renting a mic for vox?

agiledood

New member
I have been recording our vocals with a Blue Songbird and Audio Technica AT 2050 that I own, and plan to rent something for our next EP just to see if it's better. The music place near me rents out Neumann, Rode, Apex, AKG, AT etc for anywhere from $50 to $250/month. I'm not convinced a $4,000 mic is really all that much better (that's the $250/month one) so it's kind of an expensive experiment.

Has anyone used a wide variety of mics, and for rock music, is there really that big of a difference in quality? (BTW, our singer if f*cking incredible....she could sing into a laptop mic and it would sound great so performance definitely isn't an issue...)
 
Both those mics are fine. I really like my Røde NT1, but I'm not sure it is cost effective to bother with the experiment. You could apply that money to a mixing engineer or to disc repro. Just my 2¢.
 
That is an interesting idea but it would be far more useful if you could rent multiple mics by the day or at least a weekend?

The top peeps here are always telling us that it is important to match the mic to the voice but how to do?
If you could have say three for a couple of days then even the exotics would be less than $10 per day pro rata. I guess you would have to leave a hefty deposit?

Dave.
 
I wouldn't want to rent an unknown mic for a month but it would be worth trying one for a day or two just to see how well it works.

Of course my recommendation would be to try a Neumann U87. Once you hear it you'll instantly recognise the sound. As well as auditioning mics solo it is also worth listening to them in the context of a full mix which is where I find the U87 really wins out.
 
I did the mic comparison by using a credit line and buying and selling.
Yes its a hassle and painful if you dont like selling and shipping etc... I would say I broke even cash wise but not including wasted time shipping and packing and hassle.

If you have cash to burn.....rent and test at home is great and easier than having to sell/ship. a U87 and SM7b would be great standards.

If you are more frugal use the internet and youtube alone has about every mic known to man compared to the U87/U87ai..... its the industry standard.
The SM7b/RE20 is cheaper and many street credits in the biz and theres the proof it can do a great job and has "fame name" bling.
(You'll then be searching for a preamp!! lol)

What I did was the credit line thing, comparing LDC, SDC, DYNAMICS in my house with the credit line and mainly Reverb and GC Used gear.
MXL and SHure at first......then as I went into higher dollar stuff I turned to all Shure, with focus on design types, like SDC, patterns and SM81, KSM series, 27,32,44, 58 57 SM7b PG48, etc... they dont do tube so I grabbed a tube RODE. All used with savings of 50% or more.
The room and patterns, sensitivity makes more sense than it used to. Kind of technician like more than music making though.
I kept a SM58, used the most, and a SM7b and the KSM32 taking the words of the pro's whove posted about it , in real use, along side U87's.

It seems a lot of LDC mics will be labeled as brighter or darker than the U87. Compare away....... maybe stay in your AT group of the 4080 Al Schmidt uses constantly? or 4050...theres youtubes comparing to the U87. or the 2020..Billie Eilish won 5 grammys using? doh!

$250 for a rental is a cash burn, and expensive test, Id like to hear what your experience was with renting?
 
I'll just tell my story. I became a pro engineer in 1975. I bought my first Neumann U67 in 1980 for $1500. I sold it 5 years ago for $7000 cash. All the years I owned it I had the pleasure of using it and it sounded glorious. I think if you ask any pro engineer they will say a U-67 is the gold standard for vocals and always has been. For folks who don't know it is a K77 capsule (same as a U87) but in a tube mic configuration. They were made to improve the original tube U47s for vocals specifically to have slightly less proximity effect and lower midrange, so the mic would sound a little clearer than a U47 which was made more for room micing an orchestra.

A u87 is also a great mic, you could call it the sold state version of the U67, it is much brighter and not as responsive in the fullness (lower mids) than the U67. The U67 also had a feedback circuit that reduced the sibilance that Neumann found with the K77 capsules. Some cheaper U67 knockoffs do not have this feedback circuit and so they sound great until you pick up sibilance and then they can fry just the slightest amount.

My point is that if you can buy a U67 style mic - or any good K77 LDC tube mic - they tend to hold their value forever. When I sold my U67 I picked up a Pearlman TM1 tube LDC which is said to be a U47-style mic. It sounds great, almost as good as the U67, but I only paid $1200 for it. Today I see them selling used for $1800 all the time.
 
Don't rent a "really good" mic. A waste of time and money. You already have a couple of really good ones now. You could do what MM says too--good to have an sm7 on hand--but go on and get a CAD Equitek E200, or a 300 if you can find one. An Equitek 100 will work too. It's all very subjective though, isn't it? Those CADs are quiet, sound great, and are available on Ebay at relatively low prices, certainly far less than those boutique ones you think might help you, and you get to keep them forever! I'm just wondering: How does one match a mic to a voice?
 
I'll just tell my story. I became a pro engineer in 1975. I bought my first Neumann U67 in 1980 for $1500. I sold it 5 years ago for $7000 cash. All the years I owned it I had the pleasure of using it and it sounded glorious. I think if you ask any pro engineer they will say a U-67 is the gold standard for vocals and always has been. For folks who don't know it is a K77 capsule (same as a U87) but in a tube mic configuration. They were made to improve the original tube U47s for vocals specifically to have slightly less proximity effect and lower midrange, so the mic would sound a little clearer than a U47 which was made more for room micing an orchestra.

A u87 is also a great mic, you could call it the sold state version of the U67, it is much brighter and not as responsive in the fullness (lower mids) than the U67. The U67 also had a feedback circuit that reduced the sibilance that Neumann found with the K77 capsules. Some cheaper U67 knockoffs do not have this feedback circuit and so they sound great until you pick up sibilance and then they can fry just the slightest amount.

My point is that if you can buy a U67 style mic - or any good K77 LDC tube mic - they tend to hold their value forever. When I sold my U67 I picked up a Pearlman TM1 tube LDC which is said to be a U47-style mic. It sounds great, almost as good as the U67, but I only paid $1200 for it. Today I see them selling used for $1800 all the time.

Lol Someone who is thinking about renting a mike is not likely to be able to afford a U67 when they are going for around $10k (in Australia). They certainly do hold their value, but that's not what the OP wants to do. He just wants a halfway decent recording, not an investment.
 
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