Can anyone offer advice on the best type of microphones to use for the pipes, please?
Hi Chris, I hope you are well.
I’ve always found that for doing pub and festival type gigs the Shure SM58 works well, especially for the chanter. I angle it slightly downwards on the stand pointing opposite the A hole and this picks up the back D as well as bottom D.
I’ve tried a few things for the drones but usually just use another Shure SM58 positioned favouring the bass drone but out of the airflow.
Kind regards,
Cameron
Cameron, good to hear from you. Thanks for this, I was actually considering the Shure mikes, glad to hear that you think them worth investing in. All the best, hope you’re keeping well. Chris
For small noisy pubs I used to use a drone/reg mic that clipped to the bari drone. I think it was made to clip onto a sax bell but I’ve seen people clip them onto fiddles. It was very light and had a little 3 or 4 inch gooseneck. It worked pretty well, and I could move around without the sound changing.
Of course, to be very picky, there’s no way to answer the question as it stands, without more info. Live sound or recording? Solo or group playing? Large venue or small? Budget limitations or not?
In general, a good mike for pipes is a good mike … full stop. A large diaphragm cardioid condenser will sound great, and you’ll pay up to a thousand or more. For solo work, an omnidirectional or PZM microphone may capture chanter, drones and regs very realistically without multiple mikes, but be unsuitable for pipes in a group or for live sound.
As a basic mike, you can’t go wrong with the SM57/58. It’s the workhorse.
Just to note, the 57 and 58 are actually the same microphone (same capsule), but the 58 incorporates a vocal pop filter, and is available with an on/off switch for muting. Since breath popping is not an issue for pipes (or any instrument, really), either one will perform identically.
And as noted elsewhere, be sure to buy an SM57/58 from an authorized seller or reliable source, since these have been targets of cheap knock-offs sold as the real thing on eBay and elsewhere.
The vocal mic also has a different response curve when you get really close (they call it “proximity” something or other in the brochure) – to prevent it from making voices boomy.
If you’re wanting to record, then studio condensers will sound better.
Actually, it doesn’t, not the vocal mike specifically.
Again, just to be clear … The SM57 and SM58 are basically the same mike with virtually identical response curves within measurement variability - check the frequency graphs from Shure*. Both mikes exhibit the same [u]proximity effect[/u], which makes voices more boomy at close range, not less. It’s a characteristic of cardioid pattern mikes that singers like because it makes the voice sound fuller when you “kiss” the mike.
- Oddly, the identical published curves are slightly different from the online curves which show the 58 rising slightly faster at 1 kHz, and rolling off more gently at 200 Hz. But the maximum difference with the 57 is still only ~2 dB.
http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/WiredMicrophones/us_pro_SM57-LC_content
http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/WiredMicrophones/us_pro_SM58-CN_content
So the unique features of the 58 are the integrated pop filter, and the larger, rounded lips-friendly vocal grille. I prefer the 57 because it can be aimed a hair more precisely (the diaphragm is closer to the end of the mike); and for vocal use, the add-on foam pop filter works well. But either works just fine for either instruments or voice.
Can’t disagree with that! 
Just my two cents,
Blue’s EnCore 100 series kick’s Shure’s ass for live performance. Vocals OR pipes. Great for flute, too.
Zac
Yes, but can you hammer nails with it? 
Interesting, Zac. Have you been using the enCore with the band? It does look like a nice mike at a nice price. Styling similar to the Shure Beta 57*. And the curve looks similar to the 57/58, but with a boost on the bottom end (maybe they’re measuring proximity?). I see that they’re also about to introduce an instrument version of the enCore 100: http://www.bluemic.com/news/
- The Beta 57 is another nice mike, with a tighter pattern and, to my ear, crisper response than the SM.
Another choice people here have had luck with for miking pipes and all-around use is the small condenser AKG C1000S. Very crisp and clean. Runs on phantom or battery, and both the pattern and response curve are adjustable.
I have tried my room mate’s. It beat out pretty much every other mike in its price range that she tried at Guitar Center. I was very impressed with it. I will probably buy one of my own at some point. Blue make fantastic recording mikes as well. I am not a big fan of Shure mikes. I always have problems with them especially for the pipes. They just can’t handle enough gain in comparison to other instruments. A lot of other issues, too. I don’t like how they color the sound of the pipes. Too harsh.I just don’t trust them any more. The Blue seems to have really solved a lot of Shure issues. My 57 Beta sounds like a rock compared to it. Also, it is pretty!
Zac
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/mic-for-pipes/35711/1
Ah, I love the sheer repetitiveness of this forum 
There’s a wealth of info in here, some now getting dusty, some contributed by expert pipers that are no longer here on this forum.
The search facility is highly recommended!!!
Boyd
oh, and there’s talk of NPU putting up a general tech spec page on their website
and an article in their mag sometime
Boyd
That’s what you get for resurrecting zombies, Boyd.
Wow…5 years since I asked NPU to put up a page on their website giving tec spec options for uilleann pipes and as far as I know it hasn’t happened.
Good old google is helpful now
https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=uilleann+tec+spec&gbv=2&oq=uilleann+tec+spec&gs_l=heirloom-hp.3...1380.6516.0.7414.17.10.0.7.3.0.240.950.5j3j1.9.0....0...1ac.1.34.heirloom-hp..6.11.928.no9xkNhhNGg
and it looks like there are two or three main schools of thought:
-
2 x SM58 (eg John McSherry and Calum Stewart)
-
Condenser & others (AKG414, SM81, XLR) (eg Jarlath Henderson)
-
Sennheiser EW300G3 Wireless IEM system (Manran, Senheiser MD 509 for the pipes)
I suspect most venues and set-ups will have SM58s available.
If you prefer a condenser mic then some sort of shield in front of it will reduce ambient noise from the audience (and slapback if its an echoey venue)
Looks like a condenser will suit regulator playing better.
Finally, Calum’s tec spec says some reverb on slow pieces and a bit less reverb on faster.
Boyd
And just noting that the SM57 is identical to the SM58 for instrumental use, and also common.
Does it have to be a mic?..or…would you consider a transducer?
Years ago I went with the transducer route, largely after reading some online details of what
Spillane was using at the time.
Removed all the pain of carrying and setting up mics, stands, etc, that differed in every venue.
One fixes the transducer to the reed, has a jack mounted somewhere near the top ferrule,
just plug in the house cable and away you go. Admittedly, learning what EQ was required was
different from using mics. - the sound output is different - but once learned it was easy enough to set.
And joy of joys, no feedback problems, ever.
M
re: “does it have to be…?”
I’ve researched what some professionals do. Haven’t seen many professional pipers who use transducers.
I have even known someone drill a wee hole and place something on a wire in the chanter top (20 years ago.)
As for the pipers who gig the most, who make a living from it and who need to have good sound night after night at lots of different venues, they all seem to use external (mic’d) systems.
Can’t find Mike McGoldrick’s tec spec but I know he gigs with mics and looks like SM58/57s to my eye.
And then thinking of more dyed in the wool trad pipers, (Robbie, Mick, Sean P, etc) most prefer acoustic small venues so no amplification is required, no transducer as that means putting something in the chanter, but if mic’d they go with whatever the sound engineer provides and its up to the techie people to get it right.
I’ve often wondered what the Willie week piping recital set-up is, and perhaps Peter Laban will be able to inform us on that one?
Boyd
https://thesession.org/discussions/23485 is also useful
makes mention of Eric Rigler using a transducer-type arrangement