MXL v67g & AKG 414- A blind test

  • Thread starter Thread starter antispatula
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danny.guitar said:
I noticed this when listening to samples on sites of very expensive mics and then noticing mine sounded better with mics not even a fraction of the price.

I've since been less inspired to buy expensive gear.

Whatever works, though. I just think technology has gotten to the point where we're able to make very great sounding recordings at a very low cost and some people haven't caught on to that yet. :D

I will get flamed for this, I'm sure.
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I agree completely, especially after buying the 414. I sold it and got most of my money back; I lost like 65 bucks or something. It was worth the money though, now I'll make sure and compare gear to my current setup before commiting to buy, even if the piece of gear costs 10x as much

How does that work anyways? Do places like guitar center allow you to take home gear for a trial period? I think there's a GC in San Fran, and I don't live that far away.......
 
danny.guitar said:
I noticed this when listening to samples on sites of very expensive mics and then noticing mine sounded better with mics not even a fraction of the price.
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Yep, good mics can make a difference, but not a night and day type thing. More important is the source material and the placement.

The test above was not really an accurate test, as the source was of low quality, so both samples were low quality. I've never been a fan of the 414 myself. Now, give me a mic made by old german ladies..........

edit - I will try and make a sample in the near future with a couple cheap mics and a couple good mics on a nice Taylor 414. I have to borrow the guitar, but I got a chance to record it a few weeks back, and it sounded simply amazing with ZERO effort on my part (recording).
 
Mic 2 is much better on the vocal. Probably not a night and day difference in the context of a mix, but it doesn't have the midrange haze of Mic 1. I'm guessing 2 is the C414.

The guitar track is more subtle, but I still think 2 is quite a bit better.
 
NL5 said:
Yep, good mics can make a difference, but not a night and day type thing. More important is the source material and the placement.

The test above was not really an accurate test, as the source was of low quality, so both samples were low quality. I've never been a fan of the 414 myself. Now, give me a mic made by old german ladies..........

edit - I will try and make a sample in the near future with a couple cheap mics and a couple good mics on a nice Taylor 414. I have to borrow the guitar, but I got a chance to record it a few weeks back, and it sounded simply amazing with ZERO effort on my part (recording).
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Yeah, it's all about the source sound. Then it's about finding the appropriate mic for the job. ie: You would probably want to use an LDC cardioid mic on a good vocalist rather than an omni SDC.

I'd be interested in hearing the Taylor.
 
NL5 said:
You really don't want to hear it - I wish I hadn't! :D


(now I want one!)

here it one on ebay -

http://cgi.ebay.com/Taylor-414-CE-L...0227657QQihZ002QQcategoryZ47064QQcmdZViewItem
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I played a 414 at the shop and it didn't sound nearly worth the price tag, didn't even sound much better than the midrange/budget guitars they had there. It goes to show how each guitar can differ so much even if they're the same make & model. That's why I want to hear your friend's. :D

Although I've recorded acoustics that didn't sound so great while playing them, but when recorded they sounded really nice. That's why it's nice to have a friend go guitar shopping with you so you can hear it better or get a better perspective of how it really sounds.
 
I will try and make a sample in the near future with a couple cheap mics and a couple good mics on a nice Taylor 414.
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i have a nice little shootout/comparison in the works myself also...whenever my ACM-3 shows up from the group buy, i'm going to put it head-to-head against a royer 121

at the same time, i'm also going to try out my rode NT-2A and AT 4033 vs. a vintage U87 and C414...all the mics will be thrown up over a steinway grand, and will probably be fed into a grace 801 to try to keep things as neutral as possible
 
Mics are subjective in regards to different voices

I've used both the V67 & C414uls and find that one person can sound good on the V67 & bad on the C414uls and the other way around for someone else. I'd say be happy that you found a $99 mic that suits your voice.

However...

keep in mind that the V67 may sound like a turd once it's in a full band mix. This I've learned the hard way after choosing the V67 as vocal mic in solo context and then recording an EP worth of vocals based on the solo'd sound and not within the context of a mix. It took me a while to realize the value of the Blue Baby Bottle for example until I heard it in context of a mix and how it 'sat' smoothly and clearly defined.
 
Originally Posted by Daisy
Yup.

On vocals, number 2 sounds like the real mic, and number 1 sounds like the Chinese imitation.
.
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JPXTom said:
Haha thats kind of funny due to the results.
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Yes.

I laid an egg on that one.

My experience to date with that particular mic (v67), has been less than stellar. I would have to guess that either quality control is iffy and I worked with some bad ones ... or perhaps my ears are just completely shot and I don't know anything.

:D

Although Nuemes might also have a point, as my main beef with the v67 generally comes during mix time ... when suddenly the v67 vocal track pulls it's infamous disappearing act. I could be wrong, though. It is interesting.
.
 
Caotico said:
No kidding. What's scary isn't how close the fake is to the original but how close the original is to the fake.
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What do you mean by fake and original? This wasn't a comparison of an original mic and a copy of that. It was a comparison between two different microphones. Neither of which are "fake", they both pass sound.
 
jonnyc said:
What do you mean by fake and original? This wasn't a comparison of an original mic and a copy of that. It was a comparison between two different microphones. Neither of which are "fake", they both pass sound.
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I believe what Chess.... er, I mean Daisyrock was doing was trying to say that AKG makes real mics, and MXL makes cheap imitations. But what do I know? I've got a modded Oktava MK319 that sounds as good as a U47. :) (I'm still smiling)
 
omtayslick said:
I believe what Chess.... er, I mean Daisyrock was doing was trying to say that AKG makes real mics, and MXL makes cheap imitations. But what do I know? I've got a modded Oktava MK319 that sounds as good as a U47. :) (I'm still smiling)
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And my point was that MXL's are real mics. There's nothing fake about them. They may be cheap but they hold their own against mics costing more. I've had Blue mics, Groove Tubes and Shure condensers and the MXL's I have were just as good as any of them. They also aren't trying to imitate anything, at least I've never heard the company claim they were.
 
jonnyc said:
And my point was that MXL's are real mics. There's nothing fake about them. They may be cheap but they hold their own against mics costing more. I've had Blue mics, Groove Tubes and Shure condensers and the MXL's I have were just as good as any of them. They also aren't trying to imitate anything, at least I've never heard the company claim they were.
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True. And I agree. I was just restating what I believed to be Daisy's swipe at MXL, not mine. I had a V57m, that my father now uses. He gets good vocals and acoustic guitar sounds in his nice sounding room with it.
 
Cool comparison. I'd love to hear more from the guitar, maybe with a better guitar w/o intonation and tone issues (there was some wolfy weird stuff in there that wasn't really due to your playing).

And also, why should a test limit a mic to just one placement? What if the 414 sounds amazing in one spot, while the v67 does its best stuff in another? Not to give you more work to do, but just thinking outloud about what makes the fairest mic comparison.

I liked the vocals enough to consider the 67 as my first ldc purchase. (So far my ribbon has been enough for my needs...)
 
jonnyc said:
What do you mean by fake and original? This wasn't a comparison of an original mic and a copy of that. It was a comparison between two different microphones. Neither of which are "fake", they both pass sound.
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yeah, I was actually just playing off of someone above referring to the MXL as the fake. I just think it's interesting that we would think of the Chinese made mics as fakes, and for sometimes minute differences in quality, people pay significantly more. But I gladly defer to those who have personal experience with these particular mics, because I haven't used either of them.
 
Daisy said:
Yes.

I laid an egg on that one.

.
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So did Scrubs, after the results were posted even. :D

I pretty well knew I was picking the V67 on vocs, and said why, but I'm supprised I picked it on the guitar sample, where I would have expected the 414 to be decisively better. For vocs though, I had been pretty interested a while back in getting a V67 as an another flavor mic.

antispatula said:
On a less related note, now that everyone has heard my voice, can anyone suggest a mic that would do nicely on my voice? I actually don't really like either one too much on my voice. Perhaps a tube mic? I've been keeping an eye on the Rode NTK.......
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Hey neighbor, I almost bought a V67 out of curiosity a while back, and would still like to try one out. I have an NTK which I like a lot. If you want, we can either get together for a couple of hours, or we can trade for a day. I drive past HMB every day, or you could come on down to Pescadero.
 
I didn't hear much difference. but the V67 is often spoken highly of too, so its like two decent mics being compared.

if money is no object its easy to buy a classic like the 414, for HR an extra $900 could upgrade many other things.

fun test though.

for my budget a lot of the high priced "classics" aren't giving enough extra horsepower for the money these days.

for 10x's the money the expectations are huge. Been listening to a HR, full CD release, and it was, imo, every bit as good and/or better than many commercial releases I've heard. (it did have Mastering done in a pro studio...on Mastering software).

its all good, i'm glad we don't have to spend $100,000 to make a good recording.:D
 
Sweet, I got them right! Don't know if these were the best things to test on. Drum overheads would reveal a lot more about the versatility of these mics than vocals/acoustic (though if the acoustic had more high-end it could have been a bit more interesting). I'm curious to see how hyped the highs on the V67 would be comparatively.
 
nuemes said:
I've used both the V67 & C414uls and find that one person can sound good on the V67 & bad on the C414uls and the other way around for someone else. I'd say be happy that you found a $99 mic that suits your voice.

However...

keep in mind that the V67 may sound like a turd once it's in a full band mix. This I've learned the hard way after choosing the V67 as vocal mic in solo context and then recording an EP worth of vocals based on the solo'd sound and not within the context of a mix. It took me a while to realize the value of the Blue Baby Bottle for example until I heard it in context of a mix and how it 'sat' smoothly and clearly defined.
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i know exactly what u mean. i have a v67. i can get it to sound good on some accapellas. mix it into a beat (i do hiphop) and it often sounds shocking.
 
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