Cheap chinese microphones vindicated

[lexdrummer]

Nik, there's a little too much around 160-170hz in the overall sound.

The vocal can be a tad louder and maybe you should mult it to another (second) channel and add some heavy compression there. You keep the transients that way in the uncompressed (or little compressed) channel.

That will make your vocal track 'sit' better in the mix.

You're allowed to disagree.

good stamp on the reduce EQ method. nice insight.

 

[lexdrummer]

On your tagline Han
great site you borrowed from. Thanks for the link.

 

[scrubs]

I have found this little gem useful at times for just what you are looking for, a tad more fat and front. It needs to be used delicately and it won't over saturate.
http://www.voxengo.com/product/tubeamp/

Just the quickest thing that comes to mind.

Overall is a mix that seems to be working. I like it. Midnight oil meets hard rock. nice work.

I was going to suggest something similar. Dirty up the vocal a little with a distortion/tube plug (or reamp it through some outboard gear). Also, it's very dry sounding. Just a splash of a medium size room (think about the size and reflective properties of a garage).

 

[planetorange]

cheap mics

Hey lexdrummer, if you record with just one crappy mic, in a crappy room, on a crappy machine, through a crappy mixer i will still love it if the song is good. I will play it for friends and say it is unsung genius (if the song is). People who take the technical side too far are not much an artist as they want to be. Music that really moves people who know music can be recorded with shit and it will still be well recieved. There are a million fake artists and musicians these days and you cant root them out by looking at them. Its in the soul only. Popular music makes everyone think they can be their heros but only like 1 out of 100,000 really ARE like their heros. Im not saying to people "quit music if you arent as good as John Lennon", im just saying dont worry about the brand name of the mic so much.

 

[fraserhutch]

People who take the technical side too far are not much an artist as they want to be.

Uh, hello, Mr Obvious...... welcome to HomeRECORDING.com....... sheesh.

In this forum we disuss how to make our recordings sound as good as we can make them. That involves discussing the merits of gear. If that offends your sensibilities, oh very sensitive artist sir, then you're in the wrong forum.

 

[CoolCat]

if you record with just one crappy mic, in a crappy room, on a crappy machine, through a crappy mixer i will still love it if the song is good. I will play it for friends and say it is unsung genius (if the song is). People who take the technical side too far are not much an artist as they want to be. Music that really moves people who know music can be recorded with shit and it will still be well recieved.

i have a Ramones "legal" bootleg anthology type disc. (my kids)

its great, we listen to it because it has a groove, a freshness, raw whtever the fhk you wanna call it. yeah, we paid for it too $.

i think it was recorded with that crappy mic, crappy room, crappy machine you mentioned.

 

[lexdrummer]

Hey lexdrummer, if you record with just one crappy mic, in a crappy room, on a crappy machine, through a crappy mixer i will still love it if the song is good. I will play it for friends and say it is unsung genius (if the song is). People who take the technical side too far are not much an artist as they want to be. Music that really moves people who know music can be recorded with shit and it will still be well recieved. There are a million fake artists and musicians these days and you cant root them out by looking at them. Its in the soul only. Popular music makes everyone think they can be their heros but only like 1 out of 100,000 really ARE like their heros. Im not saying to people "quit music if you arent as good as John Lennon", im just saying dont worry about the brand name of the mic so much.

nice input. it is about the art and the listener. Unless someone has pursuits that involve pro sound work for film, radio, tv, etc. i am about the art of music, combining whatever recording technique throws the vibe out. I record with lots of things. Sometimes the wierdest things can bring a capture the moment realness which is quite sufficient for actually what you stated, a record of somethig worht having record of for others to enjoy. Frankly, i look silly sometimes at the console trying to recapture that sound I got from a shoebox recorder in 1979, a singular lucky moment when getting out the shoebox recorder would probably get that track for me. Perhaps it's just like you said, the content does not always demand "pure Audio Fidelity".

 

[lexdrummer]

Uh, hello, Mr Obvious...... welcome to HomeRECORDING.com....... sheesh.

In this forum we disuss how to make our recordings sound as good as we can make them. That involves discussing the merits of gear. If that offends your sensibilities, oh very sensitive artist sir, then you're in the wrong forum.

I believe you have a point, but the other is about expression and creativity. One artist that does this quite well (if within your taste) is an artist whom has 5 CDs after multiple sold out pressings of five hundred on LP, all recorded with odd mics, usually an SM57. All of this done on a tascam 4track. He took California to a new age of psychedelic circle and now travels the world on the dragcity label. This artist is renouned for his "soul" on record, and has clipped multiple record label deals out of an sm57 and a tascam 4track. Let me know if you want his name. Better yet, see if anyone out there knows who I'm talking about. Quiz time. His name is everywhere on the net.

 

[Mo-Kay]

How on earth can it go down any further than it already is?

We've got Uli Freakin' Behringer designing his own 50's style microphones, for cryin' out loud.

hahah omg!

I love the Chinese

you should! We're nice people...well, some are, some are not...but I am *makes innocent face*

 

[cpc]

it seems like people here are biased against behringer products because they dont like how the main guy copies others ideas. if you didnt know that he did that i bet you wouldnt be nearly as harsh. i've heard alot of good things about the b-1 and mixers. sure they're not PERFECT PROFESSIONAL SOUNDING EQUIPMENT, but they're not suppose to be. is their 50 dollar mixer going to sound like a 500 dollar mixer? no, it's not suppose to..but for a 50 dollar mixer i hear it excedes its price. does the b-1 sound like a nuemann? no, but is it a 2000 dollar mic? no. its a 100 dollar mic, and from what i hear it sounds better than just about any other 100 dollar mic. i aknowledge this is kind of ignorant since i havent used them yet personally, but i'll be sure to let you know if i find myself corrected as im most likely ordering a ub802 and b-1 mic to try for myself.

 

[fraserhutch]

No, a lot are biased against the shoppy workmanship, (in a lot if not most cases) crappy sound, AND the fact that the owner is a scruple-less thief.

The thing is, there are equally affordable, better alternatives to that crap. Just read around here a bit and you'll discover them.

 

[cpc]

from what i read the only adequate alternative to the behringer b-1 is the studio projects b-1 with the same20-20 frequency response. both mics are pretty much the same mic, yet i read alot more positive user reviews about the behringer from various websites.

 

[PhilGood]

I just rerecorded and old B-52's song through a cheap chinese condenser...

It came out as Lock Robster!

 

[Sonic Idiot]

Lexdrummer,

I wanna know the dude's name.

 

[Strave]

from what i read the only adequate alternative to the behringer b-1 is the studio projects b-1 with the same20-20 frequency response. both mics are pretty much the same mic, yet i read alot more positive user reviews about the behringer from various websites.

The behringer B1 is much more like the studio projects C1 than the studio projects B1 (sound wise). Additionally the two B1s are not even remotely the same mic.

 

[cpc]

its just fishy to me when i hear tons of people say "the behringer b-1s are great mics for the price! best condenser iv'e used under so and so dollars" and then i come here and hear people say "b-1's suck because anything by behringers sucks, sucks sucks sucks"

 

[Strave]

its just fishy to me when i hear tons of people say "the behringer b-1s are great mics for the price! best condenser iv'e used under so and so dollars" and then i come here and hear people say "b-1's suck because anything by behringers sucks, sucks sucks sucks"

I've been saying that the behringer B1 is just as good as the studio projects C1. I like the B1 probably better than every large diaphragm condenser I've used and if it wasn't for the SM7 I wouldn't even know what "better" sounded like. Now I'm saving up for the soundelux U195 because I do know it's out there. But I've been arguing in the other post JUST like this that anyone who can't make a decent record with the behringer B1 cannot blame the mic. Hearing the B1 after using the Shure SM58 on vocals for 2 years was a freakin godsend. If you do some reasearch and find some really old postings about it you'll find people saying they loved the sound and then all of the sudden badmouthing it when the hear it's not supposed to be good. You really need to hear it for yourself and make your own decisions.

 

[noisedude]

its just fishy to me when i hear tons of people say "the behringer b-1s are great mics for the price! best condenser iv'e used under so and so dollars" and then i come here and hear people say "b-1's suck because anything by behringers sucks, sucks sucks sucks"

So fishy that you decide to create your own Chinese whisper that two totally different mics are in fact one and the same?

I've not used either an SP B1 or a Behringer B-1, but a cursory glance of relevant information around on the net will show you that the two mics are NOT related. If nothing else, it's because:

- The SP B1 was designed by Brent Casey in America
- The Behringer B-1 was designed by Uli Behringer in the 50s, then transported forwards in time where it was accidentally teleported straight up Lexdrummer's arse, where it became a miracle mic.

Ok, so that didn't happen, and we're cool with Lexdrummer now. But the point still remains that they are not even vaguely the same.

Oh, hang on, the SP B1 and SP T3 are both made at 797, right? So they're probably pretty much the same, yes? I mean, one was designed by Casey and the other by Hyatt ... one has a tube and stuff ... but it just seems a bit fishy to me that two different mics could come out of the same factory yet be totally different prices. Hmmmm .........

 

[noisedude]

But I've been arguing in the other post JUST like this that anyone who can't make a decent record with the behringer B1 cannot blame the mic.

This is true. However, some of the guys with more advanced abilities here want to make more than just a 'decent' record, and in their judgement require other, some more expensive tools, to get them there. Fortunately I'm not one of them, so if it comes to it I'll use whatever cheap shit the burglars leave behind.

EDIT - I really would miss my Beyer M400 though. That's a great freakin mic.

 

[cpc]

what did that have to do with my quote