ADK brand of mics

[ItzCashew]

I've found them in abundance on ebay and i was just wondering if they are good or up to par with any of the other mic companies. I've never heard of them till now honestly.

[bigwillz24]

Originally Posted by ItzCashew

I've found them in abundance on ebay and i was just wondering if they are good or up to par with any of the other mic companies. I've never heard of them till now honestly.

I love mine personally. I put my Hamburg up against a U87 in a blind test at school had my teacher walk in and pick which one he thought sounded best. Well my mic won and my teacher ran out and bought 3 of them.

Nuff said.

[travelin travis]

I've only owned a Hamburg. It's a very pretty sounding mic. I had a pretty crumby experience with service/parts though.

[antispatula]

GET A HAMBURG! In fact, get TWO! Everything in my sig. was recorded with hamburgs. They're great.

[travelin travis]

listening on myspace I would'nt be able to tell if you recorded with a U87 or a computer mic.

[antispatula]

good point

[kidvybes]

...when David Royer (of Royer Ribbon Mic fame) started to produce a pre-assembled version of his now well-acclaimed Mojave MA200 LDC Tube Mic (originally sold in a kit form) he went to Larry V. at ADK for his mic bodies and capsules...says something about the quality of ADK products...I have one of those original prototypes using a Hamburg/Vienna body and a special 5 micron capsule and it rocks!...

[sdelsolray]

ADK has been around for some time. They make several grades of mics, from low cost budget mics to expensive, knocking on the doors of the big boys, mics.

In addition, ADK tends to tweak their designs incrementally as time passes. So there's a bit of confusion with all the various versions of, for example, the A-51 mic (there are probably 20 versions with the designation "A-51").

I can't speak for the budget Generis line, or for many of the less expensive "ADK" branded mics. The Audiophile Series of mics are quite nice, with attendant higher prices. I've tried all of the Audiophile Series, have owned the ADK A-48 and currently own a pair of ADK CE. The CE mics are wonderful, as are the TT and TC. The TL is a poor man's AKG 414. The Vienna and Hamburg are very good too, and inexpensive. ADK is about to release updated versions of the Vienna and Hamburg.

[tone_aot]

I just got my ADK A-51 type V today. I've used this mic plenty of times at a friends house and it's awesome! ADK is a great company with great mics. I'd like to try a hamburg or vienna one day. I'm too broke to touch that A-48!! All i need now is a great preamp to upgrade from behringer, which will be the dmp3.

[chessrock]

They kinda' suck.

Other than that, I suppose they're pretty good.

[Big Kenny]

ya know, if ya can't say something nice.......you're probably Chessrock. I like my Hamburg okay, not my fav but it gets a walk outside every once in a while on a drab vocal or backup.

[chessrock]

I actually think they're awesome. In a sucky sort of way.

Just kidding. I've never actually used an ADK. Well, at least not one that has an ADK logo on it. I have used all the other Chinese mics with different names on them, so I suppose you could almost say I've used an ADK.

.

[travelin travis]

Originally Posted by chessrock

Just kidding. I've never actually used an ADK.

If you ever want to sound pretty, but you really are'nt pretty at all, give the Hamburg a whirl.

[Brackish]

The Hamburg sounds different from the Vienna.
I've heard them both on male and female
vocals and thought the Hamburg
was better on both.

[kidvybes]

...Ray Charles' longtime producer Terry Howard loves the ADK A51 TT...and if you've ever heard any of RC's recording sessions, they're impressive...check out the details here (great interview~worth reading):
http://emusician.com/tutorials/emusic_recording_genius/

[Vikki]

Well i have an ADK Vienna and it just don't work on my voice, its got no body to the sound, its going through a JLM preamp. I've tried everything with it, close up far away, upside down left right.......worse purchase i ever made. My Beyer TGX 580 blows it off the planet.
Could be good for a male vocalist with a full powerfull voice?
Vikki(uk)

[jowillie]

Sooo....Vikki....you might be selling the Vienna? I may be interested.

[Vikki]

I may let it go but i wanted to give it a try on acoustic guitar, if its ok on that i just keep it for what it cost.
Vikki(uk)

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by Vikki

Well i have an ADK Vienna and it just don't work on my voice, its got no body to the sound, its going through a JLM preamp. I've tried everything with it, close up far away, upside down left right.......worse purchase i ever made. My Beyer TGX 580 blows it off the planet.
Could be good for a male vocalist with a full powerfull voice?
Vikki(uk)

Yeah. Matching mics to particular voices is very subjective and anecdotal. No doubt there's another signer out there that loves the Vienna (on their voice) but thinks the TGX 580 sucks.

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by Vikki

Well i have an ADK Vienna and it just don't work on my voice, its got no body to the sound, its going through a JLM preamp. I've tried everything with it, close up far away, upside down left right.......worse purchase i ever made. My Beyer TGX 580 blows it off the planet.
Could be good for a male vocalist with a full powerfull voice?
Vikki(uk)

I'm a fairly strong tenor and have basically the same opinion about the Vienna. I'm going to try it with a different preamp to see if it's just a gross impedance mismatch with the Brick or something, but I'm thus far completely unimpressed by it.

Oddly enough, it sounds great in my headphones, but as soon as I listen to it on real speakers, it develops a very harsh, brittle, hollow tone, with certain frequencies severely overemphasized (not just the presence boost). Maybe I'm just not used to the sound, but....

Part of the problem, I think, is that the Hamburg has a bad body ring to it. tap it with your fingernail and you'll see what I mean. I have a feeling that if I stuff some foam in there in the right places, the mic will be an okay mic.

[Harvey Gerst]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

Part of the problem, I think, is that the Hamburg has a bad body ring to it. tap it with your fingernail and you'll see what I mean. I have a feeling that if I stuff some foam in there in the right places, the mic will be an okay mic.

Don't put foam in there !! If you wanna damp some of the resonances, try a couple of coats of rubber cement on the inside of the shell. Works like undercoating and you can remove it later if you change your mind.

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by Harvey Gerst

Don't put foam in there !! If you wanna damp some of the resonances, try a couple of coats of rubber cement on the inside of the shell. Works like undercoating and you can remove it later if you change your mind.

That's a good idea, though I'm skeptical that it will cut down on the ring enough. Just to be clear what I'm talking about by "bad" body ring, I mean that if you tap the body, it produces a tone as clear as the handbells at my church.

[BigRay]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

That's a good idea, though I'm skeptical that it will cut down on the ring enough. Just to be clear what I'm talking about by "bad" body ring, I mean that if you tap the body, it produces a tone as clear as the handbells at my church.

the enhanced audio mounts address the ringing problem perfectly..

www.enhancedaudio.ie

of course they are spendy..but they really are magnificent..I just bought 4 more.

[tubedude]

Originally Posted by BigRay

the enhanced audio mounts address the ringing problem perfectly..

www.enhancedaudio.ie

of course they are spendy..but they really are magnificent..I just bought 4 more.

Do they? You know this from experience? (as in having that particular mic as well as the mount?) I'm really interested in getting one of those mounts and will soon.
If you have the Hamburg/Vienna, whats your take on it with the Enhanced mount through a GOOD pre (Seventh Circle API or Neve are what I'm using)

[dkelley]

IMHO body resonances don't necessarilly affect the sound of the recorded mic at all, depending on whether the resonance is audible to the diaphram of the mic.

MANY cheap mics have bad body resonances, even some expensive mics. only one I know of to this day that is audible in any obvious way is the apex 210 I owned for 1 day (same as the rest of the big bodied cheap chinese ribbon mics, as opposed to the small bodies cheap chinese ribbon mics which are better built). That mic had a resonance IN THE GRILL, or at least connected to the grill somehow, and touching it made a ring that was not only audible in the room but audible in the element of the mic. I traded it for a 205 and am much happier, not that it's a great mic by any stretch, but it's at least useful for my intended purpose of buying one.

But there are some amazing sounding recordings done with mics that have body resonances. As long as the diaphram is mounted in a suspension of some sort (rubber, foam, or something similarly non-resonant) you shouldn't hear anything come through the mic unless you tap the mic stand or something like that.

If you don't like the adk hamburg you probably won't like it with the resonance removed from the case either.

Famous cheap mic with body resonance that isn't audible in standard use: apex 460 tube mic. tap that baby, nasty resonance. mount it to a stand, listen to it, record with it, as long as you have a good sounding one (they vary WILDLY from personal experience) it'll sound really really good, no hint of the body resonance coming through. It's actually a well built mic.

Now, if I were building a mic to sell, I'd make sure it had no obvious resonances in it, because for one thing it is a more satisfying feeling to pick up a mic and have it feel solid and not ring when you put it down or tap it. But as long as the designers did their job ok, you shouldn't have any problems in standard use, from my personal experience. It's not like loudspeaker resonances where the tone is behind the diaphram affecting it's load in the box. a mic body resonance doesn't touch the sound waves being recorded at all (at least in cardoid, figure 8, etc) and the only way the sound could be picked up is through direct or sympathetic vibrations into the capsule from the body. That definitely can happen, but it, um, well, it shouldn't I guess is a fair way of putting it, and from my own experiences with tons of cheap mics (even radio shack and other cheapos), I've never found it to affect the recording with only one exception, the apex 210, a nice looking but shockingly poorly damped mic.

So definitely damped it if you want to, it might improve things at least slightly in how you can use the mic, but it really shouldn't change the sound of the mic itself. If you don't like it now, I expect you'll be doing all that work for nothing and you won't like the mic in the end either.

Best of luck either way to you (if this is still valid to you) and to others hoping to change a mic's sound through that technique of dampening body resonances. Just get a different mic and be happy.

Don