Karma purchase (K6/K58)...first thoughts

[vicenzajay]

Ordered a K-6 and a K-58 last week - they arrived in just 4 days and in good shape. Quick impressions:

K-6:
- Very impressive on female jazz vocals...easy to setup and easy to dial in...definitely a darker mic that sits very well on a clear female vocalist.

- The shiznit on electric guitar...granted, my experience for different mics on guitar cabinets is limited, but I was extremely happy with the sound of my electric through the Traynor CV-50 Blue and into the K-6. It just sounded fantastic....so very smooooooth and the notes were exceptionally clear yet not overstated. Hey, I'm a bassist, only play lead guitar occasionally for church, if my playing sounds good through this, anyone's playing will sound great.

- was NOT very impressive on male vocals (tried two different singers...tenor and baritone) - the mic didn't mix well with the male vocal timbre - sounded dull and uninspiring.


K-58:

- Very clear microphone...not sizzly and not overstated on the high end of the rf spectrum. I know I will probably do some tube rolling, but initially I was happy with a complete lack of graininess.

- Tried it on female vocals (cardiod pattern selected) - very clear and representative of the voice...sounded good. These are first impressions, and I haven't put it into a dense mix yet, so these "impressions" may very well be useless...there you have it.

- Tracked bass/guitar with it standing duty as a room microphone....did very well in this role with figure-8 pattern selected....added a nice ambiance track to the primary DI/mic tracks.


Probably not an exceptionally useful review given that the K-58 was not tried in a mix; however, I am (so far) pleased with the purchase. One extra note - I did use the K-6 at church on the guitar amp (we use clearsonic sorbers/panels for the guitar amps, so I could isolate the mic well and let it do it's "thing" with the signal) - it sounded fantastic in the mix (live though it was)....just super clear and smooth.

Jay

 

[kojdogg]

those are both great mics-- particularly at the sale prices they're at right now. if you're going to be tube rolling, i'd definitely recommend getting an nos ge jan 6072a or 5 star triple mica 6072a tube-- both of which i tried on the recommendations of kidvybes and ljmaxx here. i have a friend with a k55 (the cardioid version which they no longer make apparently) with an electro-harmonix 6072a tube and made a nice difference as well (it was also much cheaper than either of those tubes-- each of which i've bought several of).
i had a k-58 and k-6 and often used them together on things like acoustic guitar and vocals-- having a track of each recording the same source is a nice way to alter the resulting sound by balancing the darker k-6 and brighter k-58 by level rather than using eq.

 

[kidvybes]

those are both great mics-- particularly at the sale prices they're at right now. if you're going to be tube rolling, i'd definitely recommend getting an nos ge jan 6072a or 5 star triple mica 6072a tube-- both of which i tried on the recommendations of kidvybes and ljmaxx here. i have a friend with a k55 (the cardioid version which they no longer make apparently) with an electro-harmonix 6072a tube and made a nice difference as well (it was also much cheaper than either of those tubes-- each of which i've bought several of).
i had a k-58 and k-6 and often used them together on things like acoustic guitar and vocals-- having a track of each recording the same source is a nice way to alter the resulting sound by balancing the darker k-6 and brighter k-58 by level rather than using eq.

...what he said...