mxl 990/991

[treymonfauntre]

i'll tell you what...

i bought these mics as a quick budget overhead months ago and i never got around to using them much. but tonight i wanted to record a house show that i was organizing for a bunch of friends. 4 of the 6 bands that played will probably never play a show again. i decided to throw the mxls up as overheads quickly and record the show. i wasn't expecting much but these things. i'm so happy with how nicely everything came out. you can hear every drunk heckle and every drink of beer.
its kind of strange how when you read this (and similar) board religiously you get this strange feeling like your gear isn't good enough. its great to just sit here in awe of how nicely these cheap ol chinese condensors captured the essence of the evening. i'm so happy this is going to be archived forever in 1s and 0s.

 

[dinorocker]

There is a certain amount of "gear snobbery" that you will find on every board. The pros will be quick to tell you that you couldn't possibly achieve any kind of results that they can with their expensive gear, and this tends to be quite discouraging for peope who cannot afford (or justify) that kind of equipment.

However, in most cases, this kind of gear snobbery is misplaced. People have achieved fantastic resultswith even very low-end equipment. If you know your equipment, and understand the fundamentals involved, you will probably do a good job of it.

Having said that, the MXL 990 is actually a very underrated mic. Sure, it tends to be much more "trebly" and "harsher" in its reception, but then that is *exactly* what gave you such good results in the situation where you used the mic. I quite like it (and I havbe quite a few and far more expensive mics as well. I am sure that a more "velvet" or "smooth" mic would have had a tough time doing a better job of it.

The best tool for the job, or (even better) any tool is better than none.

 

[cello_pudding]

yeah, i've seen people say "decent mic for the money" and when people review a recording they say "this sounds really good, what did you use" and they'll say "sm57, mxl 991, 990" and people are surprised.

good preamps and mic positioning is really key. i'm just glad i don't have to eq much besides rolling off lows, which i just do that out of habit for guitars and vocals.

great mic for the money. you can't beat it

 

[David Katauskas]

I really get a good acoustic guitar sound from my 990 when fingerpickin'. It seems to pickup some of the higher freqs that are lost when not using a pick.