Comparing 8 Vocal Microphones from $30,000 - $100! - Can BUDGET mics hold their ground?

[Music] hi everybody hope you're doing marvelously well this is going to be fun I get asked to do mic comparisons all the time and frankly I don't have the time to do it but then audian contacted us and asked us can you list all the mics you have and then come up with like 10 mics and do a comparison so for us we've got a u47 that we use all the time which is going to be our quote unquote control mic it's a third $3,000 microphone so a u47 is possibly the most copied mic of all time so it made sense to use that as a control it's a mic that I've personally used on lots of huge albums and has been sung into by lots of great singers so we know it delivers we're using the id44 and what is interesting when you go between small diaphragm condensers large diaphragm condensers expensive mics cheap mics Dynamic microphones or ribbon microphones is they all have massively wildly different output and I was actually quite surprised I found the u47 I actually wanted to pad it it had quite a lot of output so it helps to have a mic pre like this which has enough game because the aea is a wonderful sounding ribbon but it was right at The Verge I turned the pad off I had to pull it up to about you know 80% up on the mic pre to get it but that's that's the reality when it comes to using ribon mics now there are things like Cloud lifters are these unit that give a bit more oomph but I also feel like they colored the sound so it would be completely useless for you because then we're adding a device in there which is different to the mic PR in here and we'll give you a completely untrue result so we just kept it all the same All Uniform now the way we did it is we got good level with male on the u47 and then Eric took a 1K test tone and after we had got the level on the vocal we measured how loud a 1K test tone was printing into that mic pre now that might sound a little confusing but what it meant is every time we stuck up a new microphone we set the gain on the microphone to read evenly at 1K there's really no way to get it to be absolutely 100% you know even but I thought if we go right in the middle there the differences will be the frequency response meaning typically cheaper microphones have what some might say is a more brittle highend and sometimes a little bit more aggressive in the high end the high mids and the high end so you're going to find when you listen to some of these mics that they might seem when she's singing softly or fairly even relatively but then when she goes into higher Parts when she moves up her register some might start to Peak quite excessively but we can't really control you know a mic level based on one part of a song we've got to take the average and so 1K right slap bang in the middle of the frequency spectrum makes absolute perfect sense and again with these kinds of things science is really hard to do because the perfect thing of course would be to have all the capsules in exactly the same place and only have one performance because she's going to vary from performance to Performance I do still believe we learned a lot from this process and to be honest it reinforced what you're probably going to think yourself or might be new information to you but I don't think there's any really startlingly different results um I think there's a couple of the cheaper mics that are like oh wow those are pretty good and also mics that worked really well for the song get the multitracks download them put them into your own DAW and follow along and see what you feel this is a song that she wrote called weekend lover she has a really really unique voice and perfect for a mic demo because with that amount of character and such a huge range between high and low stuff a Greatful setto she's going to push the microphone in many different ways so it's Mel cely check her out all right so here we are here is the u47 so I've got that up with the acoustic the acoustic was recorded with a nyman km 56 which for those of you who know what that is that's a very famous old small diaphragm condenser that was probably most famously used on pretty much every Beatles recording in fact these two mics although of course the Beatles used a u48 cuz they had a figure of eight pack and they sng on both sides however this is essentially the same mic the Franken arra mic if you like all right so u47 and acoustic guitar can my heart in pces can you meet me where you are without leaving I mean it gets a little gritty in there but in a pretty way it doesn't just kind of only become gritty and aggressive it's quite sweet to listen to you know all of us are fans of U 47s and it's nice because we're using the Audi pre which is pretty colorless so it is the sound of the mic now I want to go to the aea r44 next and the reason I want to go to that is because the aea microphones are to a certain extent still built from NOS New Old Stock of RCA mics and if they're not they're built from Incredibly Close machined version so this is about as close as you're going to get to a vintage RCA again it's not a cheap mic it's $4,000 retail however listen to these on your own and make up your own mind before listening to my opinion because I don't want to influence but this is something that makes perfect sense to me here's the [Music] r44 there a little wispy 7K in there but generally speaking it's quite I wouldn't say dull is a horrible word but it's just a bit darker let's go to the more aggressive section can you hold my heart was in peces even with the pop screen on you still hear the P you know frankly I don't find that a problem I'll just put some EQ on it just a high pass but essentially what I like about this mic is it's a little darker which actually suits the song not necessarily good for a bright modern pop EDM track it's not going to be good for that but it seems quite even meaning if I just for the heck of it grab any generic EQ go to like 7 6 7K and just boost a little bit can you my [Music] we can do a high pass on that low stuff there at about 100 can I love myself loving you that sounds great so that is like couple of DB about 7K nice gentle lift and 100 HZ roll off for the P so it's interesting the thing about that microphone and that particular ribbon is it can take EQ what a lot of people look look for with the cheaper mics as well here they can get a little abrasive at the high end and as soon as you apply any EQ and compression on them they can get really quite offensive so you end up dsing and you know running multiband or dynamic eqs Etc okay now we're going to go to the cheapest mic this is a small diaphragm inexpensive mic blanking on the price but I think you can get a pair of them for like $200 a pair so this at its most expensive is a $100 microphone so everything we've been saying is probably going to be a little wispy thin on the top I'll take the EQ off give it a [Music] listen that s there was pretty pretty bright it was pretty nice when there wasn't any s's or T's but [Music] here I mean that's quite aggressive if this was your only mic and you had $100 you definitely putting a dser on this let's go to the aggressive section yes can you meet me where I am without so for me there's like a that's just super super aggressive now I've done a video using this mic and and the audience as well where we recorded a whole song using it and with simple EQ dsing it very very usable so really is the point that if you've only got a 100 bucks and you want a condenser and a utility mic it's pretty darn close let's go to an sm58 we all know the sm58 it's the stage mic of choice and a lot of great singers vocal mic and of course it's a dynamic microphone so far we've had two condensers and one ribbon we can we can ourselves it's like we could so that that s is a little bit more aggressive but it's sort of always there and what I like about that rather than than individual notes ripping my head off is it means I could use a gentle dsing across the whole track and just control it there isn't specific frequencies that are just exploding out of nowhere that's really difficult as a mix with any instrument let alone a vocal where just certain frequencies explode and you're just you're trying to solve five different problems the 58's a pretty darn good microphone all right let's go to the aggressive section can you meet me where I am [Music] without there's like a 3K kind of grit here am kind of nice though this is a rock mic you could put a bit of bit of saturation on there a bit of distortion and exaggerate that and really know in a rock setting with a with a band playing heavy guitars so the 58 is going to cut pretty well again a u47 is a utilitarian mic in all instances you can brighten and it will be even but if you want a quick easy fix for a rock vocal seems like $120 whatever it is sm58 is going to do great all right while we're in the shore world let's go to the famed sm7b the microphone that everybody will tell you is what Michael Jackson sung Thriller on what Bono likes a lot and you hear this mic being talked about all the time and I've done many many blind shootouts and people have put in their top four we did 12 mics at Blackbird one of the best mic collections in the world and in everybody's top four the sm7 sometimes it was number one but it was incredible the 47 their pristine 47 did win but the sm7 gave it a really big run for its [Music] money we can love we can love ourselves yeah it's like we couldn't meet each other we grew up to go to the aggressive part of the end PE can you meet me where I am without I mean it's aggressive in the high midst it's a characteristic of all Dynamic sh microphones I feel like it's tameable and useful and it's interesting to think of somebody like you know Michael Jackson you'd think of as quite a pure funky voice you know in the best sense of the word incredibly expressive singer you wouldn't think of something as aggressive at this but it's interesting it's an evenness in the high mids that it actually sits in the track really really well again when you have microphones that have spikes on certain EQ things it's really disconcerting because you'll pull it up in the track and then sometimes it's like really killing you and other times I don't hear what he's saying oh you know so this has got an evenness in those High mids it's aggressive but it sounds great we've got the royya r10 which is the affordable ribbon I think it's like5 or $600 ribbon it's made by royya which of course highly respected company it's an industry standard pretty much any other person that records a guitar will use an r121 and a 57 combined the r10 is actually a little brighter at least that's my experience let's see where it comes we we we we although interesting enough it actually sounds quite dark in this instance let's go to the outro peace can you leave me where I am without it seemed to print a little lower I remember with the r10 we were right on the edge with the gain it needs some gain I would say with ribbons if you do have an opportunity you could use a cloud lifter you can use something that gives it a little bit more o i mean that's totally usable level don't get me wrong but if you did want to get a little bit more out of it you might want to stick something in the way that just gives it a bit more you know gain not as bright as I thought I thought it was going to be super super bright when it went down but it's actually quite even but it's a lot brighter than the AA ribbon which is really quite dark but pleasing okay I think we only have two more left we have the Mojave 2011 these two mics are similarly priced one I think is just below $300 and one is just above so you would expect similar results again I mean a $300 condenser is is probably the price range that most people go for for for condensers at least the second mic you know people will start off with a a dynamic at $100 or less like an sm57 and then they'll aspire to getting like a $300 condenser I would say in that price range you know sweet water and Toman would sell you that's where they sell most of their sort of entry level condensers we can LS we can never we can never say I got be honest I like that it's a little I can hear a little tiny high- end going there but I also like that whispery kind of around it it's nice it's go to the aggressive part of the end can me where I am without this mic on my voice is really good because it does have a little extra bite in the high mids than other mics in that price range that's still pleasing and when I sing you know I have a particularly uninteresting voice I don't have any grit you know I just sound like a English choir boy to be quite Frank and so I really enjoyed using the lon not overly aggressive not out of control in those High mids and the high end so pretty for $300 highly recommended all right mve the 201 fet we can lovers we can lover we can lover really nice that s got a little bit out of control that's the only thing maybe a little bit dsing there that's uh it's kind of a whistly frequency that would jump out of the track so definitely need some dsing pces can you meet me where I am [Applause] with but again uh $300 mic with some dsing and you're going to get amazing results so it's quite interesting we went from $100 to $30,000 and all of them would work they would just need different kinds of treatment if I was to choose obviously I'm going to go for the expensive mic because without knowing the price tag it's the most even sounding but I'm pleasantly surprised by both the MAV and the the Lu $100 and of course the lon and the royya r10 didn't really sound like what you would attribute to a ribbon mic to sound it's it's brighter than any kind of ribbon at that kind of price range it's got a lot to do with this Grill here which has like a it adds like a little extra brightness to it it's a it's a trick that uh ribbon mics have done for years which is to use a kind of aggressive Grill on it all wonderful mics I mean to be honest there was nothing there that isn't uncontrollable but different mics have maybe more random high frequencies that pop out meaning if that's all you can afford and that's what you get you're just going to have to tame them the ox sound soothe 2 of course is an incredibly popular plugin to solve that but it's I think it's nearly $200 so it's not exactly a cheap version you know you spend $300 on your mic and then you got to spend $200 on a plugin to contain it but it does mean that free DS's that come with your daww just get in there and find those frequencies and take them out if all you've got is $100 to $300 for a condenser to really just evening out the high mids and the high end and I suppose if that's all the problem is not a bad problem to have for $300 versus [Music] [Applause] [Music] 30,000

Channel: Produce Like A Pro

Views: 35,140

Keywords: Warren Huart, Produce Like A Pro, Home studio, Home recording, Recording Audio, Music Production, Record Producer, Recording Studio, music producer, audio engineering, audio engineer, making music

Id: IzT1oeHjIj4

Length: 17min 22sec (1042 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 29 2023