Quote:
Originally Posted by MarvinLee
Asking around my area, it seems the most prolific mics are of the cheap Chinese large condenser variety. So.... in the interest of learning, I got one of these cheap Chinese LDC's to start. I acquired a CAD GXL2200 as a baseline for what folks around these parts are using. Honestly, it didn't sound as horrible as I feared. That said, it didn't sound great either. So I took it a step further and added a K7 module to it and re-did the circuit board with a kit from microphone-parts.com. It sounds much better.
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Still looking for mic recommendations if any of this is similar to something you guys have done. Clearly, I am just beginning to learn about this, so any help is appreciated. We can probably still swing about $1-$1.5k for sound acquisition, but I'm beginning to wonder if some of the subtleties of these really high end mics might be lost to the recording medium (video cameras at 16 bits) with an anticipated youtube outlet. Not exactly state of the art fidelity at the end of the day.
For those who might be interested, here is a comparison of before and after the modification of this particular mic. The fact that it does seem to make a difference in this particular medium (youtube) surprised me. Let me know what you think.
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The two most important things to do when comparing audio chains are to use the same source and match the levels precisely. Normalization is not a useful technique for level matching since it works on peaks and we hear RMS (average). To my ear the obvious difference between your two samples is a level change.
I think you'll do yourself a big favor if you can get past the idea that there is some sort of magic available by buying a particular mic. If the self noise is low and the pattern matches your needs you've got the right mic. If you were recording jet engines or bats or whale songs there might be a need to obsess over getting "the right mic" but for acoustic guitar and voice in a decent sounding room any decent mic placed in the correct location gets the job done.
This opinion is based on a dozen years and multiple thousands of dollars spent in the vain hope of finding magic in a gadget.
Fran