Best Microphone Experience...

[CornTYP]

What is the best microphone you have ever experienced?
Live or Studio. Engineer or Performer.
What was it used for?
What was its name?

I got to use a SM57Beta when the old band supported Queen Adreena. I like.

Also for the T.Y.P studio i bought an AKG C1000s. It fries the fish for me. Great mic has cool polar pattern and presence boost adaptors. Ace.

[HairyScaryMark]

There isn't such a thing as the best mic. They don't work like human ears or capture the sound in the same way.

It all depends on the application, the sound you are after and the money your are willing to spend.

A mic that is yet to fail me is the AKG C414 but it is also about £500 new.

I've own Shure SM57, 58, Sennheiser E604, AKG C1000's amongst others and they all have their strong points but sometimes a mic is inheraitely more usefull and for me the C414 seems to work with everything i've tried it on. Wouldn't sound nice on some (male) voices though.

People say the Shure SM57 is highly versitile and this is true but there usually a better choice for most things, apart from maybe snare drum.

If it's for live on lead vocals. Based upon my experience I prefer Sennheiser E840 or E835 over the Shure SM58, as good as the 58 is I just prefer the sennheiser one and find I use less EQ.

Also, there are things just as important in the signal path as the microphone itself, such as the microphone pre amp and analog to digital converter (if you are recording or using a digital desk).

[CornTYP]

Originally Posted by HairyScaryMark

There isn't such a thing as the best mic. They don't work like human ears or capture the sound in the same way.

It all depends on the application, the sound you are after and the money your are willing to spend.

A mic that is yet to fail me is the AKG C414 but it is also about £500 new.

I've own Shure SM57, 58, Sennheiser E604, AKG C1000's amongst others and they all have their strong points but sometimes a mic is inheraitely more usefull and for me the C414 seems to work with everything i've tried it on. Wouldn't sound nice on some (male) voices though.

People say the Shure SM57 is highly versitile and this is true but there usually a better choice for most things, apart from maybe snare drum.

If it's for live on lead vocals. Based upon my experience I prefer Sennheiser E840 or E835 over the Shure SM58, as good as the 58 is I just prefer the sennheiser one and find I use less EQ.

Also, there are things just as important in the signal path as the microphone itself, such as the microphone pre amp and analog to digital converter (if you are recording or using a digital desk).

Just the kind of answer i was looking for. Great.
I used the C414 at college. Would love to get one or a pair but they are very costly as you mentioned.
We have the Sennheiser E604. Very good results.

[HairyScaryMark]

Used the E604 on two bands so far and the results were quite good. Not blown away by them but they sound at least as good as the SM57 on toms, if not better.

If I get better at tuning drums that will help also. Cannot stress how important drum tuning is.
Spent a bit of time reading about it and gave it a go. Even with my basic knowledge and skills it makes the drum kit sound how it is supposed to rather than having snares that change in pitch and bass drums that sound nothing like a drum.

Keep an eye out on ebay for C414 secondhand. On singers who naturally have a 'nice' voice i.e not a harsh one. They tend to sound really nice.

Shure SM7b is a popular studio dynamic microphone for male vocals at the moment.

Earthworks make some very nice microphones also. They are not cheap but you get a very high quality microphone. I ordered their free drum mic's demo CD off their website.

Been impressed with what I have heard of the Audix D6 on kick. I don't own one but nobody seems to utter a bad word about it.

[Alan Cynic]

at home I use an SM58 and an ancient Unidyne....both fine for my needs. Best mike I've used was at WNYC in New York....dunno what it was, but it would've been rather expensive, I think.

[The Byre]

I suppose the flippant reply would be to say the Neumann M149, which is a breath-takingly good microphone. But at £3k it bloody well better be!

No, my heart goes out to those cheap mics that do one or two things brilliantly. The Audix D6 on kick. The AKG D202 and D222 (cheap on eBay) on toms, cabs and brass, the Neuman 104 and 105 on vocals, the DPA 4061 on all kinds of things, especially when used as a boundry mic. The AKG C391 as a stereo pair on just about anything.

All FAR cheaper than the better Chinese jobs - and far better as well!

[CornTYP]

I don't try and look at the high end mics. The quality they give is very superior i'm sure but when will I EVER have 3k to spend on a mic. Nice dream though.
Anyone one know of microphone hire in Aberdeen? I might be able to afford the hire of a mic like the Neumann you mentioned. But only for about a day.

[Alex]

i've some boundary mics by audiotechnica and oem that are pretty handy. Fiddling about with cheapo piezo contact mics and capsules is great. put some inside a steinway model D whilst fiddling around with prepared piano. you can get amazing sounds out of those piano things. I've a (elvis mic ripoff) by eagle (G148, it says) that's pretty beasty for any rough midrangey sounds when I can't be bothered setting things up properly. Thoroughly in favour of the C414s mentioned earlier, though I'd have to be seeing some returns before investing in them. Still loving my gt-66 - best valve mic I've used for under a grand (esp for the £200odd i paid)

[Stupot]

Originally Posted by The Byre

I suppose the flippant reply would be to say the Neumann M149, which is a breath-takingly good microphone. But at £3k it bloody well better be!

No, my heart goes out to those cheap mics that do one or two things brilliantly. The Audix D6 on kick. The AKG D202 and D222 (cheap on eBay) on toms, cabs and brass, the Neuman 104 and 105 on vocals, the DPA 4061 on all kinds of things, especially when used as a boundry mic. The AKG C391 as a stereo pair on just about anything.

All FAR cheaper than the better Chinese jobs - and far better as well!

I hired in a M149 for a project where the singer insisted on having one. Waste of money, she sounded so bad through it she ended up recording through my sontronics orpheus-a snip at £399 and great at vocals and kick drum. It was plain she'd never sang through a M149 before and had listened to a bedroom engineer who had told her it was the bollox based an the fact it was the most expensive mic that he could remember the name of!

[SteveCrisis]

The best mic I ever used and owned was a Beyer Dynamic I bought way back in 1992. I reckon its equivalent nowadays is the TG-X-930.