What good are mic reviews?

M

Massimo

New member
What good are mic reviews if everyone has a slightly different opinion and they all give the usual middle of the road opinion?

At the end of every review you read something like "Over all I say it's a good mic for the price." Speaking of the lower end mics that dont' cost a thousand dollars that is.
 
it is no great secret that published reviews of mic are usually not that useful.

i think the best method is to hang around boards for a while, try out a few mics, start understanding the special language, and find a few people that have taste and needs like yourself.

there are a few people on this board that i trust pretty well.. if they start raving about a mic, i take a close look.

also, you should consider what sort of music people record, and what sort of signal chain they have etc.

when i moved from tape to computer, i found that i started using pretty different mics for example. so watch out for taking advice from people with totally different studios from your own.
 
Good post. The key, as eeldip says, is learning who you trust. Often it's working out if you trust someone's ears or not - a newbie raving about a mic is very different from listening to Harvey recommend it.
 
Every mic has it's own frequency characteristic and transient response. As we have no common language for describing the colors of sound, the best people can do is describe it in terms of their own experience with the words they are familiar with.

Magazine reviews are rarely useful on mics unless they test them on a male and female voice. You also have other variables like preamps etc. which can also affect the results.

I use a combination of others experience and most importantly my own tests to purchase a mic. There are pro audio rental shops in most cities from which you can rent a few mics and take them home to test them. It's fun, educational and it tells you real quick what mic is right for your voice or application.
 
Hey, Mass.

You can learn a lot from the reviews, the discussions, and so on, but eventually you'll have to make your best guess and take the plunge. There does seem to be some consensus, though. For condensers, Studio Projects seem to be pretty solid, Oktava good on some models, Rode good on most of their line. After you hit a certain price point, the population of "good enough" mics explodes with AT, AKG, Shure, et al.

But it is hard to figure out where to spend that first $200 on that first condenser mic. There is no one right answer.
 
apl said:
Hey, Mass.

You can learn a lot from the reviews, the discussions, and so on, but eventually you'll have to make your best guess and take the plunge. There does seem to be some consensus, though. For condensers, Studio Projects seem to be pretty solid, Oktava good on some models, Rode good on most of their line. After you hit a certain price point, the population of "good enough" mics explodes with AT, AKG, Shure, et al.

But it is hard to figure out where to spend that first $200 on that first condenser mic. There is no one right answer.
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True, true...

I called Guitar Center yesterday and asked if they carried Studio Project Mics. The guy goes "Never heard of them" Then I said well can I go in and try some of your condensor mics out and he said Uh...if we have the time.

Those goofy salesman crack me up!
 
Sales people

There are competent and knowledgeable sales people. I don't know where they work. Most of them probably own their stores.
 
That's why friend's don't let friends buy from a box store. ;) What is weird is that the Fiend carries the VTB-1, but none of the SP mics. Odd.... :confused:
 
I went into my local music chain store recently and asked, "Do you have Studio Projects mics?". The helpful reply was, "Yes, of course! Did you have any brand in mind?".

And when I asked why they had no Yamaha MG mixers on display but hundreds of Behringers they looked at me as though I'd gone mad!
 
Or, you can listen to actual recordings/samples where a particular mic is used to get another idea of how a mic could sound. I've compiled a short list of the major mic recordings here
 
noisedude said:
I went into my local music chain store recently and asked, "Do you have Studio Projects mics?". The helpful reply was, "Yes, of course! Did you have any brand in mind?".
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LOLOL!!! Yours must be the Gear Joke of the Year!
 
The guy was unbelievable, he thought I wanted mics for a project studio and couldn't take it that I knew more than him! I went on to ask if he knew how similar the Red5 SDCs are to the ADK ones (I wanted to know if they were basically the same mic rebadged) and he hadn't heard of either of those brands either!

"So exactly what cheap overheads do you have, bearing in mind my dislike of the C1000S I bought here previously?"
"Err....we don't stock any other pencil mics."

:(
 
Gear reviews are pretty useless, for the most part.


What I'd recommend is to get a subscription to Tapeop, and read interviews with actual recording engineers making actual records -- some of which may already be in your CD tray.

Some of the guys are pretty open and candid about what they use on this or that. And they're not always ultra-expensive mics, either.

Interestingly enough, if you go that route, there will be a few brands and models that get brought up quite a bit. It's not uncommon at all, for example, to hear someone mention "For that record, we used an Audio Technica 40 this or 40 that on overheads." Or "For the vocals on that album, we used a Shure this or Shure that."

Eventually, if you have any deductive reasoning skills at all, you might say to yourself: "Gee, not many of these producers/engineers of my favorite records are using Marshall or SP mics." At the same time, you'll notice a distinct pattern of the names "Shure" and "Audio Technica" being thrown around on just about every other sentence.

That should give you at least a few hints.
 
chessrock said:
Gear reviews are pretty useless, for the most part.


What I'd recommend is to get a subscription to Tapeop, and read interviews with actual recording engineers making actual records -- some of which may already be in your CD tray.

Some of the guys are pretty open and candid about what they use on this or that. And they're not always ultra-expensive mics, either.

Interestingly enough, if you go that route, there will be a few brands and models that get brought up quite a bit. It's not uncommon at all, for example, to hear someone mention "For that record, we used an Audio Technica 40 this or 40 that on overheads." Or "For the vocals on that album, we used a Shure this or Shure that."

Eventually, if you have any deductive reasoning skills at all, you might say to yourself: "Gee, not many of these producers/engineers of my favorite records are using Marshall or SP mics." At the same time, you'll notice a distinct pattern of the names "Shure" and "Audio Technica" being thrown around on just about every other sentence.

That should give you at least a few hints.
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Yep you're right. You really can't go wrong with Shure or Audio Technica either. Damn somebody let me off this merry go round!
 
chessrock said:


Eventually, if you have any deductive reasoning skills at all, you might say to yourself: "Gee, not many of these producers/engineers of my favorite records are using Marshall or SP mics." At the same time, you'll notice a distinct pattern of the names "Shure" and "Audio Technica" being thrown around on just about every other sentence.

That should give you at least a few hints.
Click to expand...

That's true, that if you've been successful with what you are using or doing, in any field of endeavor, most people will stick with the "tried and true." That doesn't mean though, that anything new, even if cheap, can't do as good or better a job than the old (although most new, cheap gizmos probably won't).The trick is in finding the sleepers.

Of course, there's no way you're going to get me in one of those new-fangled automobiles - the horse and buggy are good enough to get me where I'm going. And pen and paper are good for writing - none of these computer things for me. :)
 
I would think that someone relying on recording as the way they put food on the table would be most likely to find, use and stay with microphones that most predictably and reliably do exactly what they want them to. So, for many, the Shure's and the AT's and the Neumann's will be the first choice again and again.

But this doesn't mean that other brands can't do great things. Sitll, why would a pro want to pioneer the use of something new when they can use what they already own with absolute confidence?

Personally, I like the reviews in Future Music and Sound On Sound. They are written in a way that seems honest, and therefore, informative.
 
billisa said:
Sitll, why would a pro want to pioneer the use of something new when they can use what they already own with absolute confidence?
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Boredom? :D

Perhaps the reason they use the Shures and Audio Technicas is because they have better ears and better monitoring environments than most of us, and thus are hearing things that some of us aren't hearing just yet?
 
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