Mic recommendations for acoustic guitar

  • Thread starter Thread starter Armistice
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ECM8000's - good mics for those on Food Stamps.

Probably don't even here the hiss over the roar of the freeway....

bbz

p.s. Mine are long gone.
 
Harvey - another mic in the same price range? Let's see.....................how about the Barbie Karaoke?? <g>

Don't waste yer $$ for the 8000's - save for something good.

bbz
 
Is there a way to ignore people? This bbZ dude is......enough said.

Anyway, how bout we get back to the original subject.
 
Ooops,

enter posted.

The ECM8000 is a pretty good mic for guitar. The best ive found them for is micing choirs and stuff. However with your room im guessing those will just make matters worse. But heck if your going to buy another mic go ahead and throw $35 on a mic you wont regret buying.

My personal opinion is that the room is your biggest problem. If the guitar sounds good and the playing sounds good and your not capturing the sound that you hear, my guess is that your mics are picking up too much of the room. Although the thing that disproves this is the fact that you say it sound metallic. Maybe you are confusing a boosted mid range with a metallic type sound? Dunno but if youve got blankets cutting out all your highs and nothing else this could be the effect your getting. Some things that people have posted above, but if nothing works the way you like it, i recommend pulling down the blankets and seeing how that sounds.

No blankets at all are usually better than thin partially deadening blankets that only absorb highs, at least, thats my opinion.

bbZ - btw, if your all knowing of this stuff, why dont you tell him what the problem with his sound is?
 
darnold,

any cretin can do an A/B test. try it. the ecm8000's are extremely hissy. but what do you expect for a lower tier mic.

bbz
 
bbZ - I never tried to disprove the fact that they have a high noise ratio. However, they do work for alot of situations that ive found. They are definately not the first mic that i pic up when i have to mic something, infact i hardly use them at all. But they are very nice mics to have around the studio when you need them. And the best part about them, is they are only $35. To me, thats makes them very useful to have. I really havnt found a whole lot of use for them myself except for a couple of cases. One of which was when i was recording a choir along with other things going on that i needed my other mics for. Turned out, they were perfect for the job. They had a very good stereo image and a clear and precise image of the choir, and the best part was that i didnt have to pull the preamps too loud, thus i didnt have much problem with noise. Infact i got more recognition with this recording then any other of my recording projects. This recording was for a community thing in our local town which a couple of hundred people showed up too. People loved the sound of the recording, which gave me great adverstising.

I do agree with you that it is a little annoying how it is one of the first mics people bring up, and they act extremely hyped like its the best sounding mic ever. Ive even started a thread sharing my views against that. No it definately not the greatest mic and i usually try to clear people away from it myself. But if all they have is $35, and thats all they can get, i definately think thats the best option for their money.

The thing that irritates me with your attacks are how you are attacking so many people. Its great that you are expressing your opinion on them, but remember its your opinion. You are attacking people that dedicate alot of time on these forums to helping people. Harvey has brought some of the best information this forum has, and the last thing i like to see is people offending him with immature opinion attacks. The last thing i wonna see is some of these great people leave because they are feeling unappreciated for what they are doing where there are so many people that do appreciate it.

Sorry you had bad luck with them. Maybe youve got some of the finest mics in the world in your studio. Maybe we are ants compared to you. But you gotta realize is that $35 is all some people can spend on a mic. And if you can honestly state one mic that you can get for $35 that sounds better than an ECM8000, and does the same applications as it does, please tell us. It would be great to know. And you know as well as anyone, a Barbey Karaoke mic does not sound as good as an ECM8000.

danny
 
bbZ said:
darnold,

any cretin can do an A/B test. try it. the ecm8000's are extremely hissy. but what do you expect for a lower tier mic.

bbz
Click to expand...

How many have you tried? Some are hissy, some aren't bad.
 
It's called "never trust? what anyone touts in here. I bought a pair after reading the glowing posts, only to find them horribly hissy. So, I returned them, out the 2nd day air and the returning UPS ground, AND time wasted.

But's that's MY fault really. You have to be REAL careful and sort out the posts.

As with other groups, there's some in here that don;t know what good equipment really is and they blow off and tout, when they have no idea what they're talking about.

Some good and some bad 8000's? What happened to quality control?

bbz
 
bbZ said:
It's called "never trust" what anyone touts in here.

As with other groups, there's some in here that don't know what good equipment really is and they blow off and tout, when they have no idea what they're talking about.

bbz
Click to expand...
Lots of cheap shot stuff deleted.

Sorry about that, gang.
 
Last edited:
bbZ said:
\
Some good and some bad 8000's? What happened to quality control?
Click to expand...

exactly. they use the same quality control as Oktava, i.e.: none. that's why you should check them out in the store before buying. if your only option is mail-order, then you're right: better to buy something else.
 
The back-room good 'ole red neckers speak.......

Take a Midol.
 
Some past quotes from bbZ...........go figure:



"Recording Classical Guitar?
What mics do you guys use? Stereo? I have one AT4033, probably should get another.

Mic placement? EQ & Dynamics?

Should the player use headphones or just play without?

Secrets?

Using the 'ole AW4416

Thanks!

bbz"




"Over the Right Shoulder??

Can anyone illustrate the "over the right shoulder" mic placement technique for an acoustic guitar? Why not in front? Thanks"




"got a pair of new ECM 8000's, recorded 6 tunes with the 10th fret and right over-the-shoulder mic positions and the results were........

pretty darn good. i'll try to post a sample soon. the 8000's lived up to their billing.

great sound for under $100 pair of mics! i used a yamaha aw4416 digital workstation and nothing else!

client is happy, i'm happy......"




"Agent - idiot. I posted this song in the mic section on purpose. I wanted to see how the ECM8000's held up with your critique. Turns out I neither need your critique OR the mics as they are the noisest sons-of-bitches I've ever used. So much for taking the boards opinions for real."






:D
 
ausrock - until the final mix. Then their bulbous noisy heads rose above, requiring an A/B test. So? They suck. That's the final vote.

Your lame attempt at detective work proves fruitless, unless your a fruit, of course <g>.

Don't you have anything better to do than to research past posts? Of course you do. You need to spit polish your ECM 8000's.
 
Darnold, it's not your fault. Sometimes children get carried away (dare I say hissy fit?) and forget you were trying to figure out how to mic up a guitar. I've had pretty good luck with a pair of Oktava MC012's, and also pretty good with one 012 and one dreaded hissing ECM8000, and I like one C414B-ULS, but nothing so far has beat SM82, which like the Behringer, is a little bit noisy, but acceptable. Maybe if you keep trying, they'll come back to a discussion of guitar mics. Nice excerpts, Ausrock!-Richie
 
Look, BBZ, the problem here is that you had an unfortunate misunderstanding.

The mic in question receives a lot of hype on these boards because it is very good at certain things. It should come with a caveat, though: good for some things, NOT good on others.

If you indeed bought these mics for the sole purpose of recording accoustic guitar, and it was on the recommendation that these were good mics for recording accoustic guitar, then I'm afraid you probably got burned. These mics are way too hissy to be reliable for that kind of application, and whoever recommends them as such is giving you bad advice, and it's unfortunate and I feel for you.

If, however, you would have kept them around long enough, you might have eventually stumbled upon the fact that these same funny-looking hissy silver guys are pretty damn amazing on tamborines, shakers, and other types of percussion where other mics just simply crap out and sound plain bad in comparison.

. . . and I'm talking embarrassingly bad to the point that they make just about every other overblown, hyped-up condenser you've ever owned sound like a complete piece of crap, and you find yourself on your knees thanking God himself that you were able to achieve such a fitting match on what you previously thought was a god-awful tamborine track! :D
 
Back to the original question: Shure KSM32.

Back it off anywhere from an inch to a foot or so, and roll off the lows. Wroks for a variety of situations and styles, for me.
 
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