heylow,
I sure as hell won't give you a verbal beating, but basically, the quote is pretty correct. Most of the great people you hear on records (especially in the old days) got their sound by simply being themself. As engineers, we simply tried to get that sound on tape without distortion, noise, hiss, etc., AND we did that by choosing the most appropriate mic for the singer.
BUT, almost any mic works great with a "great" singer or player. The differences between mics are subtle when you start getting close to the sound you want. Some mics will sound spitty, tinny, harsh, whatever on some voices and you quickly eliminate them from the selection process. Almost any of the rest of the mics will usually work fine.
It's like finding a good guitar chain. Let me tell you a true story that happened to me in late 1968. I used to think, "Boy, if I had a Strat and a Marshall, I could sound like Jimi Hendrix". After all, I was left-handed, too. At the time, I was working for Acoustic Control, designing guitar and bass amplifiers and guitars. Well, one morning, I got a call from Steve Marks, the president of the company.
"Get over to TTG Studios RIGHT NOW", Steve said. "Jimi Hendrix just bought 4 of our amps and he has some questions about them". I made it from my bed to the studio in less than 20 minutes!! I walk in, and there's Jimi Hendrix with his white Strat, standing in front of four of MY amplifiers. Geez. We shake hands and I explain the "Variamp" function that he was having a problem with.
He's really getting into it, and he starts playing with the tremolo controls. I say, lemme have your guitar and I'll show you a neat trick you can do with the tremolo. He takes off his Strat and hands it to me. I start to play it, but the action is too high, so I say lemme go get my guitar out of the car.
I come back with my left-handed Black Widow guitar (heavy body - 24 frets clear of the body, and a neck that feels like butter). I show him the little tremolo trick, but he's just staring at my guitar. He says, "Gimme". I hand him my guitar.
Now, here's the point of my rambling on. He proceeds to play a guitar he's never seen in his life, thru four solid state amps he's never used till a few hours ago, and the sound is pure Hendrix.
There's nobody else on the planet that sounds like that - no possibility mistaking him for anybody else. But it wasn't his Strat, or his Marshall, or his pedals - it was Jimi Hendrix playing on a strange guitar, plugged directly into my amps, and it was still Hendrix.
My point is that David Gilmour WILL sound exactly like David Gilmour thru any mic. Some mics may make him sound a little harsher or tinnier than others, but he will always sound like David Gilmour. Jim Morrison always sounded like Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin didn't give a shit what mic she sang thru. And she was right - it didn't really matter.
Now when you're recording in a quiet room, and you're trying to make some magic happen, yes, the choice of mic can be very important. You don't want a mic that will be noisey, distort, or be unflattering to the singer, but if you think it's going to change their basic sound dramatically somehow, you're very wrong.
But IF David Gilmour were to pick up "a Tube MP and one of those spiffy radio smack condensers and hit record on the old 4 track", yeah, he'd still sound exactly like David Gilmour - it just wouldn't be a great recording of David Gilmour.
