kid klash
The original Mr. Nice Guy
I seem to be on a lot of musical instrument dealer's mailing lists these days, so I wasn't surprised when I received a mailer from Guitar Center last month. What did surprise me was that they were selling the Octava MK-319 large diaphragm condenser mic for only $99.99 ("retail" price $579.99). Octava is a well known Russian manufacturer of microphones, which are now available in the U.S. Being somewhat familiar with their popular MK-219 and MK-012, I was anxious to snag what appeared to be one of the microphone deals of the century! So off to the Beaverton GC store I went.
First off, if you decide you want to buy one (or two) of these Octava MK-319s, plan
on spending some time at your GC store listening to a bunch of them because they
are VERY inconsistent from one unit to another. I went through 6 of them at the store; I did A/B comparisons with two at a time connected to a large Mackie 8 bus board, listening to a Martin D-18 acoustic guitar, a Zildjian 18" cymbal, a ring of keys, and a hand full of coins. Some of the mics were OK; some were real dogs, with very low output, no top end, crooked high pass or pad buttons, smudged silkscreen printing, bent mic clips, scratches in the paint and other odd mechanical problems (the XLR connector on two of these mics was undersized and wouldn't even accept a mic cable!).
Anyway, after finding the mic that sounded best to my ears, I could hardly wait to take it to the studio to get started. I was most interested in doing an A/B comparison with a Rode NT-1, which I already own, and am very familiar with. Both the MK-319 and NT-1 were stand-mounted, and connected to an ART Dual Tube MP mic preamp, which was connected to a vintage Marantz stereo power amp (originally owned by Donald Fagan of Steeley Dan), powering a pair of Rodgers Beta FR 1.7 prototype monitors.
For source material, we started with two male (baritone and tenor) vocalists. The first thing that struck me was how bottom-heavy the MK-319 sounded compared to the NT-1. Also, the MK-319 sounded very "gritty" and veiled, with very little top end, where the NT-1 sounded much bigger, more open and clean.
Next, we tried some "egg" shakers... the MK-319 sounded closed, smeared and muddy, compared to the NT-1's open and detailed sound.
Then, we put these two mics above and in front of a MAPEX drum kit with new "pinstripe" heads. Again, the MK-319 sounded very "narrow", dark and "closed; the Zildjian cymbals lacked high end and the whole kit sounded muddy. When we cued up the Rode NT-1, it was like changing from my wife's grandmother's hand-cranked Victorola to standing in front of a real drummer... the NT-1 was open, detailed and had all the highs and none of the low end boominess of the MK-319.
As I wrote earlier, these mics are not mirror images of one another, so I might have gotten a so-so one out of a batch of bad ones…. I don't know. But I was disappointed enough in that particular mic that I wound up returning it to GC store the following Tuesday. By the way - most music stores won't accept a returned mic because of "federal health guidelines". If you buy and decide to return one of these (or any other) microphones, make sure nobody "spits" on it during vocal testing because the GC salesman sniffed the grille of my returned MK-319 several times before I got my money back... strange but true…
First off, if you decide you want to buy one (or two) of these Octava MK-319s, plan
on spending some time at your GC store listening to a bunch of them because they
are VERY inconsistent from one unit to another. I went through 6 of them at the store; I did A/B comparisons with two at a time connected to a large Mackie 8 bus board, listening to a Martin D-18 acoustic guitar, a Zildjian 18" cymbal, a ring of keys, and a hand full of coins. Some of the mics were OK; some were real dogs, with very low output, no top end, crooked high pass or pad buttons, smudged silkscreen printing, bent mic clips, scratches in the paint and other odd mechanical problems (the XLR connector on two of these mics was undersized and wouldn't even accept a mic cable!).
Anyway, after finding the mic that sounded best to my ears, I could hardly wait to take it to the studio to get started. I was most interested in doing an A/B comparison with a Rode NT-1, which I already own, and am very familiar with. Both the MK-319 and NT-1 were stand-mounted, and connected to an ART Dual Tube MP mic preamp, which was connected to a vintage Marantz stereo power amp (originally owned by Donald Fagan of Steeley Dan), powering a pair of Rodgers Beta FR 1.7 prototype monitors.
For source material, we started with two male (baritone and tenor) vocalists. The first thing that struck me was how bottom-heavy the MK-319 sounded compared to the NT-1. Also, the MK-319 sounded very "gritty" and veiled, with very little top end, where the NT-1 sounded much bigger, more open and clean.
Next, we tried some "egg" shakers... the MK-319 sounded closed, smeared and muddy, compared to the NT-1's open and detailed sound.
Then, we put these two mics above and in front of a MAPEX drum kit with new "pinstripe" heads. Again, the MK-319 sounded very "narrow", dark and "closed; the Zildjian cymbals lacked high end and the whole kit sounded muddy. When we cued up the Rode NT-1, it was like changing from my wife's grandmother's hand-cranked Victorola to standing in front of a real drummer... the NT-1 was open, detailed and had all the highs and none of the low end boominess of the MK-319.
As I wrote earlier, these mics are not mirror images of one another, so I might have gotten a so-so one out of a batch of bad ones…. I don't know. But I was disappointed enough in that particular mic that I wound up returning it to GC store the following Tuesday. By the way - most music stores won't accept a returned mic because of "federal health guidelines". If you buy and decide to return one of these (or any other) microphones, make sure nobody "spits" on it during vocal testing because the GC salesman sniffed the grille of my returned MK-319 several times before I got my money back... strange but true…