What Budget Microphone have you been impressed with?

[Adrianw]

I think the CAD M179 Multi-pattern condenser is pretty surprising.

[ChuckS]

I bought 3 Line Audio CM3 wide cardioid mics, around $130 each, and they’ve been impressive. They are not the quietest or the most sensitive but that’s not critical for all uses. I’ve used a pair to record a barber shop quartet, one at church for flute and for piano, and my son uses one for violin (live and home recordings). Their current model is the CM4, which is in between a wide cardioid and a cardioid.

[lkingston]

The AudioTechnica AT2020. $100. Here’s a recording of some thirteen year old girl singing through it in her brother’s home studio:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=vi...&feature=share

[CASD57]

Originally Posted by lkingston

The AudioTechnica AT2020. $100. Here’s a recording of some thirteen year old girl singing through it in her brother’s home studio:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=vi...&feature=share

Lol,... Good investment for them...
Now, she just needs to quit believing all the hype and stay real.. or the music business will eat her alive...

[phcorrigan]

Originally Posted by lkingston

The AudioTechnica AT2020. $100. Here’s a recording of some thirteen year old girl singing through it in her brother’s home studio:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=vi...&feature=share

Poor deluded kids. They'll never make a hit record with equipment like that!

[jim1960]

People like to use Billie Eilish to make the point you folks are making but it's an incomplete story and what is left out is critical to the outcome. The music Eilish made didn't go from her brother's home studio to records. It first went to Rob Kinelski, a world class mixing engineer. After that, it went to John Greenham, a world class mastering engineer.

You can get away with less expensive gear on the front end if you have that kind of knowledge, expertise, and racks of amazing gear that are going to come in afterwards and polish and massage the tracks until they shine like the sun.

Springsteen's Nebraska album falls into the same category. People talk about how amazingly brilliant it sounds for being done with a 4-track recorder but they ignore the post production work done in world class studios by masters of their craft.

[Horseflesh]

I also came to vote for the XM8500.

I am no pro but we have been doing really elaborate karaoke nights for a couple of years now... with a real PA, real mics, real DMX lights.

But because it's still karaoke and most of us suck and a mic might get drunkenly dropped, I didn't want to buy million-dollar mics. I tried the XM8500 after seeing other testimonials and I was really shocked by how nice it is.

And I can compare apples to apples, too... A friend of mine is a Real Musician, and he comes to karaoke night and brings his own Shure SM58. And because he leaves it on his mic stand, other guests will invariably mistakenly grab it sometimes instead of an XM8500... and sometimes, my musician buddy comes without his Shure... so I have heard everyone using both mics by now.

In my setup, I can barely tell the difference. And if it was a blind test, I wouldn't bet that I could.

I'm sure the Shure is objectively better ... but for live music through my EV 30M ... the $20 XM8500 is a great value.

Oh also, I have found that other aspects of the signal chain make a much bigger difference in final quality. If speaker placement isn't optimized, you know that can cause problems, for example. Or if the singer is waving the mic around like a flyswatter instead of singing into it, there goes the nice mic advantage too. Because I am not in an optimized studio, all these factors probably also help me get away with using a lesser mic. But I have a feeling if I was trying to run sound for real singers in a better venue, I'd still be pretty happy with my XM8500s.

That all said, I am still going to buy a Shure for my wife sooner or later. She's working hard on her voice and once she meets some of her goals, getting her a Real Singer's mic will be a fun gift.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by jim1960

People like to use Billie Eilish to make the point you folks are making but it's an incomplete story and what is left out is critical to the outcome. The music Eilish made didn't go from her brother's home studio to records. It first went to Rob Kinelski, a world class mixing engineer. After that, it went to John Greenham, a world class mastering engineer.

You can get away with less expensive gear on the front end if you have that kind of knowledge, expertise, and racks of amazing gear that are going to come in afterwards and polish and massage the tracks until they shine like the sun.

Springsteen's Nebraska album falls into the same category. People talk about how amazingly brilliant it sounds for being done with a 4-track recorder but they ignore the post production work done in world class studios by masters of their craft.

Yes often the reality is not as glamorous as the Legend . Like " The vocal mike on Thriller was a Shure SM7 B" !!!! yes, but vocalist was Micheal Jackson

[phcorrigan]

Originally Posted by Horseflesh

Or if the singer is waving the mic around like a flyswatter instead of singing into it, there goes the nice mic advantage too.

This is one of the biggest issues I've run into hosting open mics--many people do not understand how to use a mic.

BTW, for anyone who wants to learn how to use a mic while singing, I suggest watching videos of Frank Sinatra. He was a master.

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by jim1960

People like to use Billie Eilish to make the point you folks are making but it's an incomplete story and what is left out is critical to the outcome. The music Eilish made didn't go from her brother's home studio to records. It first went to Rob Kinelski, a world class mixing engineer. After that, it went to John Greenham, a world class mastering engineer.

You can get away with less expensive gear on the front end if you have that kind of knowledge, expertise, and racks of amazing gear that are going to come in afterwards and polish and massage the tracks until they shine like the sun.

Springsteen's Nebraska album falls into the same category. People talk about how amazingly brilliant it sounds for being done with a 4-track recorder but they ignore the post production work done in world class studios by masters of their craft.

Yes, but every major release goes through that mastering and finessing process, not just the ones recorded with budget equipment.

Finneas left the Audio Technic AT-2020 for a Neumann TLM 103. Now he’s using a Chandler Limited REDD mic which costs somewhere between 4k and 5k. Each step up is significant, but that doesn’t mean your going to hear a difference in your car or on your home Bluetooth speaker.

My son is using a pair of Genelec 8341A reference monitors in an acoustically treated room. The difference between low and high tier mics will hit you over the head in that listening environment. It’s not even close.

On the other hand, you can listen to YouTube microphone blind comparison videos on a decent set of home stereo speakers or consumer grade headphones and have a heck of a time telling one from the other.

At the level of recording equipment that most of us are at here, most of us can tell the difference between an entry level mic and $300 mic pretty easily. Telling the difference between a $300 and a $700 mic is tougher. Telling the difference above that is beyond my monitoring equipment and aging ears.

Then there’s the data compression from putting it on YouTube or Spotify. That data compression mangles the sound pretty significantly. It’s one of the main reasons why YouTube blind mic comparisons are so hard tell apart.

If you are the kind of person who leaves your Spotify settings at their default bitrates, you probably don’t need to spend more than three hundred dollars on a mic. Just sayin’…

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by lkingston

Yes, but every major release goes through that mastering and finessing process, not just the ones recorded with budget equipment.

That’s exactly my point. Masters of post-production can smooth over a plethora of problems on tracks. Her brother used a 2020 because he had a 2020, not because it was necessarily the best mic for the project.

Originally Posted by lkingston

Finneas left the Audio Technic AT-2020 for a Neumann TLM 103. Now he’s using a Chandler Limited REDD mic which costs somewhere between 4k and 5k. Each step up is significant, but that doesn’t mean your going to hear a difference in your car or on your home Bluetooth speaker.

My son is using a pair of Genelec 8341A reference monitors in an acoustically treated room. The difference between low and high tier mics will hit you over the head in that listening environment. It’s not even close.

On the other hand, you can listen to YouTube microphone blind comparison videos on a decent set of home stereo speakers or consumer grade headphones and have a heck of a time telling one from the other.

Most people won’t hear a difference because when they listen to a finished recording they’re only hearing the end product; they’re not comparing one mic to another, so there’s no surprise there. But for those of us who are striving for something of a better quality than adequate, mic choice is important for a variety of reasons… wanting to impart a particular character, some mics will sit better in a mix than others, some are more sibilant on some singers, etc.

Originally Posted by lkingston

At the level of recording equipment that most of us are at here, most of us can tell the difference between an entry level mic and $300 mic pretty easily. Telling the difference between a $300 and a $700 mic is tougher. Telling the difference above that is beyond my monitoring equipment and aging ears.

There are plenty of people who can’t tell a good recording from a mediocre recording, but music professionals aren’t producing for those ears alone. They’re also mixing for the audiophiles listening on top notch gear.

I think about it this way… most of the people who visit the great art museums of the world don’t do much more than look at a painting for a few seconds and move on to the next. They don’t study the painting, they don’t even make an attempt to understand what the artist was attempting to convey. But we still have museums that present art in a grand setting even though much is lost on most visitors.

Originally Posted by lkingston

Then there’s the data compression from putting it on YouTube or Spotify. That data compression mangles the sound pretty significantly. It’s one of the main reasons why YouTube blind mic comparisons are so hard tell apart.

If you are the kind of person who leaves your Spotify settings at their default bitrates, you probably don’t need to spend more than three hundred dollars on a mic. Just sayin’…

That’s where the importance of mastering comes in. The closer you master to the target level for any of the online music sources, the less they’ll do to the track.

[lkingston]

The point I was trying to make is that people aren’t listening to songs because of the quality of the microphones. Among Finneas O’Connel’s Grammys is one for “Best Engineered Album” of the year. I personally agree with that decision. It is a wonderful sounding album!

He used a pair of Neumann TLM microphones, but he could have eked that quality out of any number of sub $1000 microphones…or he could have done it with his old AT-2020.

The quality of that album has more to do with comping vocals from 87 takes than it does from the mic choice. It is about unplugging the refrigerator in the kitchen and hanging up blankets while you record. It is about doing whatever it takes to get that perfect performance with whatever resources you happen to have!

https://youtu.be/152puTgjhII

[phcorrigan]

Originally Posted by jim1960

That’s where the importance of mastering comes in. The closer you master to the target level for any of the online music sources, the less they’ll do to the track.

No disagreement here. Now, if only all the online music and video services had the same specs. It would make that process much easier.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by phcorrigan

No disagreement here. Now, if only all the online music and video services had the same specs. It would make that process much easier.

Their getting closer... Apple was doing its own thing for a long time but they've now announced that -16 LUFS will be their standard. I think that puts just about all the major players within 2 LUFS of each other.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by lkingston

The point I was trying to make is that people aren’t listening to songs because of the quality of the microphones. Among Finneas O’Connel’s Grammys is one for “Best Engineered Album” of the year. I personally agree with that decision. It is a wonderful sounding album!

No, people aren't listening because of mics... just as people don't look at paintings because of the brushes but if you limited Rembrandt to really crappy brushes, his work might now be as revered as it is today. It's all important... the skill level, the tools, the talent, etc.