ECM8000 for recording?

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junplugged

junplugged

Taking the slow road
The Behringer ECM8000 "ultra-linear" Seems to be used for testing?

I see a lot of people here (in the giant mic list thread) have them.

Are you recording with this mic?

In some reading, I see it is for room testing?

I wonder, if it is missing the warmth of the famous mics, but it is flat, therefore transparent, then can the signal be shaped by the rest of the chain enough to get the sound you want?

Good price and a condensor mic, so it needs a phantom and/or a mic preamp. Therefore, can we use preamps, EQ, effects, baffles, placement, etc., to use this mic for most of what we want?

Seriously $40, is this reliable or are there some duds?

And, one final Q, can we use this mic to test the mic preamp of our choice by comparing the preamped signal to the bypass of the preamp to see what the preamp and our setting on the preamp are really doing? (is there a bypass on preamps where you just get the phantom power? (I'm not experienced with them))

TIA - j.

(sorry if some dupe here, i did search and didn't find yet, still searching tho, post link if you got em.)
 
The ECM8000 works well for me when stereo recordng acoustic guitar by placing it near the bridge/bout to pick up the bass and woody sounds a guitar produces. It also works well in the over-the-right-shoulder position. Because it's an omni, you can close mic with it and pick up the bass without the proximity effect that causes boominess. I hear it also performs well in pairs as drum overheads in good sounding rooms. I suspect it would perform well as a percussion mic as long as you did not put it too close to the sound source.
 
The ecm8000 is a great mic. Its more linear and less hyped than the 603s or oktavas. It would be more useful if it had did cardioid along with omni but as far as good organic sounding linear mic, its hard to beat under $500.
 
I own a pair of these puppies, and a better $38 bargain you will not find. I use it with an Oktava MC012 for acoustic, or with a matched pair of Oktavas. I haven't used it yet for overheads, but drum tracking is coming up soon. It is accurate, and a little noisy. It makes a good complement to almost any other mic on a really good source, when you want to restore accuracy to a colored track. It's one of the little shocking finds I owe to this board.-Richie
 
All I can say is you learn rather quickly the value of proper accoustic treatment (with the ecms).

The way it delivers the goods on tamborine and shaker makes it worth the price of admission for that alone.
 
I've been experimenting with a pair of these and like 'em a lot. What you put into it is pretty much what you'll get out. That can be a good thing or a very bad thing.;)

I've had the best results with 'em as drum overheads (or under-heads) and for high-gain lead guitar. I would agree with others on the acoustic guitar as long as you have a really good sounding acoustic. It just makes mine sound like the cheap plywood tops they are! :eek:
 
I like 'em to record with.

Yes they do require phantom power and yes you should use a good pre-amp (but that goes without saying).
They are not very hot mics.

A lot of "the famous mics" actually hype up certain frequencies in ways that a lot of people like, thus making them famous.

With the ECM's there is no hype.

I like that.

Chessrock is totally right though, they will bring out your room monsters.

I found that if you have a nice room (like my buddies big, uncarpeted and sparsly decorated living room) and two people playing acoustic guitars, they make good "overhead" room mics to compliment some close mics.

I also got a really pleasing tone on an Ovation Celebrity by sticking one right in the upper-most sound hole.

They wouldn't get a lot of complimentary discussion around here if they didn't work well for a lot of the people...........for 35 bucks.;)

-mike
 
It's a $35 microphone that works. You can't even roll your own omni at that price, and these are pretty well-constructed....granted the ink wears off (a good thing considering the name) and they misspelled "correction" on the shipping box and the foam in the mic box they come in is mounted upside down and the mic box itself is an old cassette tape case....heh.

You can't go wrong. They sound ok! Great for close mic'ing things without worrying about proximity effect!

Slackmaster 2000
 
And just think . . . all the hiss they generate will make your recordings sound like they were tracked to analog tape (1/4" sans dolby)! :D So what are you waiting for?
 
chessrock said:
And just think . . . all the hiss they generate will make your recordings sound like they were tracked to analog tape (1/4" sans dolby)! :D So what are you waiting for?
Click to expand...

LOL chessrock! :D

That's why I like 'em with a loud source.;)
 
Hey Everybody, great comments, thanks.

I'll definitely try one. I was in a gear store, and the sales guy says, "so you gonna ring out rooms?" Yea, that's what I'm doing, I'm ringing out rooms... whatever. If I said, "no, i'm gonna actually -record- with this thing," then you know he'd start trying to sell me on one of those in the case there. blah blah blah.

So, after I have fun 'ringing out my room' I'll try it out. The other sales guy said, "It works great with the asdf3;lkj9737..." Because that's what it says in the sales docs. There's some kinda test gear that it is supposed to work with. blah blah

I'd like to hear on tape what's up there from 15k to 20k since my other mics don't go there. If it's only hiss, then i'll just pop on one of those mic modelers or settings in my new Art V3 pre.

Hey, how about a thread on retail trips. V3 - they have one in stock on the computer. As my girlfriend starts to faint and give me the we're-never-coming-here-again stuff, I wait and wait. No, they can't find it. But, we have one of these.... blah blah

As i went to three stores that day, all miles apart, i kept saying to her, "Now I know how Musician's Friend does so well." (Plug in any online and catalog source in there.) I drove over 50 miles that time....
 
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