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The prototype looked familiar enough as it was a modified Sennheiser 604 clip on drum microphone, but with one little modification at the base of the clip...a laser.
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Sennheiser says the laser (see metal dot on right side of the clip) is so sensitive that it detects the movement of the drum head before the sound wave develops and reaches the microphone.
Walking around NAMM can be a bit like walking around a carnival sideshow. Every year there are hundreds of new products that tout “ground breaking” design. Walking by these booths everyone is showing off their “revolutionary” new designs with flashy demos. Many of these products try to solve problems that don't actually exist or they are just gimmicks disguised as real products. Sometimes a crazy idea is just that, but other times it turns out to be true innovation. I got to check out one seemingly crazy idea this year when I was at NAMM.
On the first day of NAMM I received an email from Brian Blackmore our Editor-in-chief. Attached was a press release that read “Sennheiser to Demonstrate its Unique Laser Drum Microphone Concept at 2014 NAMM.” Laser Drum Microphone? This is the type of gimmick that I expect from the booths in the basement not from Sennheiser. I was hesitant in fact, I wasn't quite sure exactly what this concept product was supposed to do, but curiosity had the best of me and so I had to go and check it out.
I arrived at the Sennheiser booth about 15 mins before the demo was going to start and met Andy Greenwood, an audio innovation engineer for Sennheiser, and presenter of the laser drum microphone concept. Andy showed me a few of the prototypes and was able to explain what the product is designed to do and how it works. It all has to do with close mic'ing drums and making gates that do a better job at removing unwanted microphone bleed.
The concept is solid and the accuracy seems unmatched.
Modern drum mic'ing involves putting a close mic on each drum --- one mic for the kick drum, one mic for the snare, one for each tom and so on. We all know that mic'ing drums this way gives the FOH engineer an incredible amount of control in shaping the drum sound. But, as any FOH engineer knows, bleed happens and each mic ends up picking up other elements of the kit that are not desirable. The traditional fix for this is using a good old noise gate. The gate is triggered by the sound coming from the mic. The gate opens allowing signal to pass and then closes shortly after. Well hopefully. Any FOH engineer will admit that gates are tricky to set properly. Drums are very dynamic and the appropriate gate setting for an upbeat, hard-hitting song will be too drastic a setting for a slow tempo ballad. This can be really frustrating.
There has been one other solution to help gates function better. It incorporates a small piezo drum trigger which is taped or glued onto the snare head and plugged into another channel on the console. This trigger channel is then fed in to key or open the gate that exists on the snare drum channel. Now the gate only opens when the drum head vibration is picked up by the drum trigger. I've done this before and it does increase the accuracy of the gate, but these piezo drum triggers have their drawbacks. For starters they are not sturdy. One miss hit by the drummer either breaks the trigger or else sends it flying in the air. Another problem is that they are adding pressure to the drumhead, which changes the tuning of the drum. This alters the sound and frustrates drummers. Drum triggers in my opinion are not a good solution, which is why I stopped using them years ago.
So we've had this issue with drums and electronic gates for many years --- until Andy and the Sennheiser team came up with this idea to get lasers involved. Andy handed the concept device to me. It looked familiar enough as it was a modified Sennheiser 604 clip on drum microphone. But there was an additional device at the base of the mic, right above the area that clips on the rim of the drum with an additional XLR output. This is where the laser is. Andy explained that by reflecting a laser on the surface of the drum head it is possible to detect the smallest vibration of the drum. The laser is so sensitive that it detects the movement of the drum head before the sound wave develops and reaches the microphone. Because the device is part of a microphone that clips on to the drum rim, there is no interference with the drum head, as is the case with piezo drum triggers. By using the laser to key the gate, an accurate and unobtrusive solution is found.
Sennheiser was clear to explain that this is only a concept, that's it's not a real product. Yet. However, the engineer's explanation of the device made sense and the actual product demo was really impressive. By using the laser microphone concept, the accuracy of gates used on the drums was near flawless despite apparent dynamic changes.
I walked into this product demo quite skeptical, even unsure of what I was actually getting into. I left completely impressed and jealous that I could not go to the store and buy a set of the Laser Drum Microphones right away. I would love to get my hands on a box of these things and do some real-world testing. The concept is solid and the accuracy seems unmatched.
This device provides a real solution to a problem that has been around for a long time. I can only hope that Sennheiser continues to develop this product and makes it available to purchase in the very near future. I will be keeping my out for this one for sure. Sometimes a crazy idea is a really good idea.