Can This Be?

V

Vikki

New member
I purchased an ADK Vienna a few months back and having been using it on vocals with reasonable results. Last night i dug out my 10 year old thrashed Beyer TGX 580 dynamic mic and recorded some comparison tracks along with the ADK Vienna. I've got to say the Beyer just floored the adk, it was full warm and just worked with no effort.
So does the this mean the Beyer just suits my voice or have i got the Chinese mic thing with my ADK, thin and Chineasey? No disrespect to the people with Viennas. Just to say i have a good set of JLM audio preamps and Calrec eq.
Vikki(uk)
 
"So does the this mean the Beyer just suits my voice or ..."

I think you might've answered your own question here. Maybe it's because the 10 year-old mic had time to 'mature' or maybe it's just a better-quality mic.

What matters here is that you like it better on your voice with that preamp and EQ. Cheers, Rez
 
I just acquired a Hamburg ADK and was amazed at the quality "on my voice".
I have found an RE20 to be the mic for a woman who records here often, another guy sounds great on an NTK, while still another needs an SM7 in his mix.
I think its great when you find that mic that works, especially at that $
Maybe it wasn't the mic that matured but the engineer and her voice.
 
Plus Beyer make good mics ... dunno what the original prices were but my Soundstar MkII cost me £30 on ebay and kicks most of the other dynamics I have on voices, cabs and toms and even sounds great on certain acoustic guitar! :eek:
 
I think i paid a couple of hundred uk pounds at the time and i've used the beyer with the band for 10 years, sadly they don't make em any more, i was wondering what the Beyer LDC's are like, if this sounds as good as it does, maybe they will work well for me.
Vikki(uk)
 
If you have something that works for you, stick with it. I don't know much about the Beyer condensers except at least some of them seem to be generic OEM cheapies. I always understood Beyer were known more for their dynamics and ribbons anyways ... why not look into some of them? HR member Han in particular seems to have owned dozens of them and is a trustworthy person to run a search on and get old advice from.

Good luck with it! :)

PS - If you need someone to offload that Vienna onto, send me a PM or email because I might be interested :)
 
Let your ears be your guide. Sometimes higher price means better, sometimes not. I have an Oktava Mk319 that I purchased at Guitar Center for $69. It works better for my voice than my other more expensive mics. Actually it's kind of nice when that happens.
 
each voice and each song may call for a different mic..For instance on a ballad you may want a warmer sounding mic than a rock tune on the same singer
 
I think there is this game that's played on the forums. Some guy tells you he just got this mic and it's the new big thing in low budget mics. Like lemmings we buy them. It's a nice game. It's made one or two guys very wealthy. It's helped one or two guys become internet addicts supreme and they dance around from forum to forum spreading the gospel about some new cheap mic.

Bottom Line: Beyerdynamic makes some nice mics. My friend Warhead likes the ADK Vienna and Hamburg. I've not used one but given that I respect Warhead's opinion you might out to try the ADK on some different sources before you write it off. If you don't like it, then sell it.
 
The Vienna seems to work o.k on toppy lightly strummed acoustic guitar to give that airy strummy sound. But it seems to lack body, perhaps mids and bottom end on my voice. I think it would suit a male with a deeper voice, i'm doing the ballad country type of thing. I was wondering how you get that vocal recorded ambience, i think i've found it.
Just done a couple of acoustic lead guitar melody breaks in a song and believe it or not the Beyer seemed to out shine an AKG C451b and the Vienna in that application.
Oh well, i'm still shocked. Must look at some more dynamic mics, sadly the EV RE20 is 1500 us dollars in the uk.
Vikki(uk)
 
vikki, the ADK Vienna and Hamburg are excellent mics. http://www.studioreviews.com/vienna-hamburg.htm

What sounds better on your voice is not an indication of the overall quality of either mic. I've been in situations where a $300 dynamic mic was chosen over a $6000 tube mic - simply because the less expensive mic happened to sound better for the singer, the song, and the sound we were going for.

Also, depending on other factors - such as AD converters, monitors, room acoustics - you could be hearing different results.

Any way you could post some quick AB samples of the Beyer and ADK?
 
Beyer makes some wonderful mics. They are less known in the US than some other brands, but I suspect are more available and better known in Europe. A good site with a lot of info on Beyer (and other mics) is

http://members.aol.com/mihartkopf/

I have a lot of different Beyer mics and like them a lot. Some of the standouts are:

M201 -- a SD dynamic mic that is like an SM57 on steroids. Great on drums and instruments, particularly snare and cabs.

Any of their ribbons -- M160 in particular for overheads and cabs. The M500 is a wonderful vocal mic on some voices. The M130 is a great figure of 8 ribbon.

M380 - a figure of 8 dynamic mic (but not a ribbon) that is great on bass and kick (there is a more modern TG version of this mic also).

MC834 - a LD condenser with multi point roll off and pads. A very "realistic" as opposed to "flattering" mic. Great vocal mic on some voices (I use it for background vocals a lot) and a great room mic. One pattern only (cardioid). There is a multipattern version of this mic but it costs a lot more. I've picked up a couple of these on E-Bay pretty cheap (less than$300) because they are relatively unknown. A bargain at that price IMHO. They listed for over $1K.

Soundstar II dynamic - a great screamer mic. Better than an SM-58 for performing and relatively cheap on e-bay. Sounds kind of like an SM7.

M88 - A "condenser sounding" dynamic mic with a wide range. Great all purpose mic with substantial proximity effect. Good enough for Phil Collins. A great vocal mic on the right voice.

MCE93 -- pencil condensers. Very decent instrument mics. Relatively unknown in the States and thus very cheap used. I paid @$150-250 a pair for two pairs of them and they listed at @$500 each. They are not Neumanns or Josephsons, but at that price they sure blow out Marshalls and Oktavas IMHO. The MCE94 uses a battery for phantom power. A great deal at the right price.

There are lots more Beyer mics and they are worth checking out IMHO. As always, you can't tell which mic is right for your voice until you actually try it.
 
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