Neumann TLM 103 vs Sennheiser MKH 416 | Blind Mic Comparison & Review

well hey there welcome to my booth my name is Jay if we haven't met yet the noyman tlm103 and the Sennheiser mk416 they're two of the most popular voiceover microphones used particularly in home Studios for voiceover artists and today we're going to do a blind comparison between the two then talk a bit more about the functional differences between using each of these microphones day in and day out from my perspective personally and as a professional who uses them before we dive in if you like this stuff and you find it helpful and you want to support it take a couple seconds click the buttons down there and it helps other folks find us and it's very much appreciated let's dive in all right so here we are on microphone a this is microphone a I'm about a thumb and a fists distance from the capsule or uh you know about four to or about 6 Ines from it and there's no postprocessing applied and how do we feel about this one let's hop over to microphone B and here we are on microphone B again I'm about a thumb and a fist's distance from the capsule and no post processing on this one either how do we feel about this one relative to the first microphone a speaking of let's hop back over to a and here we are back on microphone a and here's how it sounds let's see if we can get some sibilance to see if there's a difference between sibilance in two microphones back over to B and we'll test that one out so here's microphone B yet again and so let's see how sibilant this microphone is I'm sorry if that's annoying but it needs to be done let's hop back over to a for some proximity effects so we're back on microphone a I'm still about 4 to 6 in and then as I move closer to about 2 in away here's the proximity effect of microphone a how do we feel about this and now I'll move back to 4 to 6 in thumb and a fist distance away and here we are on microphone a we'll hop back over to B and do the same thing okay I'm a thumb and a fists away from B microphone B thumb and a fist away moving a little closer now and now I'm about 2 in away from the microphone capsule to give you a sense of the proximity effect if that's something you're interested in using and now I'll back off a bit and we're back to thumb and a fist's distance away from microphone B we'll hop back over to a one last time and we're back on microphone a you know what you love it here we go one day when Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh and piglet were all talking together Christopher Robin finished the mouthful he was eating and said carelessly I saw I have a lump today piglet back on microphone B one day when Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh and piglet were all talking together Christopher Robin finished the mouthful he was eating and said carelessly I saw a he aump today piglet microphone a was the Heiser mk416 and by process of elimination be the 103 so would you think do you have a favorite between the two a preference for yourself do you use one in your studio let me know down below before I adulterate your thoughts and opinions with my own but for me and in my use case there are a few important considerations between these two microphones that I think would be helpful for someone to consider in use firstly is simply their pickup pattern starting with the tlm103 so this is a cardioid pickup pattern which means it's a little bit wider and a little bit more widely sensitive I have a little bit of physical flexibility to move around and for me this is important if I'm doing a character performance where I want to get a little bit more physically active in it move a bit and not have to be spending mental energy focusing on where my body is in relation to the microphone the 416 on the other hand is a super cardioid pickup pattern which means it's essentially a laser beam shooting off so if I'm doing an active performance and I move off axis even slightly the level of my audio quality drops off pretty sharply now that's a double-edged sword in performance it's a little bit of extra mental energy that sometimes I'm not interested in expending in uh keeping in this spot relative to the microphone but it also means that the 416 excels in noise rejection whereas with the 103 you may run into some issues and by that what I mean specifically is if you don't have a good isolation Booth either something that you've bought like mine here a studio bricks whisper room Etc or something that you've built for yourself or maybe you've got a neighbor who just loves to vacuum or they've got a dog or you have kids or a spouse life happens and sometimes you don't want to have to worry wor about monitoring your recordings so this can be a little bit of an extra Boon in that respect that it's going to help you out in that noise rejection Department more so at least than the 103 will another really subtle consideration the 416 does have a slightly higher noise floor than the 103 it's nothing that you're going to hear practically it's just if you're using one or the other and you really really really want a hyper clean recording the 103 has a slight Edge over that honestly 99 out of 100 people unless they're listening on highquality headphones are not going to hear small thing to consider in your editing process however additionally on sort of that note if you're thinking of the tone of the microphone the 103 has just a rounder sort of tone to it whereas the 416 is a little bit sharper one way that I've described it somewhat successfully I think is you can think of the 103 as sort of a circle and the 416 as a triangle it's a weird analogy but I kind of like it and that shows up particularly I think in the higher end higher frequencies the four the 103 here doesn't have as much of a sibilance issue on my voice at least I tried to demonstrate that in the samples at the beginning whereas in the 416 because it has a sharper frequency response which for me ends up at being a little bit more siblin and it's also a little bit more sensitive to mouth noise again those are things that you can fix really easily in post it's just a bit more extra work that maybe you're not interested in tackling that does however have a plus side to it many of these things are double-edged swords the 416 excels in really picking out your articulation so if you're doing a promo copy a super fast legal read the kind of things where it's like do not use this drug if you have to use this or this or this contact your doctor if XYZ it makes it really easy to punch through those little things and it picks up every little detail so you don't have to uh worry as much about really moving your mouth and articulating this helps you out a bit there that's not to say that the 103 won't do it but this one's just so sensitive in that regard additionally in sort of the promo world the proximity effect on this thing is touted in the like movie theater voice here I am right next to the microphone and it's going to sound like this and this is touted for that specifically so that's one plus there whereas the proximity effect of the 103 it's still really lovely and it has a little bit more of that roundness and warmth to it whereas uh again the 416 is just a bit more aggressive I would say for my voice at least so if this is something you're going for the proximity effect on the 103 sounds like this and then the last thing that I would say in terms of practical use that for me is something to consider uh is the 103 is just a larger visual footprint what I mean by that is it just takes up more space in my field of view particularly when you throw in like pop filters I like this pop filter because I don't have to worry about this thing hanging in my face it also tames the top end a little bit more on the 103 which uh for me where I do a lot of long form narration this just adds a little bit more warmth and takes the edge off of the top for me which I like but this is a lot to be in your face for an example this thing covers my whole face if I hang it up there and you can't see it whereas the 416 it just has a much smaller footprint so if we do that same sort of test you can see me I can see you and it's hanging right in my face and so if you can't it to the side it's taking up almost nothing in my my field of vision and then if I throw on the pop filter I love using their included pop filter because it does take a bit of the edge off the microphone it tames a bit of the top end and it's still just out of my field of view so right now my entire monitor is visible to me where I'm reading copy working in my uh audio software so I don't have to worry about this clogging at my field of view and get in my face but again I don't think you can go wrong with either of these microphones they're both wonderful both sound great and are both used ubiquitously so you won't run into trouble in working with Engineers or clients with either uh so I hope this was helpful for you if you have any questions about this anything else voiceover related you can hit me up down below reach out on my website if you're interested in coaching and if you'd like to extend your generosity and support this channel these efforts directly you can use the YouTube super thanks or buy me a coffee now there's necessary both are appreciated and until the next one be well see you then tunel [Music]

Channel: Jay Myers Voiceover

Views: 3,709

Keywords: VoiceOver, audiobook, audio, audioengineering, jay, jaymyers, jaymyersvoiceover, jmvo, acting, microphones, gear, reviews, behind the scenes, narration, audible, tutorial, how to, professional, Q&A

Id: WFd7PGRKa0g

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 10 2023