CAD M179 for vocals/acoustic

[travelin travis]

I'm sure someone else has tried this mic for vocals and/or acoustic guitar? How good/bad were the results?

[baekgaard]

Originally Posted by TravisinFlorida

I'm sure someone else has tried this mic for vocals and/or acoustic guitar? How good/bad were the results?

On guitar: Quite good, natural sound. Not harsh in any way. Full body and natural sounding top.

On voice: If you have a great voice, I'll work just fine. If the voice need a little "something", then there may be better mics out there. But some of those in the same price range will not only add that "something" but also introduce other artifacts. The M179 doesn't add a lot of artifacts.


Rgds,



-- Per.

[travelin travis]

I have had this mic for a couple of months but have'nt been able to get a nice vocal or acoustic guitar sound. I had a mxl 990 before getting this mic and I got better results out of it. I'm not saying that the results were very good, just better than anything I've been able to do with the M179. I do like micing my guitar amp with the M179 though.

[baekgaard]

Originally Posted by TravisinFlorida

I have had this mic for a couple of months but have'nt been able to get a nice vocal or acoustic guitar sound.

What is your guitar?

Where have you been placing the mic?


-- Per.

[scrubs]

Originally Posted by baekgaard

On guitar: Quite good, natural sound. Not harsh in any way. Full body and natural sounding top.

On voice: If you have a great voice, I'll work just fine. If the voice need a little "something", then there may be better mics out there. But some of those in the same price range will not only add that "something" but also introduce other artifacts. The M179 doesn't add a lot of artifacts.

That was pretty much my experience, too. I wasn't floored by the sound on acoustic with the track soloed, but it sat perfectly in the mix with only a little low shelf eq.

The vocal sound was just o.k. Nothing special, but not bad, either.

[Dot]

The one good thing the M179 has going for is it doesn't pick up much off-axis, so if you have a crappy-sounding room the M179 can, in some cases, give better-sounding results than perhaps a better mic, but is picking up more of the undesirable room sound.

I think if you're looking for a mic in the same price range as the M179 for vocals and acoustic guitar the ADK Vienna and Hamburg are the best mics on the market right now. And there aren't a lot of mics that work equally well with vocals and acoustic at any price, so the Vienna and Hamburg are very good choices. And out of the two I recommend the Vienna, and wrote my reasons for that here.

[Monkey Allen]

I have the CAD m177... almost the same as the 179. It's my 1st ever condenser mic and I am kind of intimidated by the clearness of the recorded sound. It picks up everything and I'm wondering how I am going to get a nice sound from my acoustic guitar. I feel like it's gonna pick up all my mistakes. Back in the day when I recorded with a cheap, cheap dynamic mic I had no such concerns.

[Warhead]

I like the M179 more for lead acoustic work. If something sounds good and you mic it with an M179, it's pretty much going to sound good if your placement is right.

My reason for liking it more for lead acoustic than strumming is the attack reproduction. The M179 doesn't give a pronounced pick rake sound in my opinion, which to me is more desirable for lead stuff whereas with rhythm it helps define the sound and percussive nature of the acoustic guitar. For strummed acoustic guitar I'd rather use an Oktava MC012 or maybe an AT4041 which both capture the rake of the pick better. Of course if you want more scrape in your acoustic lead tracks then don't reach for the M179 then either.

The AT4041 has been a nice addition around my place on drums, acoustic guitars, etc.

On vocals the M179 can be just as hit and miss as any other mic. It's a workhorse mic.

War

[mattamatta]

I have both the m179 and the 990, and I tend to like the m179 better. One thing to keep in mind is that it doesn't have as much of a hyped upper mid as a lot of condensers, so that's what you might be missing.

I often boost a couple db in the upper mids on vocals, and I've found that if I cut a couple db at around 400hz, it just sorta snaps my vocals done with the m179 into place. I tried and tried to get it to fit, adjusting compression and eq, and that's what did it for me.

I've been getting a great acoustic sound with one m179 in front of the guitar (I guess I'd say it's aiming sorta around the neck joint, but it's really just "in front". not quite at the sound hole, not quite at the fret board), and another placed over my right shoulder (playing right handed). Panned out a bit it gets me a nice big sounding acoustic tone. Not the typical bright tone.

I play a normal body sized Larrivee, with0 some (now getting old) elixirs on it. It has a good sound that I like, and the m179 captures it pretty naturally.

It's not quite as bright as a typical SDC modern pop/rock guitar tone, but it's a good one. Sometimes I boost some of the highs or high mids. That's not something I'm afraid to do with the mic, because, although I have a brighter mic (the 990), the m179 just seems smoother to me.

[crazydoc]

So what polar patterns are you all using for all this?

[baekgaard]

Originally Posted by crazydoc

So what polar patterns are you all using for all this?

Me? Usually cardioid for this kind of work. Depends on the room also; I don't have a nice room so omni doesn't cut it.

Figure of 8 has (on my mic) slightly different sounds on the front and the back sides, so that is also an option to adjust the tone.


-- Per.

[mattamatta]

I almost always use it in cardiod mode, unless I have a particular reason to do otherwise (so far other than fiddling around with M/S miking since I finally have a pair of multi-pattern mics, I haven't had one).

http://www.crapshaith.org/music/goodbyetoya.mp3
http://www.shrinking-pants.com/matt/...ckup_blend.MP3
and
http://www.shrinking-pants.com/matt/...te_of_mine.mp3

were all done with the m179 on vocal and acoustic guitar (the last two have a piezo pickup mixed on. pickup in the center on the middle one, and pickup and one mic panned apart on the last one) if you wanna hear some things that I've done using them for some idea of the types of sounds I like them for.

Oh man, one more week and I'll be home for summer, which means I'll get to try them out on drums and do some sick recording sessions. Drum overheads, along with acoustic and anything else stereo (my first pair of the same or even similar sounding mics) were the main things I bought em for.