[alohachris]

Aloha,

I have to agree with Ty here: experimentation is key to advancement.

Yes, it's true, most players are not professional recordists. Most are trying to record on the cheap with cheap mic's or A mic in most cases. However, 95% of the time, their results sound cheap as well. If you don't agree, then listen to how bad 99% of the acoustic home recordings sound on YouTube. The rooms are all terrible & untreated.

As players, we may all wish to record. But achieving good recordings means investing more time & money into molding our increasing knowledge, DIY room treatment & the best equipment we can afford into a compatible signal chain that is selected & appropriate for the music at hand.

That's simply more commitment than most players can conceive of. Of course, the terrible sounding recordings are clearly the result of lack of commitment & from bad compromises - like using cheap, crappy mic's.

I believe, as Ty does, that all players - even if they do not have the funds to pursue the best equipment at the moment - should at least know the differences by exposing themselves to all levels of equipment, including the best. Otherwise, how could you know?

Sometimes, sharing that in these forums elicits negative feedback from players who never envision investing much money or energy into recording, and who resent those who are, or who feel the info is inappropriate. I could not disagree more. Everything people read here helps with gaining knowledge, even if it's learning what you don't want to do for yourself, or about better stuff that others find a way to get & use.

And Paul Chevin, I hear your pragmatic approach, & something like the decent Rode 3 would make sense for you. However, the CMC641 isn't 10X better than that Rode - it's 100X better. You can clearly hear & even feel that when using good monitors (not computer speakers). You should rent a Schoeps for future reference, just to know the difference.

And Brent, don't censure Ty for exposing others to the notion that better exists out there. He's just trying to help. And he helps more than most. He & Paul & all of us here have lots in common in simply discussing mics.

IMO, most players have no business even trying to record, being as close-minded as they are to experiencing the best or even considering putting a couple hundred bucks & little time into DIY room treatment. If you settle for cheap & don't want to know....then that's the sound you will get.

Even after gigging for nearly half a century, one of the reasons why I avoided getting into recording my music for decades was because I recognized that I couldn't commit the money & time that the pro's do in getting great results - that knowledge. I'd never be as good. Most players try to use the same cheap stuff for everything they try to record: one mic, one pre, etc. And then wonder why they get the same sound - the same lousy sound - in their recordings.

Just because we have DAW's now at our disposal in our homes now doesn't mean that anything has changed - you still need the knowledge, the space & good equipment (like choosing great mic's) that are most appropriate to the music at hand.

You can stick as many H-2's as you like in front of something. But it'll never sound even mediocre unless you use it creatively & correctly in a treated space with some basic mastering knowledge. And even then, the self-noise of its onboard mic's & cheesy pre's preclude even average pro recordings from resulting, IMO.

For me, on my iMac/Ensemble/Logic rig, DIY-treated home studio/space, & decades of front-end knowledge, I recognize that the best I can achieve will be cleanly played & recorded raw tracks so that a mix master can add his/her magic to it for pro level mastering. And my projects are decidedly non-commercial. For me, it will still be better to get a pro engineer involved for a final product - even after all I've committed here.

Knowing that, I put a lot of priority into acquiring the best front-end rigs I can afford & into gaining knowledge of how to use them. That means investigating mic/pre combo's like the CMC641's with an A Designs Pacifica for example, or U87 or MA-200's with a Pendulum MDP-1, or P28's with a Great River MP-2NV & learning how to treat & use my room with techniques like creative mic placement.

But it is obvious to me that there is no substitute for great mic's in any mix. Cheap mic's are a place to start...and leave, quickly. Even only three years ago, I was using mic's like ADK A6 (cheap & very good sounding) on acoustic guitar. I moved up & on. BTW, that ADK A6 beats the heck out of the mic's used in the OP's shoot-out here, AND IT'S CHEAP (@$130 used)!

You just have to be curious enough to find out what a great mic is and which work best for your music & your rigs. Renting, as Ty & I have suggested many times, is a great way to do that. I've rented hundreds of mic's to try out here in the Islands because our stores don't have many pro choices.

Just trying to help. Be curious enough to check out even what you can't yet afford. That knowledge will save you thousands in the longrun. You'll be the winner & your recordings will drastically improve. That approach has sure helped me!

Thanks for the shoot-out, OP. Of the two, I liked the NT-3. Usually, Rode mics' edgey high-end have me running for the exits soon. But it worked here on the baritone's frequencies & is a much more accurate mic that the B5. Didn't make me want to own either mic, though.

alohachris