advice on the AKG C3000, better sound quality?

[Saul Glennon Trio]

Okay, here's my problem/question. I took several members advice and went out and bought the AKG C3000. I felt I got a great buy at 235.72 brand new. I also bought a Mackie 1202 - VLZ mixer. I've been doing home recordings for over 20 years ( I'm 36 ), and currently have collection of over 600 songs. Since January of this year, my band I and I have been working with cakewalk pro audio 8. As other cakewalk users have mentioned, they are very pleased with how digital and analog instruments record. However, when they record the vocals, its seems to take away from the overall quality. We have had the same problem. We were basically using old Pioneer mics and running them through a fender amp with reverb on. Now, what concerns me is, since buying the AKG c3000 and running it through the Mackie mixer, I must say, I haven't noticed much improvement in sound quality for the vocals. Am I doing something wrong? I've recently ordered Cakewalk Audio FX 1 which includes compression - will this help? Please respond.

p.s : by the way, great site. I wish I had this info. 10 years ago.

Jack

[Fender]

What sound card are you using?

[Saul Glennon Trio]

I have a new Dell Dimension Pentium III - I believe the sound card is from Turtle Bay.

Jack

[Fishmed]

What are you using for monitors?

[The Green Hornet]

Hello Glennon Trio:

I also use an AKG 3000 mic in my home studio and it does a good job.

First of all, you do know that you need phantom power to run the 3000?

You might get better results if you run your 3000 into a good mic preamp; I use the ART mic preamp. From the preamp, you can run the sound into your board and I do believe you will get a good rich warm sound in your headset(s). You might also need some FX in the headset while recording the vocal; this gives the performer a nice rich mellow sound in the headset and adds to creativity. You can then do your mix and adjust the FX anyway you want as you check all the sounds through the monitors.

Hope this helps you, as I know the 3000 is a decent mic.

Green Hornet

[Saul Glennon Trio]

Thanks for the advice everybody. The Mackie mixer has built-in phantom power. I had the option of buying the ART pre-amp instead of the Mixer (would have been cheaper), then going from the pre-amp into the sound-card. I still would like to know if compression on Cakewalk FX will help.

[BigKahuna]

It's hard to say what the deal is ...
That mic should ROCK all by itself ...
You shouldn't need to run it through outside processing gear to get it to perform
hmmm ...
only thing I can think of is ...
do you have the pad on the mic engaged?
is it switched to cardiod pattern or super cardiod?

[jnorman]

perhaps some comment should be made about using a large diaphragm condenser. these are completely different animals from the normal dynamic mics that singers are used to for stage performances. an SM-58 is designed to be used very close to the singers mouth. a large diaphragm condenser will give terrible results if used in this way. it is designed to be worked from at least a foot away from the source, and typically is used a bit further away than that. and you will surely defeat yourself if you try to use the reverb from a fender guitar amp. you must use a decent reverb to acheive decent vocals. mic your vocals with the akg3000 at about 2-3 feet, and use at least a lexicon lxp-1 reverb (not a stomp box, not a nanoverb, not a lexicon mpx-100) and you will get results you can be proud of.

the quality differences in mics below $1000 are often subjective even to the best ears. my experience has shown that you get what you pay for - a $300 condenser is going to be better than a $200 anything, and a $500 mic is "worth the money" if you want to get a more professional sound. personally, i will stick with my 3000s until i can afford some TLM-103s, because to me, that is the next level of noticeably superior quality.

the bottom line is, we all pretty much have to accept the fact that even a $1000 mic is not ever going to sound like a neumann U-87, a cassette portastudio is never going to compete with digital, and no matter how many stomp boxes you hook together, you aren't going to have a lexicon reverb. if you want it to sound right, you gotta pay the piper and buy the correct equipment. a million of us have tried every possible method to do it cheaper and trust us, it wont work. buy just one piece of good gear at a time if you have to, but buy the right thing the first time - it always costs you more to buy the cheaper gear and then have to trade up when you realize it wont cut the cheese :-)

[PPatrick]

I used to own an AKG C3000 and I just think it's a mediocre microphone --- packaged and advertised like a special mic, but really not a big improvement over small diaphram condensers or even dynamics. I think the reason it doesn't sound that great is that it just isn't that great of a mic, period.

[dobro]

Hi, jnorman. Every time I think of buying a condenser mic, I think: "I could buy 2 1/2 Shures with this money." Your post has convinced me to let go of quantity in favor of quality.