antares mic modeller

tvaillan

tvaillan

New member
well? The Antares Mic Modeller. Is it worth the bytes it's stored on?

Does anybody have experience with it? Should I shell out the bucks for it, or should I bend over and risk it all on a SINGLE expensive vocal microphone?

My monthly budget is in the low hundreads of dollars.. very low hundreads.

I'm only concerned with vocals for this post.

Right now I've got an SM58 (i believe that's what it is)

setup chain:

12x10 feet room -> SM58 -> mixerboard -> midiman audiophile -> PC -> stereo amp with perfect flat EQ -> monitors.
 
Well, I use it, but not as a replacement for a good mic. I consider it more of an effect. Can you make your SM58 sound like a Neuman U67? No, but it can shape the sound of the 58 to sound more like one. It's a cool 'utility' to have and use occasionally, but it's not a replacement for the big dollar mics.
 
it works pretty good to give ya vocals more body...wit the tube saturation and what not but i'd only reccommend using it if u had a sound proof both or a very low noise floor when recording vocals if not, the background computer noise or whatever will muck things up
 
well..

the background computer noise already mucks things up.

The mixing sessions squeeze so much juice out of my lowly 1GHz that I needed to overclock it and get a louder fan.

(I use this trick that i recently learned that involves cloning each track, compressing the characteristic frequencies of the cloned track and then carefully bringing the volume up on the clone so that it adds either warmth, presence or clarity to the original track without compromising the original's frequency spectrum's integrity.)

The trick translates to sometimes 16 tracks , 8 of which have 2 effects (compression and EQ). This peaks my CPU so much that I had to overclock and get a better fan.

Blah blah blah (as if you cared about my problems. :0 ) ...

All that aside, from what I gathered, the bottom line is that the Antares mic Modeller is an ecxellent utility that can shape the tone of the vocal recording , however, the original recording must be completely free of noise.

SO!! Since I can't go back to the old fan, I guess I'm either gonna have to 'soundproof' my PC without compromising the ventilation system or make a vocal booth.



Thanks guys. I'm gonna put the purchase of the antares MIc modeller on the back burner for a while.
 
heh. Lots of great long discussions on this subject. I believe it is a great tool but only if the thing you used it on already sounds good. Like before i bought my new kick drum mic and was using a Nady. I did the mic modeller on it and it definately gave more power and punch to the track. besides the fact it sound better i know for sure it didnt sound as good as if i actually used the mic. But still a very usefull tool.

Danny
 
Most people buy these things, play around with them a little, and eventually abandon them completely, never really getting used much again. It's really just a neat toy is what it amounts to.
 
yes it sounds neat..but isnt the pitch corrector a very important aspect? I'm also looking into getting one of these mainly just for the pitch correction. All those other thins just sound like a nice bonus. (antares vocal producer)

T
 
Give it a try!

One thing I really like about Antares is they let you download and try out the plugins for 10 days free. As I understand it, its a fully functioning demo during that period, then disables itself.

So - grab some tracks to try it on, download it and give it a try!

From what I have read, it looks like its a good effect to have in your toolkit, but your money is probably better spent having a couple of quality mics in your cabinet first.

-lee-
 
I think stuff like this is a formula for problems - it seems the older I get, the more I like to keep the signal chain as clean as possible.

Maybe I'm just gettin' old, maybe I'm afraid of what I don't completely understand, but I like to file this in the same category as the BBE/Sonic maximizer category.

...the old "Don't drown your food" cartoon keeps coming to mind
:D IMO, hold the "mayo and ketchup and goop", and just give me a nice clean burger (mic).
 
IMHO..definitely a fun little effect...makes my AudioTechnica 'drum kit-pac' bass drum mic sound like a Beta52!!!!
...ok, maybe not quite like a Beta52 - but it does add some ooommphhhh and definitely improves the sound

now if I had quality mics to begin with, I might be singing a different song.....
 
From the little experience i've had with it, it sounds surprisingly convincing. I saw it demonstrated in a studio using a U87, and the person speaking into the mike for the demo said it did a spot on impression of the SM58 he used on his vocals at home. Maybe it's easier to model a cheaper mic than a vintage one though. Maybe it's tougher to get a convincing U87 from an SM58. Who knows.

One thing that it's very useful for is to narrow a mic selection before tracking. Just get a quick vocal part recorded and shoot it out through the different models to quickly get an idea of which mics flatter which vocalists.

Definitely test out the demo. You can't go wrong with that.

-marcus
 
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