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bf2008
New member
Hi. Thanks for the link. Do you know which mic they use for the piano recording? I couldn't find that.
Shadow_7
New member
Almost forget about the apex 205. A nice ribbon on piano (modded). I just generally skip over the ribbons because they're so fragile. But in a nice indoor environment, they're wonderful.
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mikeeb
Whats the best RAP MIC??!
Hmmm. You can get a SM81 on ebay used for less than $150 sometimes. What about that?
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bf2008
New member
Hi! I'd prefer to stick to retail prices for the recommendations, because otherwise it's gonna get very confusing. I can probably get any mic I'm recommended for around 50% the retail price on ebay.
Cheers
mshilarious
Banned
The SM81 is a great mic, but I'd worry about picking one up for less than $150. The SM81 has been around a long time and is used very frequently for live sound. More than a few of them have lived hard lives. I repaired and brought back to life one that had been dropped in the toilet . . . but it still wasn't quite right afterwards . . .
That could be true of any condenser mic, but the SM81 has just been around longer than most of its competitors in the same price range (the C1000 also comes to mind). Caveat emptor, and expect to pay closer to $200 for a used SM81 in good condition.
rmaier
New member
Not sure, but their website has a pretty comprehensive application matrix. I have two matched pairs of the X-Qs that 've used for classical piano, classical guitars (on this site: http://www.oberonguitartrio.com) and on a renaissance project (http://cdbaby.com/cd/ralphmaier).
The guitar on the right in the trio project was mic'ed using an X-Q. The tracks were processed with reverb (Gigapulse) and sent through a peak limiter (Voxengo Elephant).The vihuela recordings used a pair of modded Apex 460s in a Blumlein array as close mics and a pair of XQs with a Jecklin disc as room mics about 10 feet out. The tracks are processed using a touch of EQ (Voxengo Curveq), a bit of reverb (Gigapulse), and a couple of gentle passes of noise reduction (Adobe). Sorry, no unprocessed tracks and I hate MP3s, too...
Unfortunately, I don't have a sample of the piano recordings I did. They were done in similar circumstances to yours for a friend who needed to send something to an agency in Europe to set up a small tour. He was satisfied with the results, and I've been consistantly surprised at how well these mics have performed given the price. I guess the question you'll have to ask yourself is how much use are you likely to get out of this gear once this audition project is done. If you're planning on getting into it seriously, look at getting serious kit (I'd agree with the previous poster's recommendation of the Beyers -a have a matched pair and they're killer, but they cost roughly 20times what the naiants do). If you plan on using it once in a while in a home setting for auditions and personal use, the naiants are about as "budget" as you are likely to get and will suit your application well.
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mikeeb
Whats the best RAP MIC??!
Yeah that's true. However, in this bad economy and for that cheap price, Toilet mics ain't too bad!
Shadow_7
New member
The business end of the SM81's screws off and you can replace just that part. Although it's a $150 part. $350 MSRP for the whole mic new. But they've been around since '79 so they probably run the whole spectrum in quality. The ones I have are only 11 serial numbers different and close to 140,000 for the serial number +/- 3K.
