Electro-Voice N/D868
A dedicated kick-drum microphone with a deliberate "smile" curve. The N/D868 was built to make a bass drum speak before the EQ rack gets touched.
Overview
The N/D868 arrived in Electro-Voice's N/DYM line as the designated bass drum mic. The company's own advertising framed it around that single job: capturing the attack of the beater on the head "with powerful definition," as one period spot put it. It was not chasing a flat, do-everything response. It was shaped for one source. Mix (January 1998, p.174) put numbers on the shaping when it reviewed the mic alongside the Audix D4: a classic "smile" response, with +5 dB peaks at 50 Hz and 2,000 Hz, a broad dip of up to −5 dB centered in the 400 to 600 Hz region, and a high-frequency response that drops off sharply above 7,500 Hz. The low peak reinforces the fundamental of the drum. The upper-mid peak pushes the beater click forward. The midrange scoop carves out the boxy region where kick drums turn to mush, and the top-end rolloff keeps cymbal bleed from turning brittle.
The same Mix review gives the price: the N/D868 listed at $370, slightly above the $329 Audix D4 it was tested against. Both were described as new kick-drum mics in a market that the magazine noted was growing more and more specialized by the month. The pitch was less about flexibility than about speed. The mic is voiced so the drum sounds like a drum on the way in, which is what the marketing meant by "less set-up time" and "requires very little EQ."
Electro-Voice's own advertising leaned hard on the application-specific angle. It billed the N/D868 as part of a complete line of purpose-built N/DYM Series microphones and promised definition with punch and clarity. Marketing copy is not a verdict, but the design brief it describes, a large-diaphragm dynamic tuned for kick, matches what the independent review measured.
The N/D868 also turns up repeatedly in session documentation.
A Mix (August 2001, p.157) N/DYM line listing places the N/D868 alongside the N/D767A, N/D267AS, N/D167, and N/D478. That suggests Electro-Voice wanted it used as the kick piece of a matched drum set. Anyone hunting one today should expect it to be judged on that kick-specific curve. The mid scoop and top rolloff make it a poor all-rounder by design.
The caveats are the usual ones for a dedicated dynamic. It rewards placement. The beater attack peak at 2 kHz means small moves around the head change the character a lot. The 400-600 Hz dip means it will not flatter a drum that needs body in that region.
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