I was looking around for a new vocal microphone for myself. Of course, anything I’d buy for my own purposes would undoubtedly benefit my clients as an extra option when recording them. I always wondered whether it would be worth a $10,000 investment to find a used Neumann U 47 or something in that class of mics. Would it be impressive? Without question, it most certainly would be. Would it sound better than what I already had at my disposal? Hmm… I guess you’ll have to listen to the episode to get an idea.

I booked some time at Legacy Recording (which has since closed its 37th Street location). We recorded 7 mics into a Pro Tools HD system through a Millennia Media HV3D. The tracks were unlabeled and I had the engineer make a list of the tracks and their respective mics on a piece of paper. I didn’t know the results of the shootout until having heard the tracks at the end of the session.

Back at BeSharp, I added a few mics to the shootout using the same accompaniment track and recorded the additional mics through an Hv3D. So, the second round of mics weren’t recorded in the same room (actually, a bigger room than at Legacy) but it was all done in relatively close proximity in cardioid mode on all mics.

The lineup:

Neumann U 47

Neumann U 87

http://www.neumann.com

Sony C-800G

http://www.sony.com

AKG C-12VR

http://www.akg.com

Rode Classic II

http://www.rodemicrophones.com

Audio-technica AT 4047

http://www.audio-technica.com

Mojave Audio MA-200

http://www.mojaveaudio.com

Rode K2

http://www.rodemicrophones.com

Apex Electronics 460

http://www.apexelectronics.com

Studio Projects T3

http://www.studioprojects.com

Cascade Microphones Elroy

http://www.cascademicrophones.com

Yeah, it’s a little “apples & oranges” but I was just curious how a $1,000 mic would stack up against something ten times the price. Very interesting…

Hey, believe it or not, I’m finally on Twitter. If you’d like to follow me, search for

slaubesharp

I promise I won’t tweet too much — just studio and audio-releated stuff.