What's the most neutral sounding mic below 1000$?

[R D Smith]

Get a Behringer ecm8000. You probably won't find anything flater than that.

 

[rob aylestone]

Ha! yes - exactly. Flat/neutral mics are great for measuring and horrible for recording.

 

[plautus]

shotgun mics are boomy sounding

 

[rob aylestone]

I have absolutely no idea where you are getting all these weird opinions from? None of them remotely match what I hear. I have a decent collection of shotguns - short ones, medium and very long ones from AKG, Audio Technica, Beyer and Sennheiser. I would not characterise ANY of them as boomy - in fact, most are deliberately bass light? I just cannot understand what you are really saying, I'm afraid.

 

[PorterhouseMusic]

lol. I'm starting to think we're getting played here.

 

[RFR]

lol. I'm starting to think we're getting played here.

Thought that in the first post

 

[TalismanRich]

Your NT1 must be defective. Mine is anything but bright/harsh. It's actually dark compared to the other 6 condensers I have in a similar price range.

Try a Pinnacle Fat Top or Fat Top II. (previously known as a Cascade FatHead). Ribbon mic with a roll off from about 8K to 15K, no big 10K "air" peak that you get with most condensers.

 

[plautus]

then all NT1s are defective.

Your NT1 must be defective. Mine is anything but bright/harsh. It's actually dark compared to the other 6 condensers I have in a similar price range.

Try a Pinnacle Fat Top or Fat Top II. (previously known as a Cascade FatHead). Ribbon mic with a roll off from about 8K to 15K, no big 10K "air" peak that you get with most condensers.

Then all NT1s are defective, bc I hear the same harshness in all recordings I hear on utube with the NT1

 

[gecko zzed]

If you are finding the NT1 4th generation mic to be harsh and muddy, and a C414 to be too shrill, then I wonder whether you might be experiencing an issue with your overall system. Both those mics are neutral and rightly are highly commended.

 

[plautus]

in this video the neuman u87 and the tlm103 to some degree capture ur deep voice much more (and i dont mean bass). The neuman didnt have these low at all. Just pay attention to his deep voice, sometimes u hear it, when he says 'aaah', but it's also there the entire time.

 

[TalismanRich]

Wow... that was a REALLY helpful video.
I did hear some boominess, especially when the mic fell and hit the desk!

This guy was all over the place, closer, further, speaking at, then speaking away from the mic. It was about as unprofessional as you can get. If this is what you are using to judge microphones, then you don't need us to make suggestions.

Going back 3 years ago, you were complaining about your NT1 making your voice sound thin. At the time, we pointed out quite a few obvious technique errors that needed correcting. Have you made ANY progress in those 3 years? Did you address those issues? What do your recordings sound like today?

We could make suggestions all day, but is seems you already had an answer as to why each of those suggestions is no good. We might as well just recommend you buy a vintage U47 for $20,000 and move on. Then you can't say it's the microphone.

 

[sweetbeats]

I think that U47 likely wouldn’t work either. Just a hunch.

 

[RFR]

Time to just do AI vocals, they’re perfect. Just stress they not be overly bright or muddy.
Oh, all virtual instruments too.
Remove the humans and gear, and you’ve got perfection.