Which microphone??

K

Kinapuffar

New member
Was told to move this thread to this section, so hopefully someone can help me out?? Would be very grateful for that! :)

So I have decided to get a MacBook Pro with Garageband..

I was planning on getting "Apogee Duet 2 Music Interface" and I wonder which one of these microphones is the best?

"Blue Microphones bluebird Microphone"

or

"SE Electronics SE 2200a II"

Pros and cons anyone?
 
Don't know about the mics, but I wouldnt get the apogee 2. I was talking with some people about it yesterday (one of them works at guitar center) almost every one he sold has been returned and the original duet purchased instead. Something about a wierd hiss or pop coming from them?

Might want to wait on someone else with first hand experience to comment though as mine is one of those "friend of a friend says" things.

Good luck
 
Tons of great interfaces, I know little to nothing about the apogee. I was looking at one yesterday trying to figure out what the $400 price tag was for? For that kind of money you could get a great 2 channel interface and a pretty decent mic.

From what the guy was saying though, yes everyone is happy with the apogee duet, just not the 2.
 
Even if we had a clue what you were planning on recording, there would be no answer to your question. What's the best motor vehicle, a Ford F-150, or a Corvette? That would depend on the job you need it for. This is more of a Chevy Cobalt vs. a Ford Focus.

Next question- Would you rather have a pair of Adidas, or Reeboks, and I'm not going to tell you what size they are? The point is that there aren't just better and worse mics, there are right and wrong mics, and there are mics that fit, and ones that don't. The 2 mics you have asked about are similar in design, both are respected entry level condensers. The basic choice is- which one can you get cheaper, and which one do you think looks cool? Also, take into account any included accessories. Usually the Bluebird comes with a pop filter, and a shock mount may or may not be included. I have no idea whether the SE mic includes those items. Good luck.
 
Well, allow me to jump in there. You sir are about to open a can of worms!

I had the exact same thought a few months back. I want to record guitar and vocals. Did abit of research and figured out I needed a mic, an interface and some talent. Purchase mic (audio technica 2035) and interface (m-box mobile pre). You will need some type of mic stand especially if you are recording the guitar and trying to get a nice clean recording. If you're anyhting like me you'll quickly decide that the mic isn't giving you the sound you want and you'll head up to the recording area of the forum and read the sticky about acoustic guitar micing. You will then probably purchase a couple more mics so you can do the stereo recording outlined there (which sounds awesome). So now you've purchase a couple more mics and you need another stand, cables. Also a good set of headphones incase you want to play lead over the top of your acoustic or if you want to double track. Lets not forget a decent set of speakers or if it's in the budget a real set of monitors.

As soon as you get those monitors you're going to realize how awful your room sounds and you're going to look at doing acoustic treatment. Again if you're anything like me the room will need to be set for that first. I can't make awesome looking treatments and put them on a plain white wall. So now you're painting your room. You build the panels and superchunks and get them all in place.

Holy hell it's 6 months and a couple thousand dollars later and you're finally ready to make a quality recording. Sweet!.. Ahh hell how does this DAW work, what plugins do I need? How do I learn to EQ properly, what is compression and why do I need it.

So when he tells you there is no one answer or easy answer here he isn't being mean. However if one of these guys had just said to me "go buy an interface and a mic and you'll be done" I prolly would have found them and shot them. So it seems like a simple question but there is alot more there. What kind of space will you be recording in, will you be recoridng guitar and vocals at the same time or tracking them. What type of voice do you have, is it screemo over acoustic guitar or opera over classical guitar. Soooooo many options and differences.
 
polarity said:
Well, allow me to jump in there. You sir are about to open a can of worms!

I had the exact same thought a few months back. I want to record guitar and vocals. Did abit of research and figured out I needed a mic, an interface and some talent. Purchase mic (audio technica 2035) and interface (m-box mobile pre). You will need some type of mic stand especially if you are recording the guitar and trying to get a nice clean recording. If you're anyhting like me you'll quickly decide that the mic isn't giving you the sound you want and you'll head up to the recording area of the forum and read the sticky about acoustic guitar micing. You will then probably purchase a couple more mics so you can do the stereo recording outlined there (which sounds awesome). So now you've purchase a couple more mics and you need another stand, cables. Also a good set of headphones incase you want to play lead over the top of your acoustic or if you want to double track. Lets not forget a decent set of speakers or if it's in the budget a real set of monitors.

As soon as you get those monitors you're going to realize how awful your room sounds and you're going to look at doing acoustic treatment. Again if you're anything like me the room will need to be set for that first. I can't make awesome looking treatments and put them on a plain white wall. So now you're painting your room. You build the panels and superchunks and get them all in place.

Holy hell it's 6 months and a couple thousand dollars later and you're finally ready to make a quality recording. Sweet!.. Ahh hell how does this DAW work, what plugins do I need? How do I learn to EQ properly, what is compression and why do I need it.

So when he tells you there is no one answer or easy answer here he isn't being mean. However if one of these guys had just said to me "go buy an interface and a mic and you'll be done" I prolly would have found them and shot them. So it seems like a simple question but there is alot more there. What kind of space will you be recording in, will you be recoridng guitar and vocals at the same time or tracking them. What type of voice do you have, is it screemo over acoustic guitar or opera over classical guitar. Soooooo many options and differences.
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This sounds about right :D.
 
Okay! I didn't mean to upset anyone, I just wanted your opinions :p. But it's good information and I do understand that it's difficult to find the exact microphone and audio interface. But I'll keep looking around!!
 
haha no no no, definately not upset here (well not at you anyway lol, more with myself for not knowing what I was getting into).

The mic and interface I got are both fantastic for beginners, but here is something you really really need to keep in mind before making any purchases. First would be to be realistic with what you are expecting. If you are spending $300 total and expecting studio quality sound, you're going to be disappointed. If you buy some lower end gear knowing that it's not perfect then you will be fine.

And if you do want to give these guys some more detail they do have alot of info about mics and how to pick one. Just saying voice is like saying you love cars, but no make/model. What type of music will you be doing, how is your voice, if you know what range is your voice, etc. All the mics have different sounds they work best on and that's a topic I still know little to nothing about. Don't be afraid to ask the questions, but make sure they are detailed questions so you can get a proper answer.
 
Yeah okay!

Well, I was pretty well informed about the fact that these audio interfaces and other equipment (under 300 dollars) would not produce any studio quality, but it would be nice to use it since I'm atm, heh, is recording on Garageband on my iPhone with the standard headphones, so hopefully the quality is going to be better with audio interfaces on a real mac/pc with a proper full-sized recording program? :p
 
Kinapuffar said:
Yeah okay!

Well, I was pretty well informed about the fact that these audio interfaces and other equipment (under 300 dollars) would not produce any studio quality, but it would be nice to use it since I'm atm, heh, is recording on Garageband on my iPhone with the standard headphones, so hopefully the quality is going to be better with audio interfaces on a real mac/pc with a proper full-sized recording program? :p
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Yes, things will get better. Polarity spoke sooth, though. No, I am not by any means busting your balls, I'm trying to help. When someone asks a question that has no answer, all you can do is try to explain why there is no answer, and then throw in some piece of info that might actually help them. We've all been where you are, and $40,000 or so later, sometimes I still am.
 
Kinapuffar said:
Well, I was pretty well informed about the fact that these audio interfaces and other equipment (under 300 dollars) would not produce any studio quality
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Couple of thoughts. Can you get both used and see how they compare? Sell the one you like least, hopefully getting most of what you paid for it if you didn't get hosed on the purchase.

Then compare that one to a Marshall MXL 990.

I've never heard a solid definition of what constitutes "studio quality" but unless the mic and interface are truly junk you might be surprised at what kind of quality you can get using less expensive gear. Besides the quality of the performance, a lot of it is in the way the gear is used and then how the material is treated after the fact. The only way to discover this in a meaningful way is to explore how others do things, experiment and get a first-hand feel for what happens when you record.

As a demonstration that you don't have to have exotic gear to get really good results take a listen to this.



Close enough to "studio" quality for you? Remember this is after YouTube has gotten done mangling his original which I believe is at best something like 126kbps, then reconverted from the d/l'd mp4 on my end to .wav then to .mp3. I.e. - the original is going to be better than what you hear here.

Granted he's singing to professional backing tracks but the gear he's singing into is not at all high end and not in an expensively treated environment.

AKG 3000B mic - can be had for under $200 on ebay
Presonus Bluetube pre - ditto

Of course as a starting point he has a fantastic, pro-level voice. He also has some decent software and some engineering chops. He's recording with an ancient version of Cakewalk but he has some good post-software. Waves Mercury bundle, L2 limiter, S1 Stereo Imager.

However, you don't really have to have even as much as he does invested in software (which isn't a lot compared to what you could spend). You could approximate what he's got with an older copy of Soundforge. And of course you have to learn to use the software.
 
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Brass I agree with what you're saying to a point yes. You can get an awesome sound from not so awesome gear but you better have a hell of alot of talent and knowledge. If you're here asking what mic is decent I'm going to go ahead and assume you dont (not you, but you know what I mean). So going with the "with a $200 mic and a $150 interface you too can sound like Drew Dawson"(did I get his name right? Cant remember but I love his covers) it's not really fair to those asking the questions. At that point they might as well hit the wal mart special that swears they can pump out studio quality tracks from the latest SIMS game or whatever.
 
polarity said:
Brass I agree with what you're saying to a point yes. You can get an awesome sound from not so awesome gear but you better have a hell of alot of talent and knowledge. If you're here asking what mic is decent I'm going to go ahead and assume you dont (not you, but you know what I mean). So going with the "with a $200 mic and a $150 interface you too can sound like Drew Dawson"(did I get his name right? Cant remember but I love his covers) it's not really fair to those asking the questions. At that point they might as well hit the wal mart special that swears they can pump out studio quality tracks from the latest SIMS game or whatever.
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Well...I don't claim to be the most knowledgeable person but it doesn't matter what kind of gear you have if you don't have a clue as to how to use it. I.e. if you don't know how to make a modestly priced but decent performing mic sound good, you won't be any more successful making a high-priced mic sound good. And the most expensive mic and pre won't make you a great singer if you aren't. No matter what digital tricks you throw at Britney Spears' voice, you won't make her sound like Jennifer Nettles or Martina McBride.

The OP asked which mic he should use. I'm sure either of the mics he mentioned will work fine. There are probably a hundred or more "budget" mics that will give essentially the same results - which is to say potentially really good results if used right. I don't think there's any way to bypass getting hands-on experience of hooking up a mic and pre, recording with it, studying a bit, asking questions, trying different things and at some point trying other gear and making evaluations.

I avoided using Drew's name because I wanted the OP to judge the results strictly by what it sounds like. If you see Drew's setup on YouTube it doesn't necessarily look impressive. Looks like he's in the corner of his living room or something with a blanket on the wall for "treatment". There are single mics that cost more than his whole rig including the software. Will they give demonstrably "better" results? ~shrug~ I'm sure the people who sell the boutique gear and studios who list it as part of their collection would like you think so.
 
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At that point they might as well hit the wal mart special that swears they can pump out studio quality tracks from the latest SIMS game or whatever.
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Speaking of Walmart level gear, here's something I fooled around with. A talented singer on a karaoke site singing into one of these ultra-cheapo computer mics. She has a huge voice and that poor little pos $5 electret mic was totally overwhelmed and crying uncle. But her performance was fantastic. I did various things to massage her performance to try and mask some of the distortion and overall technical crappiness of the recording and added some horns I arranged and recorded.

 
Considering what you were working with it sounds pretty good. There is no hiding that sound though.

For the record I completely agree with exactly what you said above, but I was just trying to make sure the OP was aware of what was coming =)
 
polarity said:
Considering what you were working with it sounds pretty good. There is no hiding that sound though.
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A demonstration that the gear doesn't make the performance. Drives me nuts that she doesn't feel motivated to seek out better gear to sing through though.

Those horns were recorded on an MXL 990, very inexpensive mic that I discovered works really well on trumpet.

Same girl on "White Horse" - just because I really like her voice. Again did some massaging to eke something resembling fidelity out of it. The distortion isn't quite as bad here since it's not as belty a performance. This is one of the best versions of this song I've heard. In fact it's the first thing I ever heard her sing. One take, no auto tune, just a girl singing into a cheap mic.

 
Are you happy with the 990? Sounds great on those horns.

I just ordered a matched pair of the 993s for an acoustic guitar, if I get even close to that level of sound from them I'd be thrilled.

What type of interface or preamp are you running?
 
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