md 441 questions

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maskedman72

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i dont know anything about the senheiser 441 but i have read nothing but good things about this mic. can anyone tell me if this mic is still in production and what it sounds good on? how does it compare to a 421,or is it a totally different thing? is seems to look like a very old 421.
 
i don't know what i'm talking about, so take this with a grain of salt...plus i've been drinkin tonight ;]

i believe its still in production, but the newer version is slightly different (same with the MD421...theres a newer "improved" version that many people don't like as much).

they are supposed to be just about the best dynamic mic available, great for vox, horns, toms, and probably many other things. buying used will save you a ton of money.

if i had to summarize (from what i've heard), 421 = toms, kick, and guitar cabs, while 441 = vox, horns, and possibly toms.

hope that helped. sorry if any of the information is wrong :]
 
The 441 is probably one of the best dynamic mics ever made and so is the 421.

The 541 is the newer version of the 441 and I have both. The 541 sounds a tad different, I like the older 441 more.

It's a hypercardioid with a very nice off axis response and it sounds quite different from the 421. The 441 has a bigger bottom and a more 'silky' high end.

It will sound good on almost anything, but it's my favorite horn mic. Trumpets sound very nice with a 441.
You can use a 441 for recording hi hat and cymbals without any problem. It's a great snare mic too, but it takes a lot of space.:D

The 421 has a more agressive sound. The older grey 421 sounds a tad mellower than the black 421 mk2.

There are a number of differences between the old and newer 421. The most significant of them is the older 421 has a copper coil and the newer an aluminium coil.

You can record a gunshot with a 421, it will not distort. :D
 
Just plain good. Never sucks, often great.
Tonight I tracked a band and had the 441 about a 8in above and pointed almost straight down at the snare, running it into one if the Soundcraft M Series preamps (not one of my good ones)... I slammed it up nice and loud with Timeworks Mastering compressor, added some nice room verb, and its quite easily the best snare sound I've ever gotten. Thick, rich and powerful, snappy... and the rejection takes second chair to no other mic that I am aware of. There is barely any hihat bleed in the snare track, I would be willing to say about 1/3 of what there would be had I used an SM57.
Cant even imagine how good that Pork Pie snare woulda sounded had I run it through my yet-to-arrive Great River NV.

:)


Paul
 
I can't contrast the older and newer models, but I've used a couple of older ones, and my impression is that the 441 is one of the most versatile mics ever made. It's not as shockingly low priced as an SM57 or quite as well adapted to vocals as SM-7, but it is one of the best all purpose dynamic mics on the planet, and would complement the mic cabinet of any studio, project or pro.- I think of it as a mic that does whatever an SM57 does- better. -Richie
 
Funny that this question came up. I was tracking some vocals last night and was trying the usual suspects (LDCs) on the vocalist and put up a 441 for grins. That's what I ended up using. Low gain but almost condensor like in its sound.
 
Indeed it's a condenser like mic. If you do a search on Google you will find 345.000 results.

Do a search for SM57 and you'll find 18.500 results. Nuff said.
 
I'd say at $250-$300 used, its the best mic in the "under $500 range" that everyone is always trying to get.

Again, cant wait to hear it with the Great River NV cranked out on a snare and vocals and guitar amp and kick and toms and horns and bass and birds chirping and dogs barking and babie crying.

Killer mic dudes. Nuff said.
 
FWIW. Just for kicks this weekend I tracked a hymn with 4 vocals, a tambourine, a percussion track using the back of a metal chair :D, a shaker, two acoustic guitar tracks and one bass track, all using the 441 except for one guitar track ( while singing into the 441 ). And the bass was DI'd using an RNP. I used the RNP for the one 603/acoustic track. All the rest of the tracks were the 441 through an old Soundcraft Powerstation preamp with the high cut on and a little additional bass cut, the rest flat. The mix needed some more equing....got a bit muddy...probably mostly due to the preamp I was using....but otherwise I was pretty pleased with the distinctness of each track. The 441 is a good all around mic that would likely be great with a really good preamp. I wouldn't know yet...but I will soon hopefully. You have to really crank your amp to get the 441 to sing right. Find a good used one for less than $300 and you'll have a good deal.
 
MD441

I heard directly from Sennheiser's service department that the new MD441's housing & diaphragm are now put together as a one piece unit instead of two separate pieces (or more counting the circuitboards) as with the older MD441-Us. I just got a used MD441-U last week from an old friend of mine who had four 441s hanging in his mic locker. Seems he didn't use them much (except for with horns and the snare drum). He wasn't too wild about the MD441-U so I bought one of them from him. The bottom line? It's by far the BEST sounding dynamic microphone I have ever owned....Hands down!

Seems there isn't any application it won't work extremely WELL for. I've tried it on everything under the sun and this thing really floats my boat and rocks my world... It KILLS on electric bass, guitar (both acoustic and cabinet mic'ing) vocals, percussion, cymbals, anything really....I want about five more of the old ones! They work really REALLY well & mine will be used on everything and anything I come across as first call microphone... simply AMAZING!
 
intersting facts:

hypercardiod

needs lots of gain

a furturstic dildo

stevie nick's vocal mic
 
Other facts: doubles as a space gun prop
Stevie Nicks actually used it as a dildo before each set.
Turhtfully though, if you have a source that might have feedback or bleed problems (live cabs, live vocals, etc) the the 441 has the best rejection of any mic you're gonna find. Compare to an Sm57 on snare with hat bleed and you'll be amazed.

If you guys dig on that mic, I seriously recommend you check out the Sennheiser e609 Silver. For $100 that mic is simply outstanding on some sources. GREAT mic for the price. Sell a stupid 57 if you have to and get one. Sounds great, looks cool. My 1st pick for toms and doubled guitars.
 
Hey tubedude,

Since we both love our MD441s how does the e609 Silver stack up to the 441 and/or is it just different in a good way? Please describe the sound of the e609 Silver 'cause that was the next microphone I was going to buy! Funny we're thinking on duplicate paths here?
 
Tubedude, help clear up my confusion....

You say the 441 has excellent off-axis rejection and needs lots of gain (which I would interpret to mean not extremely sensitive), yet has a condensor-like sound and you're talking about picking up chirping birds and crying babies. I'm looking for something for acoustic guitar with a condensor-like sound, yet a dynamic-like sensitivity, meaning I don't want to hear the birds chirping, etc. Is this what I'm looking for? Or do I need a high-end pre to make use of it?
 
Hi Cardioidpotent,

The MD441-U doesn't have a whole lot of gain (as compared to a LD condenser style mic) but what a SOUND it has engineered into it! I would say that the 441's gain structure is about the same as an SM-57 and/or a MD421. You probably would want to use a mic preamp while recording acoustic guitar but I have tried the 441 so far (in the last week since I scored it) mostly WITHOUT a microphone preamp and it sounds just phenomenal in any application I've thrown at it.

A mic preamp would be useful for when you want to add color to the mic's response or you find that you simply do NEED more gain for the task at hand. To say that the 441 "sounds like a condenser" is right on the money--it does in a BIG WAY but it is still a dynamic mic (albeit an awful expensive dynamic at that).
To me, it's the perfect marriage of two schools of microphone design put together.

Truly a brilliant microphone! FWIW, I am still in AWE of the 441 going into my second week of experimentation with it. You just KNOW the mic is very special when you initially see it and hear it on a monitor mix.... Breathtaking is a good word to use here.

:cool: :)
 
The 441 has a low output, thats all. Not "low gain" or whatever. Just not a hot output, so it takes more juice than average to get it "loud".
It COULD be a great mic for acoustic, you just gotta try it.
 
Re: Tubedude, help clear up my confusion....

Cardioidpotent said:
I'm looking for something for acoustic guitar with a condensor-like sound, yet a dynamic-like sensitivity, meaning I don't want to hear the birds chirping, etc. Is this what I'm looking for?
Click to expand...

Yea, I read your other post, and I think this is probably what you want. It's response is really tight hypercardiod, so it'll reject a lot of the room and other foreign sounds. And it has good detail like a condenser.
 
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