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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.

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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.

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Jordan Potter (originally from Texas) had recorded at BeSharp a few years ago with his two Sisters, Lauren and Leigh. He was referred to me by the John Marshall family and I guess he was a satisfied customer because I got a call from him again, , booking some time to do two albums in just one week. He was bringing his friend, Matthew Conrad, a trumpet player from Baltimore. Matthew and Jordan would each do their own solo albums with Jordan accompanying Matthew on his album and Matthew making a guest appearance on Jordan’s solo piano album.

I had a pair of Neumann TLM-103s on the piano (which I had used on Jordan’s previous project. For Matthew, I set up four mics and we did a quick shootout while soundchecking. I set up a Mojave Audio MA200 (large diaphragm tube condenser), an upgraded Cascade Fat Head (ribbon), an Apex 205 (ribbon) and a Heil PR-40 (large element moving coil). Without telling Matthew which one I preferred, I soloed each trumpet mic and he picked the Fat Head (my choice as well — surprise, surprise).

We actually managed to get through all of the material in just over four days. I was practically editing as they were walking out the door but we did complete the project on time. I mixed it and uploaded files for them to approve before mastering both CDs.

Jordan released “Jesus Paid It All” and Matthew released “Send the Light” independently. I’ve seen it around on a few online retailers like Sacred Music

http://www.sacredmusic.com

and Hyles Publications

http://www.hylespublications.com

Unfortunately, neither Jordan nor Matthew maintain web sites that I know of. For more information about them and their projects, write to:

pianopraises [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com