Heil Sound mics are famous for their condenser-like frequency range and invincibility against clipping.

FOR: Drummers and live sound engineers. Playing with Heil drum mics at a gig with decent monitoring feels close to a studio experience. That’s because the frequency coverage and seemingly limitless dynamic range of each microphone is recreating an acoustic instrument, rather than treating the sound as a gunshot to be muffled before sending it off to the mixing board. The HDK-7 includes several paired mics and a single PR 48 for the kick drum. The PR 48 has a very high SPL handling (148dB!) and while it offers a definite boost in the low end, it lacks the faux-sounding rumble heard in some kick and bass cabinet mics. Two PR 28s with mounts are perfect for toms; the pair of PR 30Bs can take on more toms or hang as heavy-duty overheads.

NOT FOR: Non-drummers, natch.