ADK Hamburg as a general purpose mic

C

CanopuS

Amateur music since 1847
I know, I know... no mic can ever be good at lots of things. And I know that I'm talking about something in the lower-end. And ultimately my mixes will end up sounding crap. That aside...
I've just bought myself a MOTU Ultralite, and today had the opportunity to test it out with a Rode NT5 (in my stupidity I forgot that I only had one XLR cable... no luck with the stereo pair then!)... which was a perfectly reasonable result, just getting down a couple of acoustic guitar tracks. I suppose my real question is... can I be pretty sure that the ADK Hamburg would do a better job as a general mic... for guitar tracks, small percussion, violin etc... oh and of course vocals which I'm sure will no doubt be better. Or at least be no worse than the Rode mic...
I do hope so.
Thanks for any replies :)
 
I'll check out the CAD M179, I've heard good things about it... now that the dust has settled, how does it compare with the ADK?
As for the SP B1... it completely shredded my voice whenever I used it, not a bad mic but really not suited to me.
 
CanopuS said:
I know, I know... no mic can ever be good at lots of things. And I know that I'm talking about something in the lower-end. And ultimately my mixes will end up sounding crap. That aside...
I've just bought myself a MOTU Ultralite, and today had the opportunity to test it out with a Rode NT5 (in my stupidity I forgot that I only had one XLR cable... no luck with the stereo pair then!)... which was a perfectly reasonable result, just getting down a couple of acoustic guitar tracks. I suppose my real question is... can I be pretty sure that the ADK Hamburg would do a better job as a general mic... for guitar tracks, small percussion, violin etc... oh and of course vocals which I'm sure will no doubt be better. Or at least be no worse than the Rode mic...
I do hope so.
Thanks for any replies :)
Click to expand...

all the same, only different.
 
yes, i use a hamburg as a general 'mic everything' mic....

works great for vox...
works great for acoustic guitars.

works great (at some distance) for capturing electric guitar girth (you have to play with the positioning a bit to find the right spot)

works for micing bass cabs...

but i haven't used it on a kit.

i would imagine, as overheads they'd be fine, maybe closer with the -18db pad...
 
CanopuS said:
I suppose my real question is... can I be pretty sure that the ADK Hamburg would do a better job as a general mic... for guitar tracks, small percussion, violin etc... oh and of course vocals which I'm sure will no doubt be better. Or at least be no worse than the Rode mic...
Click to expand...

A large diaphragm condenser (e.g. the Hamburg) will never be as accurate as a small diaphragm condenser because of the larger diaphragm. For some things (vocals, for example), that's a desirable sound. For a general-purpose mic, though, IMHO, it would not be.

I also find the Hamburg in particular to be somewhat brittle. It seems well-suited for baritone and bass singers, but for other uses, it sounds pretty harsh to my ears.
 
Hmph. The problem I suppose then is that my voice is very bassy... but I prefer to exploit its higher end which is rather airy, but some mics really pick out an awful crack in it which sounds like I've just eaten razor blades and washed it down with a helping of granite.
There is never a simple answer, ever.
 
Works great on some voices, especially the lower end ones. Easy to deal with the peak in the high mids. It's a good mic, but I like 'em all (except that akg c1000s, but at this point, it's personal)
 
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