Anyone used Blue Baby Bottle?

J

jmeager

New member
Hi,

Has anyone had any experience using the Blue Baby Bottle for recording?
Specifically for recording amped guitars, acoustic instruments and percussive instruments?

They market it as an all rounder, but would like real confirmation!

It used to be £599 and is now £349, so am keen to see if it'd be a good investment.
 
I got a "B-stock" one fairly recently here, along with David G. Mine is the only Baby Bottle I've worked with, and I haven't been able to figure out why it was classified as B-stock, so consider my opinion with that in mind :D I also got a fancy new preamp at about the same time (and used it with the BB), and haven't gone back and tried out all my other mics in it yet, so that may skew things, too.

I've used it just on vocals, tambourine, and acoustic guitar. It does not strike me as having a flat frequency response, but rather seems to attenuate high frequency. It seems to handle the lows well, and it imparts an up-front sound despite being shy in the HF.

I can't sing, but when I try, one issue with my voice is a very high pitched "nasally" ringing thing, and the Baby Bottle conveniently ignores that part, making my voice sound almost listen-able. I also like what it did with the acoustic guitar, although there certainly wasn't much "air" - this was fine for the piece, and was probably better than bringing in a bunch of pick noise, etc., keeping the guitar as a background instrument, but still somehow still up in the mix. I didn't like it on tambourine and used a C414 instead - it just ate too much of the high end. For that reason, I don't think I'd like it on hi-hats and cymbals.

I should mention - if I really want to feature a performance of an acoustic guitar, I'm going to use a pair of SDC mics, not this one.

I remember that I also tried it on bagpipes, but switched over to a dynamic, mainly just for attenuation purposes.
 
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Thanks for the response :)

I'll take what you say in context - although at the music shop that I work at, our B Stock are often simply display models so you've probably got a good deal!

I personally don't want something with too many HF so it could well be a good call, though I guess on percussion that could be a problem.

When you speak of "air" in the acoustic how do you mean? A clear feeling of space, or being in 'a room'?

It'll be largely electric guitars I'll be recording, and only some acoustic instruments (flute, ukelele etc...)

Do you have any other recommendations for mics in a similar price range?

Also, I'd be interested to hear what David G has to say.
 
Hey guys
I Bought My B-Stock but was stolen from my neighbors and the store refund me the money,so i got a used in mint condition.

I Really Like what the Baby Bottle did for my wife's voice,It gives you a lot of gain so i used it with Weak Voices.I recorded Percussion (Guiro) With Excellent Results and Violin too.And also my clients love the look of it.

I think that this is a must have Mic!
 
Hi David!

Thanks for giving me your thoughts - really interesting and very useful.

Gain's good for me as some of my recording involves household objects that other condensers struggle to pick up.

How would you say the 'sound' is, i.e. is it warm?
 
Yeah! Warm,Punchy,with a really nice Top end,I recorded Acoustic Guitar today with it and works better than the NTK (NTK Picked a lot of Pick Noise and the Breathing from the Fat Guitarist) Baby Bottle was very focused on the Sound of the Instrument.

Don't think it too much,you could get a good deal for it on CL or Ebay ($270-$300)
 
Great - thanks for the detailed description, sounds like the mic for me. Hopefully I'll be able to find one at the right price - you've made me want one now!
 
I've had one for a few years. Maybe 7 or 8 years, now. Can't remember exactly.

Its the most expensive mic in my collection and frequently the best sounding, but not always. Its good for 1 mic setups on acoustic guitar and ukulele, its one of my go to mics for lead vocals and usually works- though sometimes it doesn't, of course. I used it to mic an electric guitar amp a time or 2- usually a few feet from the cab and mixed with a 57 right on the cone.

Its NOT a subtle mic and for that reason I almost never use it for background vocals. It makes the backing tracks harder to blend. I DO use it for voice over work and it shines for that: sounds crisp, full, impressive, larger than life.

I've also tried to use it in Middle-Side setups with random other mics: not good. Its too distinctive.

As a general rule for all mics, I tend to avoid using any one mic over and over on the same song if I have other options. Seems like the signature of that mic tends to build up over the tracks and make it more difficult to separate things out when mixing. The baby bottle is really guilty of this- its just not a subtle mic. But... such things can be made up for with EQ so if you're considering a Baby Bottle as an only LDC mic its not a deal breaker.

Enjoy.

Aloha,
C
 
Thanks for your detailed response - pretty interesting comments about specific uses.

I actually ended up buying one - it's my only LDC (so far) and what I've done at the moment has been recording bells, and other percussive noises. it's worked well, though I am getting used to it's 'sound'.
 
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