studio projects c1 vs. Baby Blue Bottle

[xpurt]

our of those 2 mic.. Which one best shines on vocals?

 

[ozraves]

The C1 is a mic that has a high end bump which can be good with certain male vocalists.

The Baby Bottle is unhyped but sort of hot in its sonics. It'd probably work with more voices and sound great especially with female voices or higher pitched male voices.

So, the answer to your question is that it depends on the singer.

I currently subscribe to the Chessrock theory of vocal mics for the small studio. In essence, you need one mic with some top end such as the Blue Dragonfly and a mic without that's shaved a little on the high end such as the EV RE20.

The AT4040 and the AT3035 sort of fall in between these two sorts of sounds.

So, if you get a C1 (or splurge for a Blue Dragonfly), then you'll want something without the high end. You'll end up adding a Baby Bottle, an EV RE20 or a Shure SM7. And, you'll likely even want to add something in between such as AT4040 the AT4040.

If you start with the AT3035 or AT4040 the AT4040 you might be totally satisfied or you might want to add a mic with that high end sheen as well as another mic with the high end sort of shaved off a bit.

It's maddening. Isn't it?

Steve
www.mojopie.com

 

[Big Kenny]

excellent advice
let me throw rode ntk into that mix
It is very nice on acoustics and vocals
In His Name
Big Kenny

 

[ausrock]

While the NTK is a valid addition to the mics mentioned, it, like all the others will only suit certain voices and for that matter certain acoustics. On the simgers I have tried it for, it wasn't the right mic.........obviously, YMMV.

 

[JuSumPilgrim]

I cant recall using the same vocal mic on 2 consecutive projects. All the talk of more $ = better mic misses the point. Youre better off with a few smartly picked $2-600 mics than 1 soundeluxe or 1 gefell. Diversity will serve you better over several projects than one great mic. Once youve got a few solid mics, it becomes about what mic flatters what singer and what doesnt. The voice is a very subtle thing that everybody is sensitive to and the voice is the first thing people hear in a recording. There can be 2 singers which sound 90% alike but find very dif audiences and levels of success (all other things being equal). A little too much honk or low mid or 160Hz and its a dif vocal and people respond differently.
One of the most important decisions an engineer or producer can make is what mic to use on vocals.

 

[chessrock]

That's a really good point you bring up, Jusum.

Still, I just can't help but think . . . some mics just sound better. Ya know? They just do. I mean, I listen right here to good mics over my monitors, and the good mics just sound like . . . well, good mics.

They somehow have that "non-crappy" thing going on that seems to be characteristics of mics that . . . uh . . . aren't crappy.

Call me crazy . . . call me spoiled.

 

[JuSumPilgrim]

Now heres the thing. I didnt say crappy, I said good. A handful of good mics is better than 1 great mic.

I dont mean to mitigate the value of a great mic. There is a definite dif bet good and great. I think alot of what great mics do is give you a certain sound which you find on alot of mainstream records. *Good* mics dont have that sound but will do a fine, fine job. It comes down to what youre going for and....how much you worship the *mainstream* *establishment* *corporate* sound of popular music.

 

[chessrock]

I agree wholeheartedly with just about all of what you're saying, there.

The beauty of this discussion is that there's really several ways of looking at it. I certainly wouldn't say that, in all cases, it's better to have a bunch of good than one great . . . because it depends on just how great the great one is, among many other factors. But at the same time, it is very true that one size will rarely fit all.

I do, however, believe wholeheartedly that the guys who are in the "I'd rather have 10 good mics than 1 great mic" camp have probably never had the chance to work with a truly great mic. Sure, the great ones can be hit and miss just like anything else, but there are some times when a mic can bring a certain magic in the way it interacts with the tonal characteristics of the source. And it's just a really cool thing when that happens, and I think if you experience that, it can kind of change the way you look at your microphone aquisition strategy.

A lot of us have tracked stuff we're proud of, I'm sure. But how often have you listened to something over your monitors that you recorded and said: "Damn. That sounds about as good as / better than what I hear on a lot of my favorite records." ? And even it doesn't happen very often, it's worth it for the few times, I think. Sometimes it might boil down to "Would you rather have consistantly good tracks or the occasional brilliant tracks?"

Very generally speaking, of course.

 

[rvdsm]

I'd rather have 10 good mics rather than 1 great mic.




I take that back.
I've used the AKG C24 on a whole drumkit.


I'll take the C24 and you can keep the the rest!

 

[chessrock]

Alright, how's this for an analogy? :

Would you rather sleep with a moderatly attractive woman -- let's say a 7 (maybe even an 8) -- every night . . .

. . . or would you trade that for the opportunity to sleep with a drop-dead, cetified sex pot -- an 11 -- once a month ?


It would be a tough call, but I might be able to live with the "once a month" regiment.

 

[rvdsm]

Does the sex pot do laundry?

If she does laundry I'm all over it!

 

[JuSumPilgrim]

I do, however, believe wholeheartedly that the guys who are in the "I'd rather have 10 good mics than 1 great mic" camp have probably never had the chance to work with a truly great mic. Sure, the great ones can be hit and miss just like anything else, but there are some times when a mic can bring a certain magic in the way it interacts with the tonal characteristics of the source. And it's just a really cool thing when that happens, and I think if you experience that, it can kind of change the way you look at your microphone aquisition strategy.

I dont know about that. I dont think things are so linear in terms of price/quality. My ME-1NV does not trounce my RNP. They are both great and offer dif colors of very nice. I think if youre paying attention to your mics, paying real close attention to what they do, over time, over several projects, to dif voices, to dif instruments, not just to what is brighter and what is smoother but what kind of midrange a mic has, where its scooped, around 500Hz, 800Hz, 1.2k, what kind of bottom, transients, depth perception, off axis frequency response, etc. If youre really paying attention to that stuff then at some point you will start picking mics that flatter your sources and you will start achieving some uncommonly good tracks. With Good mics.

I know what youre saying about great mics. If you listen to very vocally centered music like alot of v-rock , like tori, sheryl, alanis, etc. You probably wont really get there without a *great* mic. The sound is 90% the vocal. But if youre in indirockland where no vocal sound predominates, its a dif story.

 

[chessrock]

I dont think things are so linear in terms of price/quality.

No disagreements there. Notice I didn't exactly make the direct positive corelation between price and quality. Unfortunately, it does tend to be the case more often than not. Particularly in the case of ribbon and some of the nicer tube mics.

I think a very good argument could be made for at least a few inexpensive mics. If someone were to make to say to me: Chessrock, I consider the Electrovoice 666 and the Sennheiser MD441 to be great microphones . . . " Could I argue that? I don't know. I've been working pretty extensively with a 666, and I keep catching myself saying things to the effect of: "Damn that's one great mic." or "If that 666 were a girl, I'd want to sleep with it."

Let's say you wanted to throw the Shure SM-7 in to the mix. I mean a logical and valid argument could certainly be made, and there is support to back it up. If you consider record sales and Grammy awards to be support for your position, that is. There's John Mayer's first album. Sheryl Crow on one of here albums . . . MJ -- Thriller. Quite a list, actually.

But then again, those just could have been situations where the mic just happened to work for those voices in those situations. But something like the MD 441 is a little different. Name something else that does the things it can do the way it does them.

But on the subject of these Chinese Condensers . . . Just forget it. It ain't happenin.' I've owned my share, and just about all of them have some major issues going on from 10 khz on up, to where I almost consider them unusable in most situations where there is any kind of significant high frequency content.

 

[littledog]

It can work the other way as well. I know that my Lawson L47 ends up being the vocal mic that is selected on 90% of what i record. For those voices, the results are brilliant. I have plenty of other reasonably decent mics for vocals (Gefell UMT800, modified Blue Mouse, AT4060, TLM 193 and 103, just to name a few), but the Lawson wins 90% of the time.

The other 10% usually needs something totally different like an EV RE20.

So on my hypothetical desert island, I'm gonna take the Lawson for vocals rather than three $600 mics. I'm not saying anyone else is wrong for choosing differently - just saying it's not quite as cut and dried as some are making it out to be. If you actually have a similar mic, such as a high quality Soundelux, Brauner, or a vintage U47, e-LAM, or C12, you might feel more like I do. That is: no way you are trading it for three sub-$1000 mics choosing from the likes of a 4033, KSM44, 414 TLII, SP T3, Baby Bottle, etc. Not that three of them would be bad to own, but i'd rather have one that gives me a shot at some magic.

But I don't expect everyone to agree, which is cool!

 

[Richard Monroe]

I'd rather have 10 good mics *and* a couple of great mics. Good mics are what I use when my limited selection of great mics are wrong for the job. I'd rather have 10 great mics, but I haven't won the lottery yet.-Richie

 

[DJL]

That's a really good point you bring up, Jusum.

Still, I just can't help but think . . . some mics just sound better. Ya know? They just do. I mean, I listen right here to good mics over my monitors, and the good mics just sound like . . . well, good mics.

They somehow have that "non-crappy" thing going on that seems to be characteristics of mics that . . . uh . . . aren't crappy.

Call me crazy . . . call me spoiled.

Amen.