large diaphragm condenser mics - clip

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by guitarman68

No, I played the tune once and recorded it with six mics. So the Coles performance is the same as the other five.

Ah Ok, I guess it was the mismatch in the lighting that threw me

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Off topic to be sure but Doug can I get in touch pm with you to discuss the AEA N22? Seriously thinking this might be my next mic.

I missed this. Of course, PM or email me any time.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

If I was to be "working" with a sound (that is to say mixing instead of just listening) I'd pick the Coles. Especially if it were a low count instrumental track. There's something about many ribbon mics I find appealing. Like everyone else I think most ribbons need a bit of added eq clarity but the complexity of sound (at least to my ears) is more along the lines of what I enjoy about any acoustic instrument.

Off topic to be sure but Doug can I get in touch pm with you to discuss the AEA N22? Seriously thinking this might be my next mic.

The appeal and as Doug said natural sound is why I sold my one Schoeps CMC6 MK4 and got a pair of N22's

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

Every mic has a different "reach." You can't judge that many mics fairly by just setting them up in a line; you have to give each one its optimum distance. To me, in that test, the distances of 414 and the Coles were pretty right. Everything else was too far away.

I'd love to hear some solutions to how to deal with this. The same issue came up when I posted a mic shootout a while back. It seems like a catch-22 to me. To be fair in any test/shootout, you need to keep everything the same and only change 1 variable, but then you miss the possibility that one mic might shine if moved back and inch, or rotated 10 degrees, or used with a different guitar, or a different preamp, or with different EQ, ad nauseam, and with even one of these, you're introducing bias and additional variables so that the comparison is meaningless. I guess you could do it exhaustively - compare all mics at 10 inches, all mics at 11 inches, 12 inches, etc, but then you'd end up with more tests than anyone would listen to, let alone keep track of, and that only addresses proximity, not the other 100 variables.

My only solution, (also done in my pickup tests) is to just try to be upfront about what was done and what was not done - "this is how these mics compare with this signal chain, this setup, in my room, with my guitar", nothing less, nothing more. Doesn't mean that the worst sounding mic wouldn't be the best sounding mic if you changed one variable, it just is what it is.

The opposite solution might be to just to ask what gear was used in a recording you like and take note of it, even tho the sound may have been impacted in all kinds of ways you aren't aware of. This is how people end up buying the same guitar as their favorite rock star and so on, and then wonder why they don't sound like them, tho..

But maybe there's a better way?

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I missed this. Of course, PM or email me any time.

Thanks Doug. I’ll be in touch soon..

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I'd love to hear some solutions to how to deal with this.

I think you have to abandon the "one performance" concept. Instead, play something really short that you can do fairly consistently, and maybe do it three times and pick out the one that's closest to your "baseline."

It'd probably also help to have a separate live room and control room and a helper. If I were doing it in my studio, you'd be in the live room because you're a great player, I'd be in the control room because I'm not, and I'd be asking you to scoot your chair in/out/left/right until it seemed like the best spot.

[DupleMeter]

To my ears, it felt like the mics were not really in the best position for that guitar in that room. I felt they all lacked something I would want in a good acoustic guitar recording.

Having to choose 1, I'd go with the Coles because it seemed the closest to the right setup.