It's not "fragility", it's just how they are designed. All the manufacturers of mics are very clear about this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seafroggys
they've been using Ribbons 1-2 meters away from a Marshall stack for decades.
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Sound drops off at the inverse square. Meaning twice the distance is half the sound. 2 meters - or roughly 6 feet away from a sound source. Is half the SPL as 3 feet. And again that of 1.5 feet. And again that of 9 inches, etc... close micing a drum is roughly 2-3" from the sound source.
This means that the same mic at 6' away is getting 4x the SPL at 1.5 feet away. And 8x that at 9" away. It's the nature and physics of sound.
A condenser mic from 3+ feet away is very normal because of this. Hence overheads on drums.
You put those same mics 3" from those guitar cab speakers and you'll have a very expensive piece of trash from the first riff.
3 meters and 3" is roughly 16x the volume difference in SPL.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seafroggys
I mean, you often hear that if an engineer was to mic the bottom side of the snare, and they use a condenser for that, even if the top is miked with a 57. And obviously because the bottom is so much quieter than the top, right?
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I've never seen, or heard of, a condenser mic being used on the bottom of a snare drum. Or top of any snare drum. Never read about it or otherwise for that matter.
It should be noted that Bob Gatzen, who is famous for recording Bonham's drum sounds, and many others, has never mentioned using condensers for close micing drums.
Thumb through your drum mags, google up your favorite studio drummers pictures, live playing pictures, whatever you want... you'll never see a condenser close micing a snare drum.
SM57, hands down. It's the industry standard for good reason.
Dynamic mics are used in close micing situations because there is no need to "condense" the sound. It's already about as direct as you can get.
This is basic drum micing 101.
Here is the formula's for how acoustics work:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/ph4060/p406i.html
*The bottom of a snare drum is not quieter then the top. It's simply a different sound. A Db meter will easily show you this.