Dark mic wanted. No sibilance!

B

bosh

New member
I recently began recording a cappella songs for my humor-oriented website, and I encode them at a nominal bitrate of 45.0kbps (Ogg Vobis quality setting of -1). At this bitrate, sibilance can sometimes be a bit of problem -- a couple of recordings have ended up sounding just a tad metallic.

I currently use a Shure PG48 that a friend gave me, and it's plugged into Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. I've decided to buy an Audio Buddy and Markertek cables along with a better sound card, but I still have no idea which mic to get.

I'm looking to spend around $100, and I realize that there are about 100 $100 mic threads posted every day. The problem is that many of the recommendations in those threads are for bright mics -- it seems that brightness is considered a desirable characteristic for mics that are used primarily for vocals. Since I'm trying to avoid sibilance, I decided to look for a dark mic, but I'm not having much luck.

The mic I purchase will be used solely for recording vocals and, in addition to avoiding sibilance, I want a mic that isn't prone to popping.

Any suggestions?
 
Well, for one thing, you shouldn't recording to an MP3 format -- try using WAVs to avoid the actual record process fucking with your sound (any format that you describe in terms of bitrate is some form of lossy compression audio format, and is not suitable for high-quality recording -- record to WAV then convert it down to MP3 and you'll have much better results...!)

Next... a good mic and a good pre will again assure that you're not fucking with your sound source.

Popping is a fact of life - that's what pop-screens are for...!
 
Thanks for the reply!

I do indeed record all songs in WAV format (using Cool Edit Pro). Afterwards, I encode them to Ogg Vorbis files with OggDropXPd. I'm guessing that the most professional course of action would be to buy a mic with a flat response so I can get an accurate recording, and then use CEP to roll off the higher frequencies of the WAVs before encoding them, but I'd rather just buy a mic that won't make my recordings too bright.

Maybe I should do a search for "muddy microphone" and buy whichever mic is the muddiest. :)
 
heh-heh... any of radio Shack's dynamic mics should work hen! ;) :D :D

I misunderstood your post.... I thought you were recording to an MP3-type format and experiencing the sibilance due to that....

But anyways, youre right - you should opt for a high-quality signal chain, then use mic placement (and mic selection) to minimize sibilance, then deal with any sonic deficiencies on a format conversion as you need to.

Starting with a poor quality mic just makes it harder to fix later on....

A well-recorded signal, then using a de-esser will get you farther ahead, IMO....!
 
I like your strategy, but muddy and bright aren't necessarily mutually exclusive qualities.

The mic that will probably pop up most often as being free of hype, dark, or what have you are the Oktava Large Diaphragm condensers.
 
I don't know....As soon as I bought my 319 and used it, I thought I was the winner, not only the mic...
 
219 vs. 319...

I know the design differences and how it's supposed to affect the responce....Has anyone got both?.....Is it a noticeable difference....
 
I have a 219, and it's frightening how bad it sounds on almost everything! :eek:

Given the largely positive response the 319 has gotten, i'd say it was worth springing for the redesigned enclosure.
 
That bad huh?....Muddy?...Funny....I've only known about Oktava since I got my 319 and 012's about a month ago and I'm so blown away with them that it's hard to think they came out with something that bad....live and learn huh?
 
bosh, a classic choice for what you want to do would be a
EV RE20 dynamic microphone, the darling of the broadcast
industry, as it has a relatively flat response which will counter
siblilance.
The Shure SM7, another classic, is supposed to be pretty resistant
to popping, and is also used a lot for broadcasting.
Unfortunately, both of these sell starting at $400 and $300
respectively. On the Shure SM7 you need a more powerful
mic pre to properly use it too.

I recently bought two Beyer Soundstar MKII 's off e-bay,
and will be putting one of them up for sale there soon.
Private message me if you're interested in learning more about
them. They are very smoooth and as microphones go relatively
resistant to popping. Harvey Gerst uses them a lot for vocals
in his studio BTW, especially for "screamers".
They sound much better to me than an SM58 for vocals IMHO.

Chris
 
I wonder if the cover could be removed on the 219 for tracking, (like a bottle type) and returned to the casing after. I think I can get them for arround 65 bucks at the Musicians friend clearance center here in KC.
 
philboyd studge said:
littledog,

Your 219 must be a dud.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Hard to believe anyone would intentionally build a mic that sounds that bad.

On the other hand, given Oktava's less than stellar quality control, especially a few years back, I'm willing to bet there are quite a few other 219 "duds" out there. Even Oktava couldn't have been too happy with it, since they redesigned it.

And don't even get me started on the stand mount that has all the structural rigidity of Gumby.
 
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