Looking for a new mic for vocals

TalismanRich said:
Two resources you might check out are AudioTestKitchen.com, and the Sweetwater Microphone Shootouts. You can compare a $200 mic to a $2000 mic and see if you hear a difference worth paying for.
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Can I have a halleluiah AND an Amen!

I do have a $500 ADK mic I bought used for @ $25O and never use...and a a few sm57's I always use.

If you have aspirations of getting the highest quality recording you can get...then yes you can spend a lot of $$$ to attain that.

If your aspiration is to get your music recorded so people can enjoy listening to your art...what I have found to be true and wholly believe is content and performance is far more important than what mic, compressor, software you use.

In my old fart, dumbass perspective a mono iphone recording of a great performance of a good song will pale a piss poor performance of a shitty song recorded with the most expensive mics, hardware and software in the world... As someone once said...garbage in , garbage out.

Get a good song , perform it well on any decent recording set up and move on...In the end I would suggest asking yourself "what are my expectations when I press record?" For me it is no different than if I was sitting playing a piano and singing in a small pub somewhere. Just sharing my craft, hopefully touching the people listening inner souls and maybe if I'm lucky, get a smile, a hoot or some applause of affirmation that I succeeded in conveying the magic that I feel when I play. That's the shit all the money in the world can't buy.

Sure I still have Champagne dreams and Caviar wishes, lives of the rich n famous...ain't gonna happen but a guy can dream can't he?

As I move into my sunset years I know I wasted way too much time in analysis paralysis...when I should have been pressing record..Hope the Lord lets me have enough days to get what I want to get done before my time has to come.
 
Well who is right and who is wrong?

Do the people who own Neumann U87's regret their purchases? Are they stupid? Have they more money than sense? Are they complete failures in what they do? All the gear and no idea?

Are the people with not enough money or will not spend money on gear...........More successful? Able to do a better job with cheaper gear?

Why do manufacturers make such expensive mics? Why do they bother with developing more mics when their first cheapo will do? Why does any manufacturer bother to develop anything when they can copy a cheap one that someone else has made?

I suppose when we know these answers homerecording.com will no longer be relevant.
 
Orson said:
Well who is right and who is wrong?

Do the people who own Neumann U87's regret their purchases? Are they stupid? Have they more money than sense? Are they complete failures in what they do? All the gear and no idea?

Are the people with not enough money or will not spend money on gear...........More successful? Able to do a better job with cheaper gear?

Why do manufacturers make such expensive mics? Why do they bother with developing more mics when their first cheapo will do? Why does any manufacturer bother to develop anything when they can copy a cheap one that someone else has made?

I suppose when we know these answers homerecording.com will no longer be relevant.
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Well you can drive down the road in a $500 car or a $500,000 car...they both get you down the road. There are folks who owns Porsche's that will NEVER use them to their fullest capabilities and there are people who will take a $1000 piece of junk, work on it, do some mods and drive it like they are an Indy driver...

Kinda the same with music and recording equipment...a proficient guitarist on a Sears acoustic and an amateur on a $5000 Martin..
Beck on a 4 track recorder..

40 years ago I worked for the local Zenith distributor and learned early on about bells n whistles and "NEW AND IMPROVED", "NEXT YEARS MODEL" All those microphone and equipment manufacturers may have started out with the best of intentions but the bottom line IS the bottom line and they gotta keep that stuff moving out of the warehouse...consumerism...convincing the consumer that they need to get rid of what they have for the latest greatest thing...I am a cheap ass and aware of the game...I have never bought a new Apple anything...but I own a bitchin 27" Imac and use a iPhone 6s that I purchased for 25% of what they sold for just a few years after they were the latest greatest...
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
M88 by Mark C | Free Listening on SoundCloud

M160 by Mark C | Free Listening on SoundCloud

No effects or compression. Pre recocorded drum . On the grill mic . Like a burger.

Can you tell the difference? I can. But its subtle.

So where does it become like the radio?

When you HPF and LPF it? and pump the center with Commpression?
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The difference is pretty apparent to me here, but the average listener won’t care in the slightest.

Side note, I worked in radio. So much compression. Squashing the ever living hell out of stuff that it’s within an inch of its life. Never liked the sound.
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
So where does it become like the radio?
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When you have honed your mixing skills with years of experience as to how to capture a performance and make it radio ready. Or pay someone to do so. Or just make the best of what you have and enjoy the experience.

'Radio ready' does not mean high end mics. Hell, I heard AC/DC Back In Black vocals were recorded with a SM58 in control room. That could be a myth, but wouldn't surprise me in the least.
 
When I did the Ginny Show, I was young..I think it was all +8 line level. My +4 line source was reamped to +8 on the board.

I think , man I was 15..
 
TAE said:
Well you can drive down the road in a $500 car or a $500,000 car...they both get you down the road. There are folks who owns Porsche's that will NEVER use them to their fullest capabilities and there are people who will take a $1000 piece of junk, work on it, do some mods and drive it like they are an Indy driver...

Kinda the same with music and recording equipment...a proficient guitarist on a Sears acoustic and an amateur on a $5000 Martin..
Beck on a 4 track recorder..

40 years ago I worked for the local Zenith distributor and learned early on about bells n whistles and "NEW AND IMPROVED", "NEXT YEARS MODEL" All those microphone and equipment manufacturers may have started out with the best of intentions but the bottom line IS the bottom line and they gotta keep that stuff moving out of the warehouse...consumerism...convincing the consumer that they need to get rid of what they have for the latest greatest thing...I am a cheap ass and aware of the game...I have never bought a new Apple anything...but I own a bitchin 27" Imac and use a iPhone 6s that I purchased for 25% of what they sold for just a few years after they were the latest greatest...
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Who says you have to drive in a $500 banger when you can ride a bike or walk.

I suppose when you arrive with tired feet and holes in your shoes or in the rust coloured wreck belching smoke you really catch peoples attention and give confidence to all in what you can do. So much so nobody will ever bother to listen to you. But the man who turns up in super fast and in style in first place in the $500,000 sports car is the one who impresses all and the one who gets all the top dollar job offers.

I wonder if you went into a run down building/hospital for a face lift and the surgeon was standing there waiting to greet you in a ripped shirt covered in shite holding a rusty old blade that you would have full confidence and let him administer the anesthetic. Or would you drive past to the super gleaming private clinic with all the posh cars outside where the top celebs wander in and out on a daily basis? :thumbs up:
 
Orson said:
I wonder if you went into a run down building/hospital for a face lift and the surgeon was standing there waiting to greet you in a ripped shirt covered in shite holding a rusty old blade that you would have full confidence and let him administer the anesthetic. Or would you drive past to the super gleaming private clinic with all the posh cars outside where the top celebs wander in and out on a daily basis? :thumbs up:
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You're mixing "services" with equipment in that analogy...Picking equipment to record with when we are all just amateur's trying to catch the genie in the bottle is quite different from choosing which recording studio you record in. Of course if you can afford the mutli million dollar studio go for it...If not, you might have to settle for "Rusty Blade Studios" :eek: :laughings:
 
Its was NOT a matter of playing skill.

Just some punks in the studio. They set up certain key pieces of equipment in a certain way. I would not even call their engineering a talent. Just a trick someone else showed them.

There was nothing to it. The sound is the equipment.
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
Its was NOT a matter of playing skill.

Just some punks in the studio. They set up certain key pieces of equipment in a certain way. I would not even call their engineering a talent. Just a trick someone else showed them.

There was nothing to it. The sound is the equipment.
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The sound is the performer with equipment given. First order of sound is the one playing whatever is there. The mic, the gear, the whatever is just added juice...

Where is that Joe Satriani video playing a cheap guitar in a kids bedroom?.... It still sounds like him...
 
Beakster, you think that's subtle? Either you're listening on crap speakers, or you're deaf!

Put those two in a double blind test and I can pick out the same one 100% of the time. The M88 recording is dark and recessed sounding, The 160 is hard bright and agressive... VERY "in you face".

No amount of compression will make them equal, but a whole lot of EQ might get them close.
 
jimmys69 said:
The sound is the performer with equipment given. First order of sound is the one playing whatever is there. The mic, the gear, the whatever is just added juice...

Where is that Joe Satriani video playing a cheap guitar in a kids bedroom?.... It still sounds like him...
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Here it is. $100 guitar. Still the performer that makes it magic!

HERE IS THE LINK
 
CrowsofFritz said:
How many people here subscribe to the idea that if a mic costs $1000 it must be so much better than a cheap mic?
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I do. Price and quality has a tendency to follow eachother, however - that does not mean that a cheap mic can’t be good for certain things. Not at all. There are a lot of great mics that fits on a tight budget. But there sure as hell are more of the cheap (say sub $100-200) that are close to useless, than the ones with $1000+ price tags. And that is not so odd. That’s how you’d (or at least I’d) expect it to be.
 
TAE said:
You're mixing "services" with equipment in that analogy...Picking equipment to record with when we are all just amateur's trying to catch the genie in the bottle is quite different from choosing which recording studio you record in. Of course if you can afford the mutli million dollar studio go for it...If not, you might have to settle for "Rusty Blade Studios" :eek: :laughings:
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To me any valid comment must only come from someone who has personal experience. Otherwise you are reviewing something you never had or used.

In the meantime I have a degree in butchery. Anybody want to look 10 years younger? :eek::thumbs up:
 
dualmonolab said:
I do. Price and quality has a tendency to follow eachother, however - that does not mean that a cheap mic can’t be good for certain things. Not at all. There are a lot of great mics that fits on a tight budget. But there sure as hell are more of the cheap (say sub $100-200) that are close to useless, than the ones with $1000+ price tags. And that is not so odd. That’s how you’d (or at least I’d) expect it to be.
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And again, this can be true to a degree, but as stated before; a $99 SM58 has been known to be used for modern professional recordings. Almost identical 57 is used to record guitars in multi million dollar studios. MD421 is under $400 and used widely for many things. SM7b which so many internet armchair cowboy home recordists like to regard to as a shit/not worth the money microphone, has been used on more Grammy award winning pro recordings to even count.

In the end, it is how, what, and where you use any given mic. The mic is a choice in any given environment based on what is being mic'd, the room it is being used in, and the gear that it is being run through. It's how you use it and how you are driving it. Which bring me to this...

Bad analogy: I own a 1970 Corvette Stingray convertible. It isn't as fast as the Ferrari BB 512 Berlinetta Boxer that I got to drive for a couple years by means of a past girlfriend.... But the point is, they both sounded good and get the adrenaline going. One took $5000 a year in maintenance to keep it's value. The other just needs to be driven. An oil change every couple years. Guess which one gets used the most? Yep, the SM 57
. :)
 
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