This page is not working right
Archive for the ‘Shootout’ Category
Friday, July 29th, 2011
This is a guest post from Ryan Canestro of Ditch Road Records and host of The Home Recording Show. Find him on Twitter @RyanCanestro.
Electric guitar has had all the glory for too long when it come to microphone shootouts. Well, when it comes to just about anything, but that is beside the point. A conversation with a listener of The Home Recording Show about what microphone to put in front of a bass cabinet got me thinking more than a normal human should think about the subject. My stock answer has always been to use a large diaphragm dynamic moving coil microphone. This would be your standard Shure SM7b, EV RE20, Sennheiser 421, Heil PR40, et cetera. Now the reasonable doubt to this approach started to creep into my head.
I decided to test my usual choices and conventional wisdom to see what actually happens when you try different types of microphone designs, polar patterns, and distances from the source. It was once again time for me to slip into my studio lab coat and get down to some serious business (as I have convinced my wife). I would have liked to use every microphone that I have available to me in the studio, but I knew that would do none of us any good. What I ended up doing was taking one microphone to represent each of the different varieties.
(more…)
Posted in Microphones, Shootout | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
Last year JJ Blair posted a shootout of 5 pop filters over on the PSW Acid Test forum. The topic came up in the latest HRS episode, I thought it was interesting as it’s one of those things you don’t really think about. You likely use a pop filter for vocals as a rule without thinking about the effect on the sound. There is a subtle difference in coloration with each one. Download the file to hear for yourself below.
This is a listening test. I used 4 commercial pop filters, and Terry’s foam method. This is a blind listening test for the first number of days. All you need to know is that the first sample of my terrible singing is me, a Manley Gold, a Vac Rac pre, and no filter. The file is 44.1/16 aiff.
The filters used were the Pauly, the Pete’s Place, the Steadman (round one) and the Popper Stopper.
Answers
ɹǝʌoɔ ɯɐoɟ (9#
ʎןnɐd ǝɥʇ (5#
ǝɔɐןd s,ǝʇǝd (4#
ɹǝddoʇs ɹǝddod (3#
uɐɯpɐǝʇs (2#
ɹǝʇןıɟ ou (1#
I for one will not stop using a pop filter (I have far better things to do than edit out pops from vocals) but I’m more aware than ever that this choice affects the sound in a negative way.
What do you guys like for pop filters?
Posted in Accessories, Gear, Microphones, Recording, Shootout, Techniques | 2 Comments »
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
As part of the Home Recording 101 class at Revolution Audio, this past Thursday we did a shootout of 6 vocal mics. The mics selected were some of the top sellers at the store and ranged in price from the M-Audio Nova at $119 to the AT4060 at $1905.
You may wonder why there are so many M-Audio mics in this shoot out. Well that’s because they make good mics for the price, we had a variety on hand, and it seems like these mics don’t get a lot of attention.
The mics:
- M-Audio Nova
- Audio Technica AT2035
- M-Audio Solaris
- M-Audio Sputnik
- AKG C 414 B-XL II
- Audio-Technica AT4060
The source was Kate singing the first line of ’9 Crimes’ by Damien Rice. Each recording is a separate take, though she is very consistent. No processing has been done. Drop all the files into your DAW, keep the piano track active if you like. Scroll down to the bottom to get the files. The order of the files has been changed so you’ll need to guess which is which.
Leave a comment with which mic sounds like the best fit for her voice and I’ll email you the answers.
Other things to think about:
Which mic sounds like it’s the cheapest?
Which mic sounds the most expensive?
Which 2 mics are the tube mics?
(more…)
Posted in Gear, Microphones, Music, Shootout | 51 Comments »
