What mic(s) to buy next?

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twonky

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Gents,

I am in the market for a or maybe a couple of mics, I dont quite know yet. That why I would love some suggestions on a direction I should take.

Brands are not as important, I can do search on this BBS and get more than enough info on that subject. But if you have a particular mic that totally blows your mind, do let me know.

I record mostly rock in the traditional set up i.e. Drums, bass, guitar. But there is some rhodes, and acoustic guitar and sometimes some Latin percussion.

Currently I have:

5- SM 57s, I use them mostly for guitar cabs and rack toms and occasionally on 10" speakers of a bass cabinet.

1- Sennheiser 421, used mostly for floor tom and sometimes on the 10" speakers of my bass cabinet.

1- Beta 52, Kick drum, again occasionally on the 18" speaker of my bass cabinet.

1- CAD E200, used mostly for male vocals, sometimes drum overhead, sometimes about 2 feet in front of kick drum

1- ADK a51, love it on acoustic guitar and close micing the snare and sometines on vocals. However on snare there is a lot of bleed from the HH.

Matched pair of Earthworks TC30Ks- obviously, these are the nicest mics I have. I was using them a lot for drum over heads, but the toms tend to sound really boomy to me w/ them, then I started using them on the side of the snare (again more bleed issues) and out in front of the kick (on a well tuned kick, they are godhead!) I havent actually tried them for much else, because they are a bit....intimidating?

So as you can see the recurring themes are bass guitar cabinet and snare.

"Just record the bass direct" you say? Well, yes, but on some songs I get a rather bombastic overdriven bass tone that really requires being pumped thru the Eden 4x10" and the 18". I have really had trouble capturing the essence of this sound.

Also, I really dont like the way 57s sound on snare drums, too...timbale-y and pingy. So thats why I started to use the ADK, its really open and natural but the rest of the kit REALLY bleeds into it.

Overheads, I really haven found the best mics yet, I dont think.

So what would you gus look for next, I will have about 500 clams to spend.


thanks for any advice.

Twonky
 
:cool: Have you tried any sm-81's as an overhead mic? I have used them for a variety of applications with good results, also not a budget buster.


da MUTT
 
that sounds like a great collection to me. i think you could do a bit more with the earthworks, but i own one, and damn, they are hard to work with! for the most part i keep them really close to the source- because i have yet to record a band in anything that resembles a good sounding room. but let me bet that the toms sound boomy cause they are tuned/treated that way... a little moon gel and it may fix your problem.

have you tried a single earthworks right over the top of the bass drum? the "heart mic" technique. i love it.

anyway, what you dont have that you need is a beyer m160. it is as simple as that. or a b&o. or something from stephen sank. or a coles. or a royer. ie: you aint got no ribbon!
 
twonky said:
So what would you gus look for next, I will have about 500 clams to spend.
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Honestly, Twonk . . . I see a small flaw in the way you're going about this.

I wouldn't buy another mic just for the sake of buying another mic. It should be a situation where you either fall in love with the sound of a particular mic, or it becomes obvious that what you have is limiting you, or there's a puzzle piece missing somewhere and it's a serious thorn in your side.

That said, my gut instinct tells me the CAD would probably work fine on bass guitar, but if you're absolutely certain it isn't up to the task and a better mic is precisely what is needed for bass guitar cab, then the two mics I would most like to have in that situation would be either the Electrovoice RE-20, and/or the Shure KSM-32. The ksm32 may even have the added benefit in that you might fall in love with it as an OH mic -- you never know.

As for the snare, keep in mind that the sm57 is going to be very sensitive to the quality of mic pre you plug it in to. Maybe what could really breathe some life in to a 57 would be a super fast-responding pre ala Grace Design. Perhaps a real tube pre (see Peavey VMP2) might bring some different textures to the table as well, and give you something else to work with. Could certainly add more meat to your 57 on snare.

Seriously, though, I'd wait untill you fall in love with something and must have it.
 
Chess, dont try usin your fancy-schmancy college boy logic on me! :)

Logic has no place here!

The name of the game is PURCHASE, PURCHASE, PURCHASE!!!



Seriously, you are prolly right,

I am just wondering if a pair of Small Diaphram condensers ala the MXL 603s or Sm81s would serve the overhead purpose better than the TC30Ks or if I am just being a big Nancy-boy and not working hard enough to get them to shine. But I have really taken a liking to using them on the side of the snare and on the kick, so that kind of knocks them out of the running as a good similar pair for stereo overheads, you know? I have tried many, many things to get the snare to sound good (according to my tastes) w/ the 57, I have run it thru the Meek VC6q, moved it all around, used different snares, tuned them all crazy. I still never get the results I want.

Like, I said, capturing the big heavy bass is a problem for me and I would really like to solve it. I will try the CAD again though.

Sorry to jump around, I have the attention span of a 4 year old.

Twonky
 
twonky said:
I am just wondering if a pair of Small Diaphram condensers ala the MXL 603s or Sm81s would serve the overhead purpose better than the TC30Ks or if I am just being a big Nancy-boy and not working hard enough to get them to shine.
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Well, they are omnis, so it is possible that a tighter pickup pattern could give you a more focused sound . . . also, if your room doesn't sound great, the omnis will exploit that.

It's quite possible.

It certainly couldn't hurt to have a pair of mxl603's on hand -- at the very least I think you'll love them on accoustic guitar, and it's not like they're cost-prohibitive or anything. You might like the Oktava MC012 just the tiniest bit better as OH mics, I would assume, so those might even be more worthwhile.

How good is your accoustic treatment? As far as getting a great bass sound when micing a cab, make sure you have your bass under control, and if not I would put all of that $500 or so in to materials for bass traps. Or send it to me, and I'll ship you some of my chessrock special homemade tube traps. :D

Seriously, without proper room treatment, I just don't think it's possible to get any kind of acceptable results micing a bass guitar cab . . . at least from my experience -- no matter what kind of mic you're using.

Ditto on the omni-directional OH mics.


Good luck in your search, my friend.
 
I've got an ADK51s... and a Studio Projects. They both work well on acoustic guitar. But I've also got a coule of SM81's. An SM81 will capture an acoustic guitar in a manner that the LD's won't. Just a different sound. Both have their place.

I think 2 sm81's are a nice thing to have if your micing acoustic drums, or acoustic instruments. Can generally pick em up on ebay for 225 to 250 each.
 
Acoustic treatment....wus that?


My room sounds kind of like shit, actually the room really sounds like shit, there, I said it.

There is a plan to deaden the room a bit, because there is no way to make it sound good as a more live room.

Do you think the Omnis will perform a bit better w/ less crappy room (a bit more dead) in them? is the answer sort of obvious?


So, maybe isolating the bass cab somehow either w/ Chesstraps or in the "isolation booth" that is in the process of being built, would help the miced bass thing a bit.

Keep schoolin me.

Twonky
 
:cool: An omni will pick up a liitle more room, a bad room may not be where you want to use sm-81, Might want to make some gobo's toput in the corners to help "control" room resonance.


da MUTT
 
500.00 smackers..2 SM81's..sounds good to me:) Grace will get you some nice results like ChessRock said..The diff. you will hear in your current mics will change your opnions on what you need..



Don
 
Do you record vocals? How about Rode NTK for a main vocal mic?
Also check ebay for AKG C414B-ULS. Great on toms and acoustic guitar.-Richie
 
the twonk said:
Do you think the Omnis will perform a bit better w/ less crappy room (a bit more dead) in them? is the answer sort of obvious?
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I wish it were that simple, but unfortunately, there's a lot more factors involved than that. If you're going to go the deadening route, you need to be cognizant that most materials and/or contraptions you use are frequency-specific. It's easy, for example, to deaden higher frequencies, because they're easily obsorbed by thinner surfaces; think auralex accoustic foam, etc.

Midrange frequencies are more difficult to tame, and bass is a whole different beast altogether, and can cause problems and all kinds of funky things that I can't even begin to describe in one post.

Needless to say, a room where bass frequencies haven't been considered, and where there is no plan in place to either tame, absorb, or redirect them is very likely to contribute to things like boomy-sounding toms and less-distinct bass altogether . . . including and especially bass guitar (starting to sound familiar? :D ). Not to mention the standing waves and room modes untamed bass waves contribute to, which pretty much muck up the sound of everything else, too.

That's probably the biggest reason that people prefer to go direct with the bass. :D

So, maybe isolating the bass cab somehow either w/ Chesstraps or in the "isolation booth" that is in the process of being built, would help the miced bass thing a bit.
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I'm sure it would. Particularly the chesstraps. :D It could even help just to move the bass cab around untill you find an area of the room where it sounds right. And you must elevate it several feet from ground level. I know that probably sounds strange, but there are some principles behind it. Ethan Winer has some much more advanced methods of dealing with this sort of thing on his web site, which I believe is realtraps.com.

The accoustic contraptions I use are homemade, and they're much simpler and less expensive to construct. It might be tough to locate the materials, though, but if you live anywhere near an industrial heating supplies place and a home depot, then you should be set.

In the meantime, think in terms of layers and space between the layers. So if you're thinking of throwing up some thick packing blankets, for example, don't just think about how and where to hang the blanket. Think about how many layers of blankets you can set up, and how much space you can get away with between the layers of blankets.

End of lesson.
 
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