grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Was it easily audible ?
I'm looking for a good starter vocal mic for under $300 USD - is it possible?
- Thread starter Eric V
- Start date
rob aylestone
Moderator
Oddly -yes!
CoolCat
Well-known member
some of these posts are hilarious.....and Folkcafe! nice system in the picture...
I dont try to kick dead horses..lol but I went into the rabbit hole on the Old vs New and finally drank the koolaid to buy a "old shure" 58ish and will compare...
but my gut instinct is telling me most the tone change is years of spittle and age as the design hasnt really changed much.
for a hobbyist....I still love the SM7b for the very fact it has like training wheels on it with the metal cage to "set the distance", where my 58 can be too close or too far away....
same with almost all mics but the SM7b and to some extent the RE20 ...sports room mics.
putting in some effort though most mics can do a good enough job, slap on some polish later, and most mics work.
I dont try to kick dead horses..lol but I went into the rabbit hole on the Old vs New and finally drank the koolaid to buy a "old shure" 58ish and will compare...
but my gut instinct is telling me most the tone change is years of spittle and age as the design hasnt really changed much.
for a hobbyist....I still love the SM7b for the very fact it has like training wheels on it with the metal cage to "set the distance", where my 58 can be too close or too far away....
same with almost all mics but the SM7b and to some extent the RE20 ...sports room mics.
putting in some effort though most mics can do a good enough job, slap on some polish later, and most mics work.
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TAE
All you have is now
I still have my first sm57 bought in 1973 ( back when I decided to take a stab at that "rock star" thing
) and a few later ones from the 80's / 90's. I can't tell any difference, they all do the job just fine.
Folkcafe
Active member
I kind of had a dream gig back then as I got paid to buy and set up equipment. I didn't quite yet trust the DA78's as there were plenty of stories about drop out and clogging heads so we had the DA38's as back up. Also wasn't a fan of the AD converters in the Tascam's so there are the Apogee AD8000 racked up. It was a lot of gear for a folk group. My favorite rig became the Genex MO recorders as you could connect hard drives directly then import the track directly from the drives right into Pro Tools. These had really clean AD converters and paired with the Milennia HV preamps made this system portable and versatile. Wish I was still spending someone else's money on gear.
spantini
COO of me, inc.
I really like the SM58.. and the SM7 with some EQ. I hear a little more richness in those.
TAE
All you have is now
Wow that was some serious investments on some cutting edge stuff back in the day! Crazy!
TalismanRich
Well-known member
Interesting comparison, CC. The 545 and SM58 sounded darn close to me. The SM7b was definitely the dark horse in the group. Some would call it warm, but it lacked top to me which would cover a myriad of sins, especially with thin or sibilant voices. I could see why people would like them for certain voices. Where the SM58 bumps up 5dB in the 4K to 10K region, the SM7 has droops of a dB or 2.
The V67g sounded somewhat close to the WA47, but I like the WA better. A little proximity boost would fatten them up a bit. Not sure how far you were from the mics. I've got a V67 and it works well with my voice and decent on acoustic guitar.
The V67g sounded somewhat close to the WA47, but I like the WA better. A little proximity boost would fatten them up a bit. Not sure how far you were from the mics. I've got a V67 and it works well with my voice and decent on acoustic guitar.
Folkcafe
Active member
Dr. Bose was heavily classical and jazz oriented so a lot of our early live recordings were classical. The cost of producing a classical album, that was not just a live performance already scheduled is very high. Pre-production costs include the arrangements, practice space, the performance space and then a lot of musicians by the hour. By the time you hit record it is a ton of money. Especially when you consider a lot of what we were doing was experimental surround recordings. Sometimes the performances lacked and some of the early surround attempts didn't translate well into 5.1. I will also add that some of the greatest performance spaces in the world do not sound as good empty.
The gear is a small fraction even with the bleeding edge stuff. Spent millions $ on gear before the plug was pulled on creating a corporate record label and suddenly my dream gig was no more. Back then the cost of a 1tb centralized fiber raid system was a lot of money. What is the cost of 1tb now vs then? Nothing new. My first hard drive upgrade I went from 10mb to 20mb at a cost of $600. That would be $30 million per terabyte.
TAE
All you have is now
Folkcafe what an amazing opportunity even though in the end it was shit canned. Though you've been around here forever I don't really know your background or history. You threw out the name Dr. Bose pretty nonchalantly. That is crazy cool that you actually got to under that crazy swizzlestick. A thread in of its own for sure. Howsabout starting a thread "My days working with Dr. Bose" and share your story with all of us knuckleheads. The equipment picture blew my mind..I never got even close to getting in as deep on the recording end though in retrospect opportunity stared me in the face several times but I was too stoned with aspirations of having a career as a musician not as an engineer. I built my first PC for recording in 1995 and used a soundblaster AWE32 as my AD/DA interface...with the daughterboard with all the midi soundfonts...LOL I spent $3500+ to build that silly ass machine. Digital Orchestrator was my recording software.
CMolena
Active member
I know you had a lot of answers already, but I'm just going to throw some advice here. The Rode NTA2a is a really good balanced mic. I just got one used. I really love it. Sorry if someone already recommended this one before!
CrowsofFritz
Flamingo!
I remember mixing a show for a jazz band, and before the hall was full, I asked the bassist to turn up the low end a little. Mistake. Once a bunch of human bodies came in, it was a little too much, which was corrected later but still.
Eric V
Inquiring mind wants to know
nice thank you
rob aylestone
Moderator
58's are still probably the most common mic in the world. The basketless 57 is a cousin of the SM-7B, but way apart in price.
For what it's worth - second from last - the 545 is my favourite in the recording.
For what it's worth - second from last - the 545 is my favourite in the recording.
CrowsofFritz
Flamingo!
This. I will never understand the obsession with the SM7. You’re paying a lot more for a sliiiightly different 57 in which I see no real benefits.
rob aylestone
Moderator
Well, I have an SM7 - I leant it to a friend and I've not missed it, but others really love them. I guess it's like painting - you have your favourite colours that work for your style of painting. Others have their own preferences. SM7 mics are good for some people, and rarely useless - unlike the AKG C1000 - which has hardly any support from users with more than one mic. This is the problem with mics - until you have one, you don't know it you will like it or not!
Papanate
Well-known member
The Rode NTA2a can be balanced - I find them really bright. Now a bit of EQ to level off and it's not a bad microphone.