Geo Vocal Mic Shootout (repost)
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I’ve used a few different vocal mics on George Hrab over the years. Most often, I’ve turned to the Audio-Technica AT4033/SE. Now that we’re in the middle of recording his sixth album, I figured I’d do a little vocal mic shootout and thought it might be fun to get some opinions of the listeners. Now, of course, in this mp3 of the podcast, the differences between the mics will be less pronounced but, for those who wish to download and import files into their DAW, 24-bit WAV files can be downloaded below. They’re all in sync so one can just line them up and A-B.
In alphabetical order, the mics featured are:
AKG C-1000S, medium diaphragm condenser
Apex 460, large diaphragm tube condenser (modified)
Audio-technica AT4033/SE, large diaphragm condenser
Cascade C-77, ribbon
Heil PR-40, large element moving coil
Mojave Audio MA-200, large diaphragm tube condenser
Neumann TLM-103, large diaphragm condenser
Oktava MK-219, large diaphragm condenser (modified by Oktavamod)
If you’d like to play along at home, the individual WAV files are available on this page:
We’ll tally up the results of listeners’ preferences and announce them on next week’s Geologic Podcast. In the meantime, if you’d like to know the identities of each microphone, I’ll post a comment revealing them in the next few days.
Tags: 460, AKG, Apex, AT4033/SE, Audio-Technica, C-1000S, C-77, Cascade, George Hrab, Heil, MA-200, microphones, Mojave Audio, Neuman, Oktava, Oktavamod, PR 40, shootout, TLM 103
April 24th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I tried to do this as scientifically as possible. I gave these a listen, in order, trying to pick out what I liked or disliked about them. I then listened to them in pairs, picking out which of the two that I liked the most. I then tallied up how many ‘wins’ each mic got.
Based on that analysis, I preferred Mics 3, 6, and 8. Mic 3 seemed to pick up the consonants pretty good, and the vibratto well. Mics 6 and 8 seemed to make George sound more like George, if that makes any sense at all.
Also, based on that analsys, I really disliked Mics 4 and 7. The tone sounded flat on mic 7, and smooshed, like bread dough after it’s risen and you have punched it down. Mic 4 seemed to have a “pixelated” quality to it. Perhaps this was how I was listening to it (not a DAW, but a player that can play WAV files. But I don’t know if it does anything to the files before playing them or not).
I’m all about the food metaphors.
It was very hard to pick out the differences between most of the mics. So, even though I’ve given my preferences, I’d say please, please don’t take my word for this, and instead choose which mic or mics you think work best for the project. Be like NASA and the space station node naming contest: Gather votes, and say that you will consider them, but then go with whatever you want to do.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Oh man! I’m sunk.
I couldn’t tell any difference at all! #1 might have been a tad different from #2-#8, but that’s all I could muster. They’re all the same as heard here. Any differences would have to be peculiarities of Geo’s several performances. Now if one could have all 8 mics recording the same performance, well then we’d have a true apples-to-apples comparison. Assuming Geo’s voice was in the same fine fettle for each of the 8 performances here, well I’m up shirt’s creek to hear any -REAL- difference!
I listened through the Mac laptop on the sessionswithslau.com site with Sony MDR-V6 headphones. So I guess my vote would go with whichever one is cheapest, or has some other aspect which you like. If the audio was routinely delivered in 24bit, then it might make sense to use a more expensive mic, but since 16/44.1 is the delivery method actually used, monitoring the signal “as delivered” makes sense.
Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum,
President, 3D – Drumm Digital Design
(a video production company where hopefully audio doesn’t get short shrift!)
April 24th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Thanks so much for the comments and tweets so far. Yeah, it can certainly be a challenge to narrow down certain choices. As Geo and I listened back, it was immediately apparent that three of the mics were out of the running and another mic was close but no cigar. The four remaining mics werepractically interchangeable. bTW, Richard, this was, indeed the exact same performance recorded by all 8 mics through identical channels of a Millennia HV3D preamp so, as you say, apples to apples. . Hey CarrieP, the food analogies are totally fine – it’s what you hear. I think I’ll mix this album in a gigantic mixing bowl.
Not surprisingly, messages (both public and private) have reflected a range of preferences but mostly along the lines of what we were thinking. Yes, CarrieP, much like NASA, we’re doing it as a sort of point of interest. I think we’re pretty much decided but thought it would be kinda cool to see what other people thought.
I’ll give it just a couple of days and will post the identities of the mics here adn our final choice revealed on the next Geologic Podcast.
Cheers!
April 24th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Definitely one of those situations where dictatorship works better than democracy.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:57 am
I haven’t actually listened to this episode yet, but I noticed that one of the mix in the shootout is the AT-4022/SE. I have an AT-4033/SM. I’m wondering what the difference is? Thanks
April 25th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
#7: really makes his voice jump out. clear and present. i’d definitely go with this one. I want to know what that mic is.
#6: full/warm
#2 & #8: similar, too compressed sort of sound
#5: a little on the thin side
#1 & #3: some freq ranges seemed “covered”
#4: had kind of a small radio effect
April 25th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Wow, I’m loving the fact that there are such varied responses and preferences. Also, there are those who realize that there are sometimes such subtle differences that it’s almost a toss-up between some mics.
BTW, David, I believe you meant to type 4033/SE. Yeah, Audio-technica’s AT-4033 was their first hugely popular mic and it’s had a number of reincarnations over the years. For example, SE stood for “Special Edition” and CL stood for “Classic.” Thing is, I’m pretty sure they’re pretty much identical. You might find more information at an excellent resource for microphones at Recording Hacks:
http://www.recordinghacks.com
Matt McGlynn maintains an excellent microphone database there with tons of incredibly useful information. It’s the first place I go to when I want to check on some details and find the product page or pdf manual for a microphone. Check it out.
Hey Dave, regarding #7, yeah, it’s a nice mic, for sure and you’d be surprised that some people don’t like it. Well, I’m telling you, I’ve gotten love/hate comments for virtually each mic already. LOL
I’ll wait until Monday to reveal the mics. Thanks so much for the comments, emails and tweets!
April 27th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
OK, for those interested, I thought I’d post the identities of the 8 mics. At this point, all of the “I knew it” and “you could totally tell that was” comments are disqualified. LOL None of the engineers I know attempted to guess the identities of the mics and that’s fine – like any reasonable listener, I’d hesitate to commit to anything based on one example. Anyway, the microphones were:
1. Oktava MK-219
2. Audio-Technica At 4033/SE
3. Neumann TLM-103
4. Cascade C-77
5. Heil PR-40
6. Apex 460
7. Mojave Audio MA-200
8. AKG C-1000S
As I mentioned before, the preferences among people were quite varied. We’ve decided on one particular mic at this point. George Hrab will mention the choice on the next Geologic Podcast coming up this week. I’ll mention it here as well within the next few days.
Now that you know which mic is which, are your preferences influenced?
April 28th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
As usual I’m a bit on the late side, but I thought I’d weigh in. I avoided reading further on and went straight to importing the files and comparing them.
1. I really could not say why but I really did not like this one.It felt compressed and lifeless.
2. Not a favorite either.In fact although number three was okay, one through four did nothing for me.
5. This one was thin and lacked low mids in my opinion.
6. I a like dis one! Very smooth in the upper freqs and has a real clarity to it. Against the others this mic felt like the veil of gauze had been removed.
7. I liked as well for a lot of the same reasons as the last one. Over all very pleasing on his vocal.
8.flattened under a steam roller.
I kept from being technical about it all and just went with very quick listens. Like little snapshots if you will. If I tend to over listen my gut instinct is replaced by to much mental clutter. In the end mic 6 and 7 really stood out as winners.
Thanks
April 28th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Wow! I’m shocked as heck. I went back and looked at the identities and am surprised. Mostly because I did not recognize the At4033. I’ve been using one for years on lots of vocals.I also really expected the Neumann to perform a lot better.I think I better go out and get a Mojave MA-200. Could become a new favorite. I’ve been using a lot of Red mics, both type A & B, with various capsules and would love to compare them against some of the favorites on the list.Thanks for a great shoot out!
April 28th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
are my preferences influenced? no, I’d still go with #7
April 30th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
@dave romero, I emailed my comments to Slau, and #7 was my favorite also. #4 and #5 stuck out as different to me, but the rest were so close, even with the identical dry vocal tracks. Once the vocals are mixed in with the rest of the tracks, it would be even harder to tell apart the best ones.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Price aside – that Apex 460 really holds its ground!
September 1st, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Hey James,
Yeah, the 460 is a good sounding mic. That said, I’ve since sent off a pair of 460s to Dave Thomas at Advanced Audio Microphones http://www.aamicrophones.com for full modification including Peluso capsules. I’ll surely compare the full mods to the stock 460s in a future episode.
Cheers!