Studio Projects B-3

Well, given the choice between your friend's reply vs. Harvey Gearst's opinion I think your friends reply should be considered null and void.

But then again, I don't know who your friend is.
 
Studio Projects B-3 microphones were all the buzz on this board about 6 years ago and I even bought one. I'm glad that I did because it's an excellent versatile microphone. It gives an absolute flat and un-colored true and clean record of what sound comes at the microphone. If you are a mediocre singer, you don't want this mic unless you are using a lot of peripherals that will make you sound good. It records as true an audio image as the very best of the very high priced studio condensers but at a price that a poor jerk like me can afford. It's an excellent mic for voice and room. I'm sure that it is good in a lot of other applications, but I'm a bit nervous about using this mic when there are very high SPL's like when close mic'ing drums. Maybe it will work well there also.
 
I've had a B3 for a couple yrs now. I use it all the time in fig8 on vox with cadm179 in fig8 on guitar (to minimize bleed between guitar and vox mics).

Mine had a noise problem related to the pattern switch. Sent it back to Sweetwater who got it repaired for me. If you don't need the patterns, I would recommend the B1 - I think it sounds better than the B3 and won't have the switch problem.

My B3 has a full sound, a little soft in the mids maybe, a slight smiley EQ sound. Good on vocals, I don't like it that much on ac guitar. Sounds good on most female and male singers I have tried it on.

Here is Kris Delmhorst and Jeff Foucault singing thru B3s (or B1s, can't really tell):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUV3uzIiMGE
 
THe B-3s are good value for money--they sound good and are pretty versatile for the price paid, especially with the switchable patterns, there's no doubt about it.

Not a very "colored" sound, fairly clean sounding but they have the fairly typical "cheap Chinese condenser" sound of a bright, somewhat unnatural and grainy top end and they don't have the midrange body of many more expensive mics. Still, it's nice the have the multi patterns and the pad and they're adequate on a variety of sources. If you're bent on buying a new condenser mic for less than a few hundred bucks, they'd probably be my pick of that particular litter, but they're not "giant killers" and their build quality does not exceed my expectations for the pricepoint. Probably the only reason the cheap plastic switches haven't been bashed off in our commercial rock studio is that we have plenty of better or more interesting mics in our cabinet and don't pull these out all that much. We do have high-end mic pres to run these to so that does help these mics reach their potential some...even if it's a little silly to run a $150 condenser through a $3,000 pre....putting these things through a cheap Behringer mixer is not a particularly grand experience...(I'd contrast to, say, a Shure SM57 which, despite their $80 price tag, are NOT silly to run through a $3k pre)...but all the same, if a LDC is what you have to have for your $150, the B3 is a decent piece of kit for cheap.
 
Good - I like the responses.

So heres the deal:

I want to get a nice portable Blumlein recording system together to record choirs and various other acoustic performances.

I already have a fairly nice Steinberg MI4 unit. Also working on a decent dual channel mic pre amplifier.

Now I need a pair of fairly decent multi-pattern mics (for Blumlein setup). Unfortunately I work for myself and cant afford a pair of AKG C414s so I have to settle for something more economic.

Will most certainly look into the B-3. But the dinky plastic pattern switch doesnt appeal...
 
The B-3 is a perfectly good cheap multpattern condenser mic. The only other one in that price range I know of that doesn't suck is CAD M179. Is it a C414? No. Is it worth the price? Yes. And yeah, it sounds like a Chinese condenser mic. The only thing I don't get is why you want to use Blumlein for choral recording, unless you want to hear every crying baby and coughing smoker in the audience. I've had better luck with ORTF, and I do a fair amount of choral recording. For orchestral recording, I use coincident, mid side, or spaced stereo mics, supported by spot mics for solo instruments. I might use a Decca tree if I wanted an array in the middle of a large ensemble on a live sound stage, but for most real live performances, I find something more directional than Blumlein or a Decca tree to be more practical.
Blumlein records room ambience very accurately, so it works best in a perfect room with no audience. It is therefore more often used by big studios for orchestral recording. Unfortunately, those aren't the conditions in most real live performances, where I am more likely trying to minimize the effect of the crowd and the echo chamber that is referred to as a "hall".-Richie
 
Richard Monroe said:
The B-3 is a perfectly good cheap multpattern condenser mic. The only other one in that price range I know of that doesn't suck is CAD M179. Is it a C414? No. Is it worth the price? Yes. And yeah, it sounds like a Chinese condenser mic. The only thing I don't get is why you want to use Blumlein for choral recording, unless you want to hear every crying baby and coughing smoker in the audience. I've had better luck with ORTF, and I do a fair amount of choral recording. For orchestral recording, I use coincident, mid side, or spaced stereo mics, supported by spot mics for solo instruments. I might use a Decca tree if I wanted an array in the middle of a large ensemble on a live sound stage, but for most real live performances, I find something more directional than Blumlein or a Decca tree to be more practical.
Blumlein records room ambience very accurately, so it works best in a perfect room with no audience. It is therefore more often used by big studios for orchestral recording. Unfortunately, those aren't the conditions in most real live performances, where I am more likely trying to minimize the effect of the crowd and the echo chamber that is referred to as a "hall".-Richie
Click to expand...

Thank you for the information.

There will be no audience present during recordings so thats why I want to go the Blumlein route. To capture the old churches nice ambience.
 
machineghost said:
Thank you for the information.

There will be no audience present during recordings so thats why I want to go the Blumlein route. To capture the old churches nice ambience.
Click to expand...

For that purpose, I would be more likely to use an ORTF pair, and add a third distant omni
as an ambient mic, which would give me better control over the amount of ambience. The reverb from an old stone church or similar that sounds so good live can often be overpowering on a recording. I often use a Zoom H4n for remote recording, which makes that very easy. With 4 tracks and a remote control card, I can put the recorder on a mic stand up in the air, using the onboard coincedent pair as the main array, and plug the ambient mic into track 3. That gives me one more XLR input and one more track for a spot mic, if I need it. Best of luck-Richie
 
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