Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Maniac
What I am saying is that the Neumann mic is way out of my budget, but yet I can get a similar sounding mic for 1 tenth of the cost, so there's no way I can justify buying a Neumann at this time. So no I'm not willing to pay $2,900 for a mic. I have two Neumann TLM 102 mics which cost me about $1,000 bucks total, and yes they are wonderful mics and worth the money. Spending only $199 for the MXL 4000 is a whole different thing. It gives me a great sounding mic to add to my mic locker at a very reasonable price.
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When I first started recording about 10 years ago I loaded myself up on "economy" gear. I was never really happy with the results and over time all the economy gear has been upgraded. My two main pres now are a two-channel Hardy M1 and a Demeter VTMP-2c, my main vocal mic is a Blue Kiwi which sounds pretty good through the Demeter pre.
I do just about everything in the box but I do have a JDK R22 compressor in my rack that I'll occasionally use on vocals when the dynamics are greatly varied.
My mic locker is probably my weakest link right now. I have the Kiwi but the rest of my mic locker are pretty much mics I bought to record guitar....a Blue Woodpecker, pair of ADK A6, AKG C451B, AKG C414B-XLII, Earthworks SR30, and an assortment of MXL mics and some other economy mics. For guitar, I can work with that but I've long wanted to get something better for vocals and that Flea is at the top of my list (but I'll spring for the one with multiple patterns which I can get for around $3300).
I think all these decisions really come down to goals and expectations. I've had some success in music in the past, more than I thought possible actually. But music had to take a backseat to my day job in recent years. I have another 18 months before I retire from the day job and then my plan is to jump back into the music thing again. When I retire, I'm going to move because I want to upsize my house. I plan on having a much larger studio and, in addition to working on my own stuff, I'd like to be able to help out young artists who might not be able to afford studio time by helping them record a demo or two. I've done this for a few people in the past and really enjoyed it. Plus, doing it for free allows me to choose who I want to work with. So with those goals in mind, and while I'm still getting a healthy paycheck, I'm buying the toys that will keep my busy in retirement.