Choosing mikes for vocal and voiceovers

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@Shaveblog

Like your post :-)

It makes me to remember local talking motherfuckers (TV and radio) who search for perfect mikes ignoring the fact that they sound horrible on any of them.

Shaveblog

@Vitaliy

I used to work as a broadcast engineer. All the on-air talent bitched about the mics, it was a given. After churning through $$$ mics/compressors/processors I learned that the only thing talent really wants at the end of the day is brickwall compression and a hump at 100Hz for that crappy boomy "balls" sound. Once you give them that, any mic is great with them.

DrDave

I think there is a bigger difference among mics than GH2 patches, ppl are just cwazy about gear.
Plus ribbon mics can sometimes make an awful voice or instrument sound decent. That's worth something.

Mark_the_Harp

We used to do a trick sometimes on sound desks - when a producer was wanting that last ounce of quality: turn one of the knobs clockwise, slowly, while looking thoughtful. Then you'd stop turning it when you'd got it "just right". Then say "how's that?" and they would be happy. Of course, the thing you were adjusting wasn't doing anything at all - but they were happy. Although I was once caught out by one person who said "I don't think increasing the clean feed level will do anything". Usually it did the job though. If you could find an otherwise useless button you could make light up, even better!

johnnym

@Mark_the_Harp

Best trick to use indeed. Most people can't hear small sonic differences, so it's best to put their mind at ease.

DrDave

Best trick is to hook it up to a Lexicon 96 :)

johnnym

The PCM Native plugin is supposed to be as good, according to Lexicon staff at gearslutz. Don't know if that is true, but at least the reverbs in the plugin sound sublime.

Now back to mics, i have been reading here :

Indeed there isn't a best mic. How foolish if anyone would think that. Like there can be a best lens? For what purpose is the immediate question following.
I also think that many of these inexpensive Asian mics will become like the FD and M42 and MD and OM lenses of the future. Great quality at bottom price. You just have to look around a bit and hope for a good specimen no-one has abused too much :)

svart

I have about 15 different mic models. Some of which I have multiples so overall I probably have 25 mics. Over the years I've done the same as a lot of folks and used/borrowed/bought a lot of different "favorite" mics of various engineers or forum commenters.

Most of them were returned/sold fairly shortly afterwards as they never really live up to the hype.

The rest I have found certain uses for, that just work. Now I don't even bother reading about new mics and such. Instead of trying to buy my talent with some magical microphone-of-the-day, I spend my time with the mics I have and try new things. It's cheaper and doesn't lead you on a wild goose chase.

However, I think the MOST overlooked part of the microphone discussion is actually preamps. Each preamp can and WILL change the sound of each mic, even if it's just a tiny amount. Take the SM57 mic for example. It sounds best with a low impedance load. It's father, the Unidyne 545, was designed to work best with a 600R load. Same for the SM57. The problem is that a lot of preamps these days are designed to be high impedance so they don't load the mics heavily. The SM57 sounds pretty terrible in this case because it has all kinds of resonance peaks that show up. This is the basis for the "SM57 SUCKS" threads you'll find on ANY audio recording forum. Plug that SM57 into a proper preamp with an input transformer and you'll quickly figure out why professionals still use these mics for damn near everything. (a trick for those of you who only have high impedance preamps.. install a 600R resistor between pins 2 and 3 on your SM57.. Your output will drop a little bit but your mic will smoothen out considerably.)

@mark_the_harp, I'm sure you know the type of musician who just can't seem to keep his hands off the console when you are working... They reach right over you and start to turn knobs like they know better/more than you.. If I have one of those, I'll mult whatever track they want to mess with to an unused channel and then let them play with it until their heart is content. I just don't tell them that the channel isn't bussed anywhere and that they really aren't doing anything! It works everytime too, they suddenly believe that the track sounds better just because they touched it..

10000$ mics.. Look as some of the top end Manley, original C12's, some old U47's.. Etc, etc. There are a LOT of mics over 10K.

My feeling is that somewhere between 1000 and 5000$ is the best mic/cost ratio.

kenoah

In my lab i got an se titan. Shure ksm44. And adk hamburg ii-au. All good miccs if you put the right person infront of em

Shaveblog

Once had a Radio Shack cassette recorder that came with a little microphone on a coiled cable. That was a good mic. Also had a Mr. Microphone when I was a kid. That was a good mic. Once drove from Berdoo to Newfoundland hauling a 16-wheeler full of irregular underpants and my CB radio had a mic. That was a good mic. Come to think of it, in my life I've used some mics. They were good.

svart

@Shaveblog: LOL!

Clermond

@Shaveblog: ymmd ;-)

Shaveblog

I guess my attitude about mics is the same as cameras and lenses. Above a certain baseline level of quality, differences in hardware are swamped by positional decisions and artistic talent. There are whole industries supported by big name producers/mic wankers going on and on about magical qualities possessed by certain mics except when you actually go listen to the work said wankers produce it sounds like 8-bit Atari soundtrack while the disinterested local Dallas TV engineer in the mid-60s who simply kicked a cheap dynamic mic in front of Freddie King's offstage amp got a sound that even over 3" TV speakers makes the hair on your forearms stand up (Freddie King "THE!!!BEAT, on DVD and torrents). That tells me all I need to care about when it comes to mics. I've almost evolved to the point where I feel the more you spend on such things in terms of money and worry, the less good your results will be. It's almost an inescapable relationship.

DrDave

If I have time I will record the same mic on three preamps and people can see if they can pick the $1500 or the $200 one or the tweener. Maybe after New Years.

svart

I can do the same as well if everybody wants more tests like this.

johnnym

Why? I know the outcome already. Take a look at gearslutz and you'll find zounds of shootouts
The differences between some very good 200$ or 500$ mics and a legendary 5000$ mic are minimal.
Interesting link i found for mic upgrades : http://www.oktavamod.com

svart

Yeah I know Gearslutz and Oktavamod pretty well. Over the years I watched the guy from Oktavamod question and learn from everyone at Gearslutz and GroupDIY and then turn around and make a business out of it.

In any case, I agree that shootouts are useless. They are fun, but very useless. Listening to a couple mics on a single source without being in the mix is senseless. I used to believe that whole "200$ mic as good as a 5000$" mic stuff, but I can say that once you actually start doing heavy work, that yes, the cheap mic can get you 90% there, but that last 10% is what makes it "work". I've tried all of the "cheap mics of the hour" and some actually do sound better than an expensive mic on a single source, without being in a mix.. Once you put them in the mix, they fall apart. Most people can't wrap their heads around that tidbit of info, that sometimes the best sounding thing sounds terrible in the mix and sometimes the most terrible sounding thing sounds great in the mix.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@svart

It is interesting moint about the mix.
Why do you think it happens?
Don't you think it tells more not about mike, but about sound engineer who made the mix?

svart

The sound engineer certainly has a large part in the overall sound of the mix. The largest problem in mixing is getting a clear mix. If you solo each track in a professional mix, the tracks will sound very small and bass-less. This is because the mix engineer will generally cut lows and low-mids to account for the tendency for those ranges to "build up" which ends up sounding "normal" when all tracks are together even though the separate tracks do not sound good by themselves. They will also use EQ to carve out spaces in different instruments where other instruments sound better together instead of trying to make each instrument sound good by themselves and trying to add them together, which always sounds too jumbled.

There is also a phenomenon called psychoacoustics where a listener will hear things in a mix that are not truly in the mix. Any amount of noise/harmonics can add and subtract and create or remove sounds in the mix. The new thing is to mix for Ipods/phones which don't have the ability to reproduce low frequencies. Mix engineers have applied psychoacoustics by cutting the low frequencies but using devices to generate the 2nd/3rd harmonics of the frequencies they cut. For example, if you want to reproduce 60hz on a system that can only go down to 75hz, you would create 120hz and 180hz harmonics and the brain of the listener will actually "create" the 60hz sound.

When dealing with mics, most folks LOVE very harmonic rich voices, especially ones with a lot of upper harmonics. Most of the Chinese mics also have a horrible upper frequency boost because they copied earlier mic capsules which had built in boosts. However they didn't copy the preamp circuitry that had a high frequency cut. Together those acted as a rudimentary emphasis/de-emphasis system to reduce tube hiss. So when people like the Chinese mics, it's usually because of two reasons. Reason #1: the better made mics sound BLAND. They really do. They aren't dark or un-detailed, they just don't sound hyped and lively. Reason #2: The non-linearity of the cheap mic system spits out a lot of distortion as well as having the upper frequency boost because both give the false impression of detail to the audio. When you put these in dense mixes, especially with distorted guitars, those harmonics and peaky frequencies really conflict with each other and it ends up sounding worse.

Those have been my experiences, anyway.

johnnym

Mine too.

Have you tried Pro-Q from Fabfilter for carving? It's a lot of fun.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@svart

As for Chinese mikes, I think you can find anything you like.
They started making mikes long ago, because it is one of the things with very high added value.
Today it is no problem to find very flat mike (or use ribbon with muted HF).

pvjames

@svart @shaveblog
Very interesting. Its like that with cams. You have to pay a pretty penny for that last upper eschelon 10% of quality. There's so much going on in a mix. Especially rock. Other kinds of music there may be less. I always thought a 'cheaper' mic like an SM7 into a 1073 would be the way to go then necessarily having to get a U47 type. I think the mic-pre is above in importance to the mic. There are alot of great bang4buck mics and mic-pres now. The plug-ins are also really good compared to the hardware. The mic i would like to get is the TLM49.

@johnnym
Did you also look at the new NobleQ? There's a great holiday deal now. 2 for 1.
(pspaudio)

Mark_the_Harp

This "law of diminishing returns" sounds like the 80-20 rule. For those who don't know it, it says that 20% of the effort will get you 80% of the way, and 80% of the effort will get you the remaining 20% of the way. That seems to work in most fields.

johnnym

@pvjames PSP are great plugs. Maybe we need an EQ topic as well.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

>Maybe we need an EQ topic as well.

You can make one anytime you want.
From all hardware with EQs I used only ULTRADRIVE PRO DCX2496.
I think still no reasonable analog exist.

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