One of the newest microphones in the Shure 2011 line up is the Beta 181. When I was at the NAMM show in Anaheim, Calif., early this year I saw the Beta 181 for the first time—and was really excited about the possibilities of the design.
The Beta 181 is a side-addressed small condenser microphone that is designed for discreet placement in live and studio situations. It has removable capsules in cardioid, supercardioid, omnidirectional, and bidirectional patterns. The mic has very intriguing visual design, and I was very curious to hear how it sounded in a real-world environment.
I recently had the opportunity to use the Beta 181 mics over the course of three weeks while running FOH for the Brooke Fraser Flags tour. The venues were a wide variety, ranging from small music clubs to a large outdoor music festival. So I was able to hear how the microphones fared in ideal and less-than-ideal situations. Though I had all four capsules to test, I primarily used the cardioid capsule, as this is most widely used for live sound application.
What have we here?
My first impression out of the box was that this mic was designed with a lot of thought. Efficiency and aesthetics were important in this design. This mic simply looks cool, and some-what retro. This was confirmed at nearly every venue, where the house staff would inevitably ask me what kind of mic it was.
There were many comments on the look of it. Even the case is designed perfectly to fit the mic, clip and capsules without wasting any extra space. Most other microphone cases end up being left in a back room somewhere, and a simple mic bag is used it its place. The design of the Beta 181 case is perfect, though, and made me want to use it over any other option.
In use, I found this mic to live up to all of my hopes. When I'm not touring I'm in the studio, where one of my favorite tom mics is the Josephson 22S. So when I saw the Beta 181 my first thought was “I want to mic some toms with that.” The Beta 181 has a high SPL tolerance, and it allowed me to try it on all aspects of the drum kit without worry of over-loading the mic.
I ended up trying it on toms as well as the snare. It was very easy to position the mic just over the rim on snare and toms without getting in the way of cymbals and drum hardware. As a tom mic I enjoyed the sound of it. It was detailed and quite responsive. With a bit of EQ it fit perfectly into the mix. The top snare position worked well for me, but it did pick up a bit much of the hi-hat. The drummer for this tour played with great control, so it was usable, but I could see that with a more heavy-handed drummer this would be a bit difficult. I like a small condenser on snare bottom because it can provide the needed “snap.” The 181 worked great for this application.
Because of the utility of the design, the obvious small condenser job of drum overheads did not stick out to me at first. It was, in fact, the last source where I tried the 181s. I spaced the pair of mics an equal distance from the snare, and when I brought up the faders I was really impressed. I'm typically not a fan of small condensers on drum over-heads, but these could be my new favorite mics for this application. The Beta 181 has a pretty flat response until you get to about 5 kHz, where it begins its 5 db boost up until about 10 kHz. The end result is a very accurate picture—with just a bit of sparkle.
More surprises
Another application that I found it to excel on was the cajon. If you have ever had to mic one of these percussion instruments you know that if can be very difficult. It is essentially a box that the player sits on. The instrument produces a wide variety of sounds: the front, where a snare sound comes from, and the rear of a cajon is ported like a kick drum, and this is where much of the low-end emanates. Due to the player sitting on it in a chair-like position or as on a stool, it can be quite hard to get mics into their proper places. I used the pair of Beta 181s on the cajon and found the small size to be a real benefit. The 181 picked up all the small details of the front of the cajon perfectly. When listening to just the front mic, it picked up a wide spectrum of the sound produced. I could have gone without the second mic in the back of the cajon. However, when adding the mic in the back, it provided the bump in the subs that I needed. I did need to angle the mic at the sound hole in the back, because the air being moved was overloading the capsule from time to time.
At a retail price of $624 with one capsule (additional capsules list for $311 each) these mics sound great and can't be beat for their unique usability. Even if you don't love the sound of them, they are great utility mics that will fit into places that other mics can't. I'm going to be sad when I have to send them back.
