Mic comparisons

[Fran Guidry]

I've posted most or all of these comparos before, but the topic of mics seems to always be of interest. I've tried to do careful comparisons which to me requires using the same source, same mic position, and careful level matching. Using the same position can be problematic when the mics are of different patterns, but if we're talking cardioid vs cardioid I think it's reasonable to place them at the same spot as nearly as possible.

Each of these blog posts includes links to WAV files which you might download and listen to, preferably in an ABX comparator. One of the most significant issues in listening is attention, specifically the moment one focuses on, and an ABX tool makes it possible to repeatedly listen to the same moment in the different recordings. These tools also "keep score" which is useful to determine if the perception of difference is statistically significant.

This one has a lot of blather which I've summarized above, and compares three LD mics:

http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2009/...on-a-tutorial/

This one has four mics and includes a very wide range of costs:

http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2009/...ur-more-clips/

At one time the ADK A6 was the darling of the day for acoustic guitar recording and the Rode NT1a was the ugly duckling. I threw in a Schoeps and an EV dynamic just for fun:

http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2013/...k-a6-plus-two/

Those comparos are all blind so you'll need to contact me for the keys, amazingly they've stayed hidden all these years and I'd like to keep them that way. This next one has the clips labeled, I was in "sell" mode so I wanted to make it easy for folks to evaluate the mics:

http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2014/...es-a-mic-make/

If you have an interest in trying to ABX these clips or any others here's a link to a free Java based tool: http://lacinato.com/cm/software/othersoft/abx

I hope folks find these comparisons interesting and helpful.

Fran