your review of the MXL 990

Compared to say... SP B1 or Shure SM57, how is the MXL 990?

  • Good

    Votes: 136 65.4%

  • Bad

    Votes: 72 34.6%
  • Total voters
    208
I used it for vocals today and it was pretty alright. beat my only other contender, the SM57 hands down. I like the 990.
 
i like the 990

the opinions sure divided

I've gotten some pretty good recordings with acoustic guitar, mandolin and harmonica.

I wasn't all that pleased with the vocals but the mic can only do so much.
 
chessrock said:
Hmm. It's a cheaper mxl-603 with (supposedly) slightly better electronics . . . and it's in an attractive package that looks kind of classy and expensive.

At 60 bucks (or whatever it's going for these days), I say it's a winner. Call me crazy.
Click to expand...

I thought the 990 is the same electronics as 603 but different capsule, PCB and packaging. I do know the 991 is identical to the 603.
 
The overall sound of my 990 is the same to me as my 603s. Maybe the directionality of it's a little different due to the capsule's enclosure.

Don't know if I'd want to compare it to my SM57 because I wouldn't use them for the same things. Also, the 57 only sounds good to me through a high end preamp, whereas the 990 works pretty well with lower end pre's.

The 990's very detailed and I think it sounds good if used carefully. I don't like it with sources that have a high frequency edge to them, and I think it reacts badly to rooms that have problems with high frequency reflections. I'd use it on a mellow guitar. Not on violin.

The 57, with a good pre, sounds good to me on loud electric sources, not acoustic instruments.

Tim
 
I wonder how many people that say it sucked even looked at the response curve that comes packaged with the mic! :eek: That's why it's there. So that AHEAD of time you know the mic's peaks and can may do some.. er.. engineering to correct this given the recording situation etc...
So here it is with it's +6dB/9.5K peak.
990frequency.gif

It's polar pattern...
990polar.gif


Here's the 57's bumpy curve and sharp high frequncy roll-off.
fSM57_large.gif



ok, that said :rolleyes: I'll go with the "I like it" bunch. I paid $100 for two and I use them as stereo pairs, overhead drums and on a Mesa Boggie guitar amp with pleasing results. For vocals I'd say it's only adequate. There's better mics for that and that's why we buy so many right?

I like the MXL 990 most for micing a guitar amp. I set it up about 20" from the speaker cone, perpendicular to the cone surface, NOT the dust cap in the middle. In other words off the the side at an angle to the amp. I've found it helps to run the signal through a compressor or limiter. I use a limiting preamp for drums and a Vegas plug-in compressor for the guitar. Vegas' the soft limiter seems to work nicely. I think a little compression really warms up this mics otherwise peaky/brittle highs and the results will make you smile and maybe even suprise you. :D
 
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I only use my 990 on accoustic guitar. The 991 seems much better as it doesn't pick up as much ambient noise and the spectrum seems better for vocals.
 
I own a MXL 990. Im not really happy with it unfortunately. The tone seems so mild. Everything seems a little flat. The high end sounds much better to me than the low end. The person who said they had gotten a bad one earlier in this post , I feel the same way. With all the good reviews of it , it has yet to impress me. I get very similar quality from a crummy dynamic mic when recording my acoustic and micing amps. I actually think the dynamic mic does better when micing amps.


I think it would be awesome to have people show what theyve recorded with their MXL 990 (and other mics for that matter) and let us listen to the quality that the mic can achieve or as well ... what it cannot achieve. I'll try to record some acoustic and show you what i get from a single 990 micing that.Thanks.
 
Birdhouse said:
I wonder how many people that say it sucked even looked at the response curve that comes packaged with the mic! :eek: That's why it's there. So that AHEAD of time you know the mic's peaks and can may do some.. er.. engineering to correct this given the recording situation etc...
So here it is with it's +6dB/9.5K peak.
990frequency.gif

It's polar pattern...
990polar.gif


Here's the 57's bumpy curve and sharp high frequncy roll-off.
fSM57_large.gif
Click to expand...


mine sucks response curve or not. i'm not saying that everyones sucks, all i know is mine sucks. i bought it to replace my (then) recording with my SM58's, and man was i unhappy with the sound coming out of those! looking at that curve chart, it does not look like what i was getting. the sound on mine is incredibly thin and tin like. I recorded a tune using the 990 on vox and acoustic guitar and put that puppy back in the box for the next 6 months or so. I pulled it out later when i was desperate for a mic, but then instantly remembered when i heard the tone coming out, why i put mine away to start with. If i payed anything more than the $50 or whatever it was back then, i'd have been pissed. But, like i said, I'm guessing mine got damaged in shipping or something, because I honestly can't picture anyone being satisfied if they all sounded like mine.
 
Strange. We just finished the new "Feds" album a few weeks ago. Looks like they're switching from Capitol Records to Columbia/Sony. Columbia/Sony loved the album and was especially complimentary about the production and the recording. All the vocals on the new Feds album were done with an MXL V69ME - AND an MXL 990 !!!

So, maybe that should answer the question of whether a 990 is good enough for professional work; Columbia/Sony seems to think so.
 
Harvey Gerst said:
Strange. We just finished the new "Feds" album a few weeks ago. Looks like they're switching from Capitol Records to Columbia/Sony. Columbia/Sony loved the album and was especially complimentary about the production and the recording. All the vocals on the new Feds album were done with an MXL V69ME - AND an MXL 990 !!!

So, maybe that should answer the question of whether a 990 is good enough for professional work; Columbia/Sony seems to think so.
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Then i'm sure they're not using ones that must have been damaged in shipping, or just plain bum mics like mine.

I'll tell ya, I would like to hear a recording of something done with only that mic. Like i said, I'm guessing mine is shot, because mine sucks. Harvey, if you want, i'd be happy to send you my mic and let you try it out. You seem to be a huge advocate of MXLs, and that's all fine and dandy...I'm just saying that if the mics are supposed to be good, then I obviously got one that is shot. It was so cheap online that i figured i'd just eat the cost and sit on it cuz i assumed they all sounded like that.
 
Hey Harvey, nice to see you in the neighborhood.

It's always funny to hear people ding this mic or that mic. The fact is all mics are useful for something. Those who think there is a holy grail mic that will be useful for everything are the first to beat up on this month's chinese mic which doesn't meet their expecations.

There is only one Holy Grail mic.....the one that works on what you need to record.
 
Robertt8 said:
Then i'm sure they're not using ones that must have been damaged in shipping, or just plain bum mics like mine.

I'll tell ya, I would like to hear a recording of something done with only that mic. Like i said, I'm guessing mine is shot, because mine sucks. Harvey, if you want, i'd be happy to send you my mic and let you try it out. You seem to be a huge advocate of MXLs, and that's all fine and dandy...I'm just saying that if the mics are supposed to be good, then I obviously got one that is shot. It was so cheap online that i figured i'd just eat the cost and sit on it cuz i assumed they all sounded like that.
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Then why not send it directly to MXL and have them test it? If it ain't working right, I'm sure they'll fix it (and probably for free, too).

No, I'm not a "huge advocate" of MXL products, but I've tested a lot of their mics and found a few that are a very good value, IMO. My opinions about all the MXL products that I've heard are well documented on this forum and elsewhere. I also asked MXL to send some mics to Al Schmitt to confirm my opinion, which he did.

I buy all the microphones we have, from stores, eBay, and For Sale forums; I bought some of the MXL's from MXL, Oktavas from the Sound Room, AEA mics from Wes Dooley, and I hope to be able to afford a Studio Projects T3 from PMI Audio soon. (When I finished testing all the Studio Project mics, I sent them all back to Alan Hyatt.)

Sometimes, I get something free, but that's VERY rare, and usually because I gave somebody something a long time ago. My second MXL V69ME was bought in the For Sale section of this forum and can be easily verified. I also bought two Behringer ECM8000 from the For Sale forum here.

If I find a product that I think is a good value, I'll pass it on to the members here. For example, I don't own any Rode mics, but I'm gonna try a K2 simply because my friend Terry Manning thinks it sounds pretty good, and he's got pretty good ears.
 
When the 990 came out, we bought four of them. We had to sell one of them to the vocalist in Redbud Revival, when he fell in love with it on their last album. We're down to three 990's.
 
I'm on the same page as Robert. I feel that mine is a mic they may have been damaged in shipping or something. Plus i got the mxl 991 in the package with it, the writing on the mxl came off within a month or two. I could rub my finger on it to get it off ( not that id want to ). But to conclude , I dont know how much I would like to buy an MXL again.
 
Well, ya gotta get in pretty close to them before they come alive, but same advice goes here; if it sounds broken, send it in to MXL. They're very good about that stuff.
 
My opinion probably isn't too great because I am on a way low budget as a college student. I actually only own an sm58, sm57, a really old shure mic, and the 990.....I have tried all the mics on vocals, my acoustic, and my guitar cabinet in various positions, and I always end up using the 990. I can get a better sound in many applications with it than my 57. Also, I am an audio engineering student at Clemson University, and we have a Pro Tools Studio equipped with many excellent Neumann and AKG condensor mics, and while the recordings I make with the 990 on my laptop are obviously not as good as what we have done in there for different projects, it is certainly comparable. I think the end sound with any mic has alot to do with the person recording, the way the actual equipment/voice sounds, and the person playing the instrument/singing......I am very satisfied with the 990's performance, especially for the price!
 
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