100€ zoom H1 or condenser mic for accordion?

[emir73]

Hi everyone,

I want to add microphone to my home recording gear. I have dynamic microphones but want to buy condenser for recording instruments (acoustic guitar and accordion) and vocals. My mixer doesn't have phantom power and i have following options (based on prices and availability in shops here):

Behringer Mic200 + behringer C1
Behringer Mic100 + behringer C3
Rode M3 (supports powering by 9V battery)
MXL DRK (supports powering by 9V battery)

i wasnt thinking about buying usb microphone but i saw Blue Yeti microphone so if it is really better than these mentioned above then i would go for it.


I also saw this portable recorder Zoom H1 which will be available here (in Holland) in a week. It has 2 condenser microphones, X/Y pattern.
I would connect its stereo line out to mixers two channels.



Problem is that recording accordion is the most important for me at the moment. I do not know if Zoom H1 would perform any better that Behringer C1 or C3. I tried recording accordion with dynamic microphone XM8500 and borrowed Shure SM58 but sound lacked beautiful acoustic sound of accordion as it turned very sharp. We tried recording in different rooms and at different places, played with EQ but we couldn't get natural sound of accordion. I know that I might asking too much from a budget microphone but I guess that natural sound of accordion could be recorded by using right type of microphone even if it is on budget.

Sorry for long post and thank you very very very much
Greetings from Holland

 

[moresound]

Hello Holland! And welcome to Home Recording.com emir73.

The zoom H1 does look good and the price looks even better.
I just started seeing the adds for it and it states that it is an upgrade of the zoom H2. But I thought that the zoom H4n was the upgrade of the H2.

I have the H4n and I can't say enough good things about it. It is serving me well.

When you recorded before did you have a microphone on both sides or your accordion? that is one on the key boards side and one on the fingering side.

If so you might want to experiment with an OMNI microphone about 2 or 3 feet out in front of your instrument. Facing straight up towards the ceiling. I bet you would be happy with that recording.

 

[emir73]

Hy, and thank you for the response.
When recording accordion we need only to record keyboard (melody) and not the bass buttons. We somehow did get natural sound of accordion by recording it with sony camera but it was just too noisy because it eventually captured some noise from its body (older camera) and PC.

I watched some videos online comparing video camera to Zoom H2 (as it has same microphones as Zoom H1, with the difference in quantity) and zoom H2 captured noise free sound and not much ambient noise ,but I had feeling that sound is too bassy and muddy. Could that be because of audio/video compression done by youtube?

So if I knew that Zoom H1 or H2 microphones are good enough to compare to budget condenser microphones in terms of noise, SPL, and frequency range handling then i would go for it because it gives me extra portability and working with stereo so I could use it with my cam. But if it sounds worse that microphones like Behringer C3 or such then it is no go.

 

[moresound]

Well like I said. I can have enough good words about the zoom H4n and the 1 and 2 would not be that different.
Are you able to try the OMNI set up that I suggested?