On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 10:43:47AM -1000, Alastair Couper wrote: > Yes, I should state the intention. I have a SM58 knockoff (by Fender) that > I use on hand drums. My interest de jeur is to record a female vocalist. with vocals the choice of mic is even more subjective and dependent on what you are recording. As somebody said with preamps, it's certainly a case of matching a mic to the voice you want to record. > I am an electrical engineer by education, so am amenable to freq charts, > THD, spatial plots and such. But the "warm" thing seems to me empty. Seems > like judicious EQ should get you what you want, given that the transducer > is coming up with a clean reproduction to begin with. Trouble is it doesn't come up with a clean response in the first place. Better to get a mic that sounds about right than to get one that really does't suit the voice/room/whatever and then try to fix it with EQ that will never quite match the mic. > But then one gets > into subjectivity and black magic again. Not really. The human ear-brain system is very sensitive to certain cues for direction and depth; a mic with a perfect on-axis response whose response off axis is very poor will pick up room reflections that don't sound right, in a very subtle way. The off-axis response is just one of many small but important differences between a good mic and a bad one. > I am looking a Studio Projects B1, for instance. Do a Google groups search on group:rec.audio.pro and your mic of choice. There will be some derision if if's a cheap mic, but it's worth going through the results because you will often get: - opinions from people in the industry who've actually used it - opinions from people with good ears - suggestions about what specific instruments or types of voice it's good/bad for Two other things: You can get a lot of mileage out any mic by learning about mic placement, and it's always best to try a mic out, or better still try several and choose with your own ears. Ideally take your vocalist along to the store to test mics. -- Anahata anahata@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx -+- http://www.treewind.co.uk Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827
