me on the bassdrum. Going to buy second one as soon as the store gets the next shipment.