Sennheiser MD421 Reviews

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Sennheiser MD421 @ Musiciansfriend


Sennheiser MD421 @ Zzounds


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The Sennheiser MD421 MKII U4 Mic is one of the best-known mics in the world. Walk into any drum booth in any major studio and you'll most likely see MD 421s on the toms. Talk to just about any seasoned FOH or recording engineer about their drum miking preferences for toms and percussion and the name MD 421 will invariably come up. Its excellent sound qualities also enable it to cope with the most diverse recording conditions and broadcast applications. The 5-position bass control enhances its all-round qualities. With very effective feedback rejection and a highly directional cardioid pickup pattern, placement is a cinch. Rugged construction.

[Rakie]

Quality: 10

The hype on this microphone is well deserved. It has a great full sound, capable of capturing amazing sounds from Guitars / Vocals / Drums (Toms)

This is probably the most versatile mic I've ever heard of. I've heard it being used as overheads in a tight situation and doing a great job, i've heard it being used on Toms, of course, as well as Kicks.

One of my mentors used it once in awhile for metal vocals (screamers), it's been used for bass guitars (Sort of as a "room" mic if you are capturing solo bass), it's been used on guitars with amazing success.

This mic just plain sounds good, and what I found most surprising, is it's not thought of immediately as a vocal mic, but if you set it to "speech" it has a nice HPF rolling off 70hz.

Reliability: 8

I've never had a problem with functionality personally, however this mic is infamous for another thing besides sound - Falling. That clip is very, very touch sensitive, just the slightest brush against some of them and the mic slides right off the switch... I can't tell you how many careless interns i've seen nudge it and then boom, you hear a cymbal hit, some tom noise then the terrible sound of a Sennheiser 421 hitting the floor.... Even clumsy drummers have made a few fall. Not always a noob engineer.

That really is my only qualm, because too many of those and there will be damage beyond superficial. We've had a few that couldn't recover. If not for the clip, reliability would easily be a 10. But with this always being a possibility, one way or another I feel the product suffers a little rating.

Overall Rating: 9

This mic sounds amazing, it holds it's own against a lot of mic's and can be used in almost any situation. Sadly that clip is funky, i've never seen a mic hit the floor as much as a 421. It's very, very unfortunate but nothing is perfect !



Love this mic.

[TonyB]

Quality: 10
Deservedly one of the studio legends. I primarily use it for the floor tom and guitar amping (although between the 421 and 57, I still prefer the 57 for country and rock guitar).

I find it give a fuller sound on a floor tom than with a 57, capturing it's fundamental freqs. Just play with the M - S (not Mid - Side), but Music for instruments and S for Singers. The more you turn it to S the more bass is rolled off.



Reliability: 9
Just like the SM7b it's built like a tank. The only problem is the holder; it's very easy to knock the mic off it's clip leaving it likely to fall on the floor. It doesn't take much to knock it off the clip.

Overall Rating: 9
Outstanding mic that I always find myself using on the drums and some guitar amping. I highly recommend it as a prominent place in the microphone cabinet.

[samuelfi13]

Quality: 10
I had 3 of these that I used primarily as vocal mics on female backup singers. Like their cousin, the MD424, they sounded unusually good with any vocalist I stuck in front of them. (There aren't a lot of mics you can say that about. With most other brands, all too often, one would sound great with one vocalist and horrible on another. Before I bought these, I spent a lot of time trying different mics until I found one that worked well with a particular vocalist. With the 412s and 424s I could feel confident that I'd get good sound no matter who stood in front of them.)

They also worked great as drum mics, too. One advantage the 421s have over just about any other mic in existence is that they won't overload or clip no matter how loud the sound. (Early adverts for these guys used to show an oscilloscope photo of a pistol shot 1" in front of the grill. The output was a 1 volt spike (yes thats volts, not millivolts) with a very sharp peak. Pretty impressive....) You won't see that with any Shure mic!

I never used them on electric guitar, but they always sounded great with acoustic guitar. Just dial the high pass filter switch to a setting that sounds right and you're good to go. No EQ is needed on the mixing board. (I work exclusively with acoustic instrumentalists. No electric stuff for me. I like my music organic....) (BTW, The best sounding mic I ever had for guitar was a Beyerdynamic M130 figure 8 ribbon mic. It is exceptionally smooth, with a fat, rich, bottom end and a very fast, but slightly rolled off top end. Every guitarist I worked with loved it.)

BTW, these should not be used handheld - for one, they're too big for that. Secondly they have poor handling noise. The best handheld vocal mic I have ever used was the MD424. It was dead quiet no matter who goth their hands on it. The only complaints I ever got about it were A: it is one damned heavy mother (it IS heavy!), and B: it's BIG - not in diameter like the 421s, but in length. With a standard sized XLR connector sticking out the bottom, that baby had to be at least 10" long!

One final note: I love the 5 position bass rolloff switch these mics have. (The MD424 has it too.) It does a much better job of compensating for proximity effect than any mixing board EQ I tried. Next to their sound quality, ruggedness, and versatility, that was my favorite feature of these guys.

Reliability: 10
It's built like a tank. One time an overly aggressive drummer put a small dent in the grill of one of them, but the sound was never effected.

As far as the holder is concerned, I never had a problem with that. I NEVER had a mic fall off the holder, either. Not EVER. Once the mic was locked in place, it stayed there and never budged. Even when I used them at a concert in a Virginia prison, the burly inmates who used them couldn't knock them off their holders.

Overall Rating: 10
In my opinion, this is a pretty versatile and rugged mic, no matter what the application.


I probably ought to note that 95% of my recording work is done live, in front of an audience -- not at home or in a studio environment. And I never liked the sound of the Shure SM57's or 58's. They sound too pinched and nasal for my taste...I prefer a natural/neutral sound, and the Shures just don't sound anywhere near that to me.

[Rockerdude]

Great mic, I have several.Mic clip SUCKS!

[Bigduggieface]

If I had to live with just one microphone, the MD421 would be it.

Use it on toms, kick drum, guitar & bass cabinets, percussion, standup bass, you name it. It is underrated as a vocal mic, too (I understand that it was originally designed as a broadcast mic).

It may not be as durable as a 57, but it sounds better on pretty much every source, in my opinion. I own 5 of them.

Yeah, the clip is the only drawback. And don't lose or strip the threads on the clip, because Sennheiser charges an obscene amount for a replacement clip.

[Gerhard]

Sold!!!!!!

[garageband]

There's nothing wrong with the clip, just boneheads who don't full insert it until it clicks. To help with such boneheadism, there's a little rubber nipple on the mic in that little cavity which provides the tension to keep the fit between the clip and mic joint firm when it's locked in place. Gently file/sand a teeny amount of that rubber off and it'll lock fully more easily.

BTW, I like this on my smaller kick drum a lot.

[paul999]

Now that I threatened myself with selling the thing and have cured my boneheadism(not by filing but by being conscious) I decided to really try this on guitar again and see if it is a sound I can enjoy. This mic didn't become a legend for no reason. My ears just don't seem to hear it when I am captain of the ship.

[bo0tsy1]

The Phaser. Everything has pretty much already been said. Heard on talk radio on a daily basis. Makes any vocal sound, like you just ate a 72 oz steak, baked potato and broccoli, with a side of peach cobbler, full. Great on any horn! Smooth on saxophone. This is Sennheisers SM57, only the replacement clip costs a little less than half a 57.
Nice having a HPF. I would estimate a slight knock at reliability as I have witnessed failure of mic and clips a couple times. But still it is very rugged and if handled properly will give you great service.

[danhughes]

(I understand that it was originally designed as a broadcast mic).

In fact, the MD421 was the studio mic at Chicago's legendary WLS-AM radio (Larry Lujack, Fred Winston, etc) back in the day.

[TheMandalaVirus]

This mic is really versatile and built solid. I wouldn't use anything else for Toms, and almost everyone I've worked with has busted out the 421/57 combination on their guitar cabinet. However I personally feel that the 421-57 combo is so redundant at this point that it's almost boring for me at this point. Yes, they work well together and deliver a solid, robust tone, but I feel too pigeonholed always using the same combination. I LOVE trying different combinations, and especially different ribbon mic/dynamic combos. Anyhow there's my rant, any other interesting uses for it?