Under The Hood - Inside the Marshall V67G and the Studio Projects C1

[alanhyatt]

Dolemite,

I like the FET design over a transformer because it is quieter, and gives more output gain, which was what I set out to do. The C1, has lots of presence and it should sound fine on all preamps, especially tube ones. It is a 200-ohm mic under load, so you can use it anywhere with great results.

Again, comparing them is best left for Harvey. The transformer issue for is it does not belong on a mic unless it is a tube mic, but that is just my opinion. The transformers do work, but can add noise and can also pickup stray RF

The mic preamplifier will not be ready fo another 90 days, but the first one we will show is the VT-1. It is a class A/B switching discrete design, but has a variable "tube" drive so you get the best of both worlds by being able to do very clean transparent sounds, as well as adding in the tube as little or as much as you want to the point of pure filth. It has all the features and more you could ever want on a mic pre, and you can check it out on our web site.

 

[tubedude]

Alan- I'd delete that before it gets too far... be bigger than that dude, you have a rep to establish, and that wasn't professional, regardless of the circumstances...
c7- Can't keep your mouth shut, can you? Why can't you just post somewhere else? Don't make yourself more of a charlie horse to the eyes of the people watching here that you already have. Please, cut it out... to most of us, and no offense implied, but Alan and Harvey are far more valuable to us than you are. If you want to scare them away, then perhaps we DO need to jointly have you censored. I'd hate to see that happen.
I'm gonna mail the moderator and see if I can't get all the ignorant filler deleted out of the thread and get back to business.
I'm starting to feel more and more like, well... the people that call themselves the smartest are often the biggest fools of all. No one wants to hear it... why keep pasting it all over Gods creation?
disney.com has plenty of kids to play with... enjoy... I want to hang out with adults.
Now, for the last time, I beg of you all... drop it... the next person to post on the subject is truly a 1st class moron. Don't be the one to ruin it for everyone else. Selfishness... total selfishness...

 

[Harvey Gerst]

Don't worry about me getting pissed off at C7. I actually like him, but the "somewhat independent" bit annoyed me and I called him on it. No biggie. Besides, I now have way too much time invested in this group to leave. Plus, I promised that I would finish the "el giganto" thread and report on the C3 and T3 here. So I'm gonna be around for a long time.

As far as Alan "pimping", hell man, that's his job. I'd be dissapointed as hell if he didn't believe strongly in them. Those are his "kids" and he better damn well love em. I can't fault him for that. When I was "in the business", I loved the products I designed, and pushed them everywhere I could, not just because I designed them, but because I bellieved in them.

Like it or not, we're heading into a world-based economy, and we will eventually learn how to put it to good use. Many years ago, we were worried about Japanese and European cars cutting into our American labor economy, but most Japanese and European cars sold in America are actually made in America these days - by American workers. As manual labor moves off-shore, newer high tech and service-based jobs will become available.

 

[mixmkr]

hhmmm....how many TV's are now made in the US? hhhhmmm...how much French wine is made in the US?....hhhmmm(ha!)

 

[Gidge]

I dont care if a mic is made in Bum-f*&k Egypt...I want quality and affordability....there came a time in America where the workers started wanting twice the pay for half the quality.....Now Im as proud American as any of you, but this BBS is made up of people from many many different countries, so this isnt the place to wave the red, white, and blue....this aint the time, this aint the place.....

 

[alanhyatt]

C7sus

Apology accepted.

 

[tubedude]

I think most of us that are interested in this mic would rather have him here regardless of how ONE person feels. The fact that C7 and Alan are having a lovers dispute should not affect the rest of us. Just leave each other alone and let everyone have an extra resource if we want it. It may be a somewhat biased resource, but useable none the less. Let it go, man... let it go... its not THAT big of a deal. Leave each other alone. It makes me sick that two grown men have to act like 6 year olds. As far as it goes, I like both of you and I want to stay on cool terms. Lets grow up! I'm a man... anyone else here a man? Lets act that way!
peace,
Paul

 

[Chris F]

I think most of us that are interested in this mic would rather have him here regardless of how ONE person feels. The fact that C7 and Alan are having a lovers dispute should not affect the rest of us. Just leave each other alone and let everyone have an extra resource if we want it. It may be a somewhat biased resource, but useable none the less. Let it go, man... let it go... its not THAT big of a deal. Leave each other alone. It makes me sick that two grown men have to act like 6 year olds. As far as it goes, I like both of you and I want to stay on cool terms. Lets grow up! I'm a man... anyone else here a man? Lets act that way!
peace,
Paul

Amen. What he said.

How's about we get back to discussing mics now?

 

[Chris F]

How's about we get back to discussing mics now?

Or not.....

 

[Recording Engineer]

My Opinion

My opinion is that NOTHING in this thread is SPAM. If ANYTHING, all this "economics" does NOT belong here in this microphone forum.

I will NOT delete or even end this thread in hope that all can "stay on target" and "be men"; or women.

Recording Engineer (RE)
Weston Ray

PS: Alan, welcome! Personally, from what I've read, you've been most professional and helpful. By the way, does that mean you're NOT going to help me to sell the console? Please e-mail.

 

[Chris F]

Re: My Opinion

My opinion is that NOTHING in this thread is SPAM. If ANYTHING, all this "economics" does NOT belong here in this microphone forum.

I will NOT delete or even end this thread in hope that all can "stay on target" and "be men"; or women.

Recording Engineer (RE)
Weston Ray

PS: Alan, welcome! Personally, from what I've read, you've been most professional and helpful. By the way, does that mean you're NOT going to help me to sell the console? Please e-mail.

Weston,

Thank you, from the bottom of my last nerve. That was getting ridiculous. Anybody wanna talk about mics now?

 

[Recording Engineer]

Well I tell you!

C7sus,

I knew you were going to see it that way! Oh well!

All,

By the way, at the beginning of this thread, someone asked about the 797 Audio CR998. I own two CR998s. One, Stephen Paul Audio has had for just about a year now for a mod they're doing and the other I've been using here at my studio. If anyone is interested, I could lend it to Harvey for a week or two (if he's interested as well) for his "review" and use to be reported back here. I'd put in my 2 cents too but it seems everyone's "stock in my integrity" here is twindling daily and I want the CR998 to have a fair shot!

So watcha say Harvey?
So watcha say everyone?

 

[alanhyatt]

Hey Weston,

The idea is good, but then no distributor can bring those baby's into the country to get them sold. Once AKG got a look at the 797 Audio logo, which is an inverted AKG logo, the $%#* would hit the fan, lawyers would be in the courts, and that would be that.

Harvey may want to do this, and no doubt, the CR998 is a good & worthy mic. It is almost identical to three other mics with some minor differences. To be sure not to inflame another poster on this group, I will not mention the other more logical choices that can be sold here, despite the CR998's quality, which you already know about, and so do I. I have a CR998, and have done extensive testing on it.

 

[gibs]

RE, your integrity is totally intact in my book...you handled this unpleasantness very well...you're a good moderator.......gibs

 

[Harvey Gerst]

I hope to hell I would give it a "fair shot". I'll be glad to give it a listen, if it doesn't prolong this Studio Projects review too much. Your credibility is still pretty high around here, I believe.

Yes, I'm gonna finish what I started and continue the review on the other two Studio Projects mics.

As far as Alan/C7sus are concerned, C7 has some valid points. Alan IS a salesman, and a very good one. If he can slip in a plug for his stuff, or a subtle putdown of something else, he will. But he's not doing it intentionally, it's just his nature.

I thought all these comparisons between the C1 and the U87 started with Dot (Dan Richards), but I was in error, they didn't start there. They started with Alan inviting side by side comparisons with a U87 that he set up at his trade show booth. Maybe Alan "doesn't make any comparisons" and "leaves that to his customers", but if he sets up a U87 in his booth, that means he's encouraging comparisons to a U87. And he got two great reviews out of it - which was exactly his intent. Like I said, he's a VERY good salesman.

Dan Richards further added to the C1/U87 furor by saying it was identical to a U87 - even though (upon a very careful reading of his review), he never directly A/B-ed it to a U87 - he relied on his memory of the U87 sound.

So, we have all these people comparing it to a U87, including Alan, displaying it alongside a U87 at a trade show, then disavowing any desire to make comparisons. All in all, a very nicely crafted campaign to stimulate sales, with out spending much money on advertising. Add a little furor on the net to keep the name of the mic at the top of most lists, and voila, instant interest. As I said before, Alan is a very good salesman.

And it's just his nature. I'm starting to really understand that, and it doesn't bother me, as long as he doesn't try to put a spin on my review or influence me. I'm comparing his products to other products in the same price range, not to Neumanns and C12s. If the C1 is "just like a U87", then a V67G is also "just like a U87", since there was only about one dB difference between the two mics in terms of frequency response.

Sorry about the rant; I just had to get rid of holding that in. I hate some of these new ad campaigns and I hate some of these probably honest, but incomplete reviews. The internet holds such great promise for honest peer review and exchange of information, but it's in danger of being subverted, and that's something we must all guard against.

 

[tubedude]

Alan,
I will ask outright so that there is no confusion... I notice the tube mic you are selling has 3 patterns and six(?) in betweens (I think, I'm going by yesterdays memory). Does this design have "similarities" if you will, to 797 audios CR998? And you know what I mean by similarities, wink wink
If there ARE indeed these similarities, then it would IN FACT be possible to send off to Stephen Paul to get super happy with and have some very nice results, if needed.
That is, if these similarities are the similarities that I am thinking they might be! Tell us a tad more about the tube mic....
And hey, RE... where did YOU get the mics?
Peace,
Paul

 

[tubedude]

Oh, and Harvey...

Is there any chance you might have access to a U87 to put next to the C1 and the tube mic? Just for fun, to compare with your seriously unbiased attitude, a $200 mic with a $2500 mic... interesting...

 

[Hard2Hear]

Alan-
Are you going to have your stuff at NAMM in July? If so, I'd like to stop by and check it out and say "hi".

Just wondering.
H2H

 

[Chris F]

Thank you, Harvey.

I was mistaken when I suggested some folks here need to take ECON101...... what they really need to look into is ETHICS100.


That's not really the point, is it? ECON101, ETHICS101, yadda yadda yadda, whatever....as has been repeatedly pointed out, this is MICROPHONE forum, and even though I'm relatively new here, I don't think that I'm alone in suggesting that one person in particular needs to take a remedial course in SHUT THE F*CK UP AND LET THE REST OF US TALK ABOUT F*CKING MICROPHONES 101.

Flame me if you want. I don't care. I don't come here for ethics, econ, politics, philosophy, etc..... I come here to learn about MICROPHONES. On the Forum header, it does not say, "Whose business ethics should I study, and why can't I buy my ethics book at Radio Shack?", does it? Maybe it comes up that way on your screen, but on mine, it says MICROPHONES.


The people that choose to believe anything that Alan has to say beyond his design theory and the execution of that design are being extremely foolish, IMHO. Alan's contribution to this thread has been much less than professional. It's just not right to talk up your own product.


Gee, thanks for clueing the rest of us naive little morons in by pointing out that the person who created a product for sale on a worldwide market is not in a position to give an unbiased opinion of his product. Pardon the Valspeak, but HELLO! DUHHHHH.....what, do you think that the rest of us are all too f*cking stupid to figure that out for ourselves?

NEWSFLASH: we're all adults here, and I'll guaruntee you that every single person on this thread is smart enough to figure out that everything Alan says about his own product is to be taken with a grain of salt. We're not idiots, and we're not a bunch of country RUBES (whose brothers are all named Darryl) in danger of being taken in by some carny huckster at the county fair. We're grownups, and we don't need your help to point out that Alan's not unbiased about his own product. I'm not unbiased about my own music either, but that doesn't mean that I don't have anything worthwhile to say about it.

And to his credit, he has not tried to fool anyone about exactly who he is. If he had shown up with an anonymous alias like GMa7#11 or something and talked up the C1, that would be another matter. But at least he has had the decency to use his real name, post his email address, let us all know who he is, and not hide behind any kind of internet anonymity like some people I can think of. By letting everyone know his name, he has in effect proclaimed, "I have a vested interest in this product, so take anything I have to say with a grain of salt." That takes a certain amount of integrity right there, because by letting everyone know who you are, you run the risk of pissing everyone off to the point where they wouldn't touch your product. I can respect that, because it represents being open about who you are and taking a risk. On the other hand, how much guts does it take to make up a fake name - like, oh...say, .... Db7#9(b13) - which in effect renders you completely anonymous (and therefore invisible), and then follow someone around on the internet and taunt and flame them from the safety of your invisible anonymity?

Not much, IMO.


Now, he has generated an interest in his product that did not exist on this site.

Wrong. There was considerable interest in the C1 before he showed up. Harvey was doing a wonderful job with the mic, and I hope he will continue to do so.

I apologize to everyone for including another diatribe on this thread. But I access this forum on a very slow computer, and lately I have been tired of clicking a link to this forum thinking I'm going to learn something about MICROPHONES only to wait 5 minutes for the thread to come up and discover that I'm in the Dragon Cave instead. To anyone who wants to flame me, please spare everyone who's trying to learn something about MICROPHONES the gory details and direct all flames to the email address below.

We now return (I hope) to our regularly scheduled program, which deals with the subject of MICROPHONES.

Sincerely,

Chris Fitzgerald
bassfitzgerald@yahoo.com

 

[MrZekeMan]

Wrong. There was considerable interest in the C1 before he showed up. Harvey was doing a wonderful job with the mic, and I hope he will continue to do so.


We now return (I hope) to our regularly scheduled program, which deals with the subject of MICROPHONES.

Sincerely,

Chris Fitzgerald
bassfitzgerald@yahoo.com

DITTO!!!

Harvey Gerst

Do you think these mics are close enough in performance that it negates the usefulness of having them both?

I'm a real green horn so this might be a silly question. How much does a 2db hotter signal and 2db quieter translate to sound quality? How big a difference does it make in the final product of your track after you've recorded?

Since there has been such hype about the C1 compared to the U87, do you think you will be able to A/B them and give us the low down on them? It would be interesting to know the real scoop on them. To see just how similar they are.

Thanks for your hard work on our behalf Harvey. I owe you a few cold beers if we ever meet up.

Zeke