Harvey, IMO your input on this bbs is like gold... I've learned tons of stuff from you... like I said your a walking book full of good info and for this I thank you. But I don't need to be a design engineer to know when a mic sucks... and IMO, the 990 sucks and that is a fact... I tried the 990 on many sources and IMO the Marshall Electronics MXL 990 is a cheap Chinese made budget mic that sucks eggs... so with all do respect, except my opinion about the 990 or not... at this point I don't give a rats ass either way... and those who also think the 990 sucks (and believe me, there are many) may want to think twice about the mics you like and don't like... and the same goes for me... those who love the 990 may want to think twice about the mics I like and don't like.Harvey Gerst said:Yup, I turn 67 in two days and my hearing ain't what it use to be. On the other hand, at the last AES show I attended, I could hear distortion in a mastering studio that everybody else there missed. The rest of the people there were high dollar engineers, ranging in age from their early 30s to mid 40s.
Listening to various monitoring systems at the show, I could easily pick out crossover phase problems and high end weirdness (that were later confirmed privately by the manufacturers).
As far as the C1/V67 issue, I said they were both good mics, with the C1 having a slight scoop in the mids (which is true). I basically said that either mic would be a fine vocal mic choice for a lot of voices (which I still believe to be true). To me, they're similar enough so that it wouldn't make sense to have both in my mic locker. I never said or implied they were identical.
I probably didn't spend enough time on the MC012/603S comparison, and yes, I did miss the high frequency bump in the 603, but on the sources I tried, it wasn't all that different from the MC012, so yes, that's my fault.
Perhaps the main differences between us is that in addition to hearing most of these older classic mics when they were new, I spent a good part of my life designing speakers and microphones for a living; you haven't. I understand their construction, and the tradeoffs. I've spent hours on the phone talking to people like Stephen Paul and Dick Rosmini about esoteric mic design and mic theory in general.
I guess the biggest differences between us is that I understand the why something sucks, so I don't just blast it from an uninformed opinion. The other problem I have with your opinions is that they are often influenced by your personal biases against some of the people in the company, or by the country of origin. You often make unsubstantiated statements as if they were fact. I've pointed that out to you a large number of times, far more than I've ever had to correct Alan Hyatt for example, when he made errors.
If you wanna take over the task of finding and reporting about mics here, that's fine with me. Just make sure of your facts and present the information without personal biases. If you don't know something for sure, don't speculate and try to present it as fact.
For example, I "suspected" a big part of the problems I had with the AKG C3000 was due to their trying to combine the large diaphragm with the small 1/4" electret omni. Did you know there were actually two capsules in the AKG C3000, and one of them was a small electret omni? I knew it because I took the damn thing apart and looked at the schematic as well.
In private discussions with Ty Ford (a well-respected microphone reviewer), he said that in talks with AKG, they privately confirmed my suspicions. Even though I didn't find the AKG C3000 valuable enough to keep in my locker, it worked perfectly on several projects I did during the 2 years I owned it.
I hope you can learn to maintain that kind of objectivity when you review products here. And I hope your reviews will have more to offer than "it sucks".
Han said:Harvey, I wish you a happy birthday in advance too. May you have many years to come, in good health.
You are a real gentleman sir.
Putting aside the "cheap Chinese made budget mic" for a minute, this shouldn't be about "my opinions" versus "your opinions". At least, not if we're both trying to help people make intelligent decisions about mic choices. So let's see if we can't get a little more specific than "it sucks" and "it doesn't suck".DJL said:I don't need to be a design engineer to know when a mic sucks... and IMO, the 990 sucks and that is a fact... I tried the 990 on many sources and IMO the Marshall Electronics MXL 990 is a cheap Chinese made budget mic that sucks eggs... so with all do respect, accept my opinion about the 990 or not... at this point I don't give a rats ass either way... and those who also think the 990 sucks (and believe me, there are many) may want to think twice about the mics you like and don't like... and the same goes for me... those who love the 990 may want to think twice about the mics I like and don't like.
We used the Marshall Electronics MXL990 with the MP-2NV and Ghost... we tried the MXL990 on a Martin D35 acoustic guitar, and Gibson F9 mandolin and the MXL990 sucked... even the Marshall Electronics MXL603S sounded better than MXL990 on both the D35 and F9. We also tried the MXL990 on vocals (both male and female) and the MXL sucked eggs on all the vocalist. We also tried the MXL990 as drum overheads and they were kind of ok I guess but the AGK C451’s and Josephson C42’s sounded so much better... and the MC-012’s sounded better than the MXL990’s. The MLX990 may be a runner up with the SP B1 on the Fender Twin... but, IMO the MD421 smoked the MXL990 on the Marshall and Mesa Boogie Mark One amps.Harvey Gerst said:Putting aside the "cheap Chinese made budget mic" for a minute, this shouldn't be about "my opinions" versus "your opinions". At least, not if we're both trying to help people make intelligent decisions about mic choices. So let's see if we can't get a little more specific than "it sucks" and "it doesn't suck".
In our studio, the MXL 990 miking a Marshall Super Lead 100, or a Marshall DSL 100, into a Marshall 1960 with four Celestion Greenbacks, is a great combination, far better than a Shure SM57 (roughly the same price), or a Beyer 201 or Sennheiser 421 (a lot more money). It's also great for Mesa Boogie heads and cabinets. We run the output of the mic direct into our MCI 556D console, and use very little eq.
The MXL 990, into a Millinia Media SST-1 Origin, then into the board, worked very well for an Oklahoma band's lead singer - so much so, that he bought one of our four MXL 990. We did some mono tracks, with just him and an acoustic guitar, and we got a really nice "Bob Dylan-ish" sound, with just a single MXL 990, about forehead high, maybe 18" out, and aimed down, towards his guitar.
It also was one of the top 3 choices for a female singer, when it was plugged in directly to our Soundtracs 32x8 board, with no eq or processing. The other mics we tried on her included the Neumann TLM103, the AEA R84, and the Earthworks SR-71 - all very high dollar mics. For her voice, into that board, it was a serious choice.
So the question remains; does it "suck"? For those male and female voices, and on Marshall and Mesa Boogie amps (plugged into our MCI 556D board), my answer would be "No, at $60, it's a good mic to have around (and it may be the "best" mic for certain things").
Will it work well for everybody? No, not if the rest of the chain is only fair, or you try using it on an inappropriate source. It's not the "best" mic for every recording task, but in my opinion, it does some tasks very well, and often better than some high priced alternative mics. I suspect that with a little experimenting, it may also be a great harmonica mic.
So, for anybody thinking about buying an MXL 990 microphone, consider what I've said, consider DJL's "It sucks eggs" statement, and decide whether it's a worthwhile investment for your application.
Hi Han, sorry if I sound negative but the thread is "MXL 990 - What do you think?" so I gave my opinion... which is negative... lol. Do you own any MXL603S's?Han said:All this negative critique from DJL about the MXL990 makes me very curious, I think about buying one!
DJL said:Hi Han, sorry if I sound negative but the thread is "MXL 990 - What do you think?" so I gave my opinion... which is negative... lol. Do you own any MXL603S's?
Interesting that so many are modding it. Is noone else satisfied with its default sound? Is it because of the whole perceived "trick" with the capsule? I'm just going by my ears. I admit I don't have such a large frame of reference, but to me as long as you have a clean signal and an even/full frequency response, which this definitely has... it can be made to sound a whole lot of different ways just on its own...