octava mc012

H

hitman

New member
these mics sound good on stage. but plugged into the vs 1880 they have no body. i tried using the mic simulators in the vs but that sounded like shit. worse than digital distortion. any advice on these mics as overheads? i've been spoiled by my buddy's nt1's and his pro tools set up.
hitman.
 
pre amps?

ive never personally used the MC012s. but do you think it might be the preamps in the 1880? i havent heard the greatest things about those yet.
 
Probably crappy Roland preamps as kristian said. Also what cable are you using... and where did you buy your MC012?
 
My own experience with the VS 1680 is that the preamps do indeed suck ! (I don't know for sure about the 1880) Use an outboard preamp and turn the VS PREs all the way counterclockwise. An outboard compressor helps too. The MTK compressor (internal) helps when used as an INSERT if you don't have an ouboard unit.

There is also a Preamp "op amp" swap you can do internally, but it voids the warranty, and requires skillfull surface-mount soldering techniques.

Peace,
Rick
 
but the crappiness of those pres do not sound as bad as digital distortion so you might have the drive up too high.
I personally use the slightest amount of pre and many times I just turn the pre ALL the way down and drive up the ooutput.

Try that and see.
 
How do you have them hooked up??????
I own the VS1680 and I have a Envoice by Mindprint. http://www.mindprint.com
A lot of guys use the Joe Meek units here too.
The Octava mic can be great or can be crap/
Talk to Recording Engineer. He knows them well.

However you have to give us a starting point. How are they hooked up?
 
I'm using a pair of Dynamike cables (about 20') and plugging straight into the back of the 1880. the 1880 has two balanced xlr inputs (channel one and two). I don't know if the 1680's have the same feature. I also experiment with the -10dB pads included with the mics, but that really chops my signal by alot. i,ve found the best sound so far is just a bit of bass roll-off so the big toms don't don't mask too much stuff in the mid/low - lows...without the pads of course. Oh!!! "Recording Engineer" if you're reading...one more thing...these mics sometimes cut right off while i'm using them. as if they just suddenly reject the Phantom power from the unit...then they'll cut back in. Do these mic's expect a pay raise or something? Hitman. P.S. These mics were purchased in miami at Guitar centre.
 
Yes. I also heard that Guitar Centre has the crappy ones.
Only on this board, as I'm Canadian and we don't have that store up here.
 
I'm Reading, Finally!

I haven't been around for awhile...

Yeah, I agree with Dipthong, the mics sound defective. But I'm actually suprised it's happened with both of them. And they both cut-out almost like the power to them is shut-off? Hmmm... I don't think I've heard that before but you did get them from Guitar Center. If you describe with a little more detail what's happening, maybe we can at least make sure its a problem inside the mics.

Yes, The Sound Room is the ONLY way to go as far as Oktavas go as far I'm concerned. You can do a search in the Microphone Forum and find enough threads on this to keep you reading for about a month or so.

Ears has only heard it here but I originally heard it at the rec.audio.pro newsgroup and there are still plenty of threads about it there too.
 
Sorry I wasn't implying that Recording Engineer is the one spreading the guitar centre info. I just know he is an authortiy on Octava mics. Please be aware.
 
hey R.C. it seems only one of them is cutting out. Are you serious about the guitar centre (shitty mic scandal)? I'm down in the caribbean so i can't really test listen the stuff before purchase(maybe because i didn't buy the stuff...my keyboardist didn't either...they were sold to him,if you get my meaning). Anyway back to the mics. Iwas also wondering if the problem could be in the VS1880. Because of the intermittency (did I spell that right?) of the cut-offs. I do a take, then playback reveals only one overhead went down. Five minutes later it's working again. It's just freaking me right out. I'm supposed to be goin to Miami next week todo a couple of gigs, if i get a chance I'll go after the "Angel" who sold us the mics. Any suggestions on whether or not to give him an upper-cut to the jaw or on a different mic (something comparable to the event nt1's)? Oh one more thing...I'm using a mackie 1604 VLZ pro(which kicks ass), to control the levels.
Hitman
 
Well... It's Like This

The basic "jist" is:

Oktava Factory ships Oktava MC-319s and MC-012s to The Sound Room. The Sound Room does tests and sends the ones that failed their tests back to the Oktava Factory. The Oktava Factory then turns-around resells them to Guitar Center.

But like I said. There are plenty of threads here where I go quite a bit deeper into it.

About the cutting-out (what/where ever it is), it sounds like you might need to try and "pin-point" by eliminating possibilities. Anotherwords, for example, can you possibly try the same thing as you did before with two other mics? But from the symptoms that you explained, it could quite possibly be the vs1880. So you might want to hold-off on giving that guy a good ole upper-cut.

Oh and most likely, if you just hook that "suspected" mic to your Mackie and simply use it "live" for 5 minutes and it doesn't cut-out on you, then most likely, it's not the mic.

Actually, I'm kinda starting to suspect a cable problem. What cables were you using and how long have you had them?

Lastly, I noticed you asked for thoughts on the MC-012s as overheads. Well, MC-012 from The Sound Room are KNOWN to be GREAT as overheads. You might look into the March issue of Electronic Musician Magazine of a "shoot-out" article of 8 small diaphragm condensers. By the way, the MC-012s in that shoot-out WERE from The Sound Room although in the article, it says they're directly from the Oktava Factory. It's a business contract issue...
 
OOps I Forgot Something.

Hi R.E. actually like i said at the top of the thread, these mics are good live. They just Sound Harsh on the vs1880. I could patch them into the Mackie And bus them but then i would have two useless tracks because they're balanced, and the mackie has unbalanced busses and inserts. Plus if I use inserts with Phantom power on I'll cook the VS for breakfast. That really bites...the fact that the vs has only 2 balanced inputs and 6 unbalanced. You know in six months they'll release a model with 8 balanced inputs...and six months after that...a VS2440 or something.
Also the houses down in the caribbean are mostly concrete wall. very reflective. I have curtains up and a rug under my drums. But the ceiling is only about 7 1/2 feet high. It shouldn't make a huge difference because the mc012's are pointed at my cymbals, and their polar patterns only "see" Cymbals + 30% of hi hat and 60% of snare on the left...Cymbals and 10% of the second rack tom and about 90% of the floor tom. I'm using Dynamic Cables about 15-20' long and I do try to stay anal about matching cables(impedance, jitter...etc.). My main problem was the mic simulators on the vs. I kind of like the sound of large diaphram for recording overheads. Hit me back...Hitman.
 
Actually

If they work live without one of them cutting-out, then obviously, there problem is NOT with one of the mics.

And what I was saying about the cables is maybe one is shorting? I've heard numberous people say they've had Pro Co cables go bad on them. Although, I STILL have some from when I first started getting into this for extreme emergency situations but I've NEVER had ANY of them die on me.

You might want to look into some Canare, Mogami, or if you can afford it and feel it's worth it, some Monster Cable (I don't think it's worth it for me) regardless if your cables might be going-out or not. It's just a suggestion.

Also, by the way, the 1604 has balanced/unbalanced bus outputs. Another thing, phantom power doesn't come in or out of the Inserts. Lastly, as long as you keep unbalanced cables short from the 1604 to the VS, unbalanced connections will work GREAT!
 
I'm still learning

what to call these jacks. i meant XLR as opposed to 1/4" jacks. Here's my setup. You may have to print this.
Octava mc012's into ch's 1+2 of the vs direct.
AKG D112 into mackie ch3 direct out to vs ch3
SM57 to mackie ch4 direct out to ch4 vs
4 x AKG C418 (four toms...wrong mics to record with but like i said this is a live rig) to mackie ch's 5,6,7,8 bussed down to 2 channels into ch 5+6 VS or ch 7/8 which are stereo tracks.
I could move everything over two channels to keep the phantom power consistent throughout the mics and start with the kick in channel five mackie and out from there, but that leaves me with two useless tracks (ch's 1+2 VS XLR). Everyone else in the band goes direct to the mackie via 1/4". so if you follow me, you'll see I have run out of tracks so the band cannot record live together. Just multitracking which sucks because there's no feel there. and if there's no feel what's the point? do you follow?
HIT.
 
are you using the mackie's main xlr outs for anything? You should be able to run you oktava's into the 1604, pan them hard left and right, and assign them directly to the main outs. Be careful not to turn the main outs up too loud for the inputs on the Roland. If the main outs are switchable to -10db this might help, but in either case, if you don't go crazy with your over head levels you should be fine;)
 
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