Choosing mikes for vocal and voiceovers

svart

I like that the article actually picks a wide range of favorite vocal mics and not just the ones that usually show up in articles (read: paid to advertise in the form of a review..).

For example the Gefell mic. I have a couple Gefell mics and some day I plan on getting more. I simply can't state how underestimated these mics are. They don't get a lot of publicity even though they were actually part of Neumann back before WW2 and actually continue on with designs that are more authentic to Neumann than modern Neumann mics are today.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

And very good article on vocal mikes
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul10/articles/vocalmics.htm

thepalalias

Also, every time I have had a vocalist pick their microphone, it's been by listening back to playback of themselves from different mics (typically with the files identified only after their performance choice have been made).

I'm not a microphone snob, but I know there is a BIG difference between "pretty good" and "really great", and that difference isn't just from source to source or performer to performer, but also from song to song.

On the album "Stream" by Joanna St. Claire we switched between at least 5 different microphones for her vocals alone depending on the song. On "Listen to the Sound" we preferred the sound of one of the less expensive ones to the ones costing two to seven times as much. On the next song we worked on, the situation reversed. Nothing on that album was done based on reputation alone. :)

thepalalias

Oh, and one of my least favorite mics on vocals would be the omnipresent Shure SM57. Such a harsh sound. Works better on some other sources, though.

thepalalias

@Vitaliy_Kiselev Also, the ABX comparator plug-in for Foobar2000 is a great tool I've been using the last year or two for blind test comparisons.

thepalalias

@Vitaliy_Kiselev Believe me, I know. :) That's part of the reason why the comparison CDs I mentioned use a 2 part legend that makes it easier to blind test yourself.

I've been working for years with an artist that has repeatable preferences in blind testing with a large array of gear, as long as their hearing has not been fatigued by too much work that day. They prefer the sound of an Avalon channel strip to ones costing several times more for their vocals, but they are just as consistent in preferring it to the cheaper ones.

I'll try to avoid going on into another mega post because I talk about these things all the time when I do consulting for boutique audio equipment companies and with an impulse response soundware company, but what I would add is: it takes a scientific approach but it's tremendously personal.

Several of the greatest audio engineers I know don't prefer the same sound. :)

Mark_the_Harp

@Vitaliy_Kiselev Great links to the SOS articles for production and marketing tips - thanks.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@thepalalias

Some things require scientific approach.
And mikes are one of them.
I not only mean frequency responce measuring, and all other things you can get from impulse response.
But also double blind tests.
Otherwise, usually most good looking, best known brend costing a fortune always wins :-)

thepalalias

Yeah, the nice thing about a good small diaphragm mic like the KM184D is just how clear and natural it sounds. I think that's part of the reason why some of the strongest vocalists I work with are so intrigued by them - they don't color and flatter (which is often good) but rather give that really direct sense of what's there.

Mark_the_Harp

+1 on the KM184 and NT1a - I have a few of both (well, KM100 but similar but with swappable capsules - great mics). Love 'em.

thepalalias

While there is a lot I can post here when I have more time (though it has been difficult to find it for several months now), I will say a few things in terms of resources for finding out more. Also, my list of mics I like at the end run in price from 400 to 10,000 dollars MSRP in the U.S.

Find a good listening environment and get some CDs (or the digital downloads) from the 3daudioinc.com comparisons before you buy ANY mic, unless you have a friend (or personally are) an engineer with access to lots of mics in person in a studio setting (not just a store or trade show). Here is a link to the comparisons I am talking about, current as of the time of writing. They were conducted a few years ago but several of the mics tested are still VERY popular.

http://www.3daudioinc.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/21?osCsid=9fa04f64c5a19bd802558aa2c0dacede

The two to focus on there are the "Ribbon Mic Roundup" and the "3D Mic CD".

If you use listen to those on a good system, you will know EXACTLY what you are getting into, instead of relying on the biases that others have.

But in terms of biases, here are a few microphones I have loved using on sessions.

Small Diaphragm Condenser:
Neumann KM184D (which I used to record a Grammy winning classical vocalist because she preferred it to her usual vocal mics)

That microphone has some killer other features in terms of the signal path so read up on it.

Ribbon:
AEA R92
Royer R122V

These two mics really have a different sound from most of the others, though I would enjoy a chance to try the Tannoys one day as well.

Large Diaphragm Condenser:
Neumann U87
Neumann TLM103
Telefunken ELAM 251-E
Rode NT2A

I also have lots of colleagues that love the Rode NT1A, favoring the lower noise floor over the flexibility and features of the NT2A.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Producing Professional Voiceovers At Home
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun11/articles/voiceover-01.htm

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul11/articles/voiceover-02.htm

Recommend to read it.

svart

I like the 460 because it's a cheap mic and the circuit is actually close to the original C12 design. It's pretty easy to mod: replace 2 capacitors, remove 2 capacitors, replace the tube and replace the capsule.

This is the mod I prefer but I elected to get a C12 edge-terminated capsule instead because I wanted a different frequency response:

http://www.foxaudioresearch.ca/The460secret.htm

Which seems fairly close to the Oktavamod one.

@Mark_the_Harp: Digital EQ always seems to get harsh when you use a lot of it. I'm not exactly sure why though. I find that plug-ins, no matter how awesomely designed, also tend to lose detail in the audio. I've never really investigated but I believe it to be related to word multiplication in the algorithm. Eventually if you multiply enough, you have to truncate back to your bit width (16/24/32 bit), etc. So every time you truncate, you lose more and more original data. This is also why people who mix "in the box" will avoid digital bussing and elect to mix down through an analog mix bus. In any case, I found that I would need a lot more plug EQ to make things sound OK. When I finally got back to my roots with a proper console, I found that a whole lot less EQ was needed and that fidelity was increased. I even asked a number of my friend/associates to take a listen and the decision was rather unanimous that the console just had more life to it.

johnnym

I'm not really good with electronics so i'm looking at this one :
http://www.oktavamodshop.com/product_info.php?cPath=2_52&products_id=173

Mark_the_Harp

@svart Mic looks tasty! I guess analogue EQ is different as it will have different phase shifts than you get with digital EQ - apart from anything else. Is that why you prefer it?

svart

@Mark_the_Harp: The trick you are using is creating those harmonics that lead people to "hear" the low frequencies that aren't there. The 80-20 rule is pretty much the same as the law of diminishing returns.

@Johnnym: I've gone back to using analog EQs for most EQ work. I've tried all kinds of plugs for EQ but I still can't seem to get a better sound than real analog EQ. I try very hard to get the right sound without EQ at all but then use the parametric console EQs to blend and carve. I'll then use an outboard stereo EQ for overall adjustments. I'm building a specialized inductor/tube based EQ specifically for vocals right now as well.

@VK: Yes, chinese mics have come a long way indeed. Look at Telefunken a couple years ago.. They rebranded a chinese mic and sold it as a Telefunken mic! People were very upset when they found out. Not because the mic didn't sound great, but because they paid a lot of money and could get the same mic for 1/10th the cost if they bought a cheap brand.. http://recordinghacks.com/articles/telefunken-m16-and-apex-460-comparison/

I took an Apex 460 mic, did a few mods and now it beats pretty much everything else I have for vocals.

Mark_the_Harp

@svart "Mix engineers have applied psychoacoustics by cutting the low frequencies but using devices to generate the 2nd/3rd harmonics of the frequencies they cut..."

Your post is intriguing because I've never heard of it being applied to mixing before - and not sure exactly how you'd do it - but it makes perfect sense in principle. Sounds similar to what musicians do sometimes. For example, I'm working on an Einaudi piece that requires some bass notes that go lower than my harp can play, so where the notes get too low I modify what I'm doing and play some upper parts of the harmonic series which effectively creates low notes beyond what's physically possible on the harp. Organists have done this trick for generations to create pseudo-32 foot pitches in an instrument that doesn't have 32-foot stops.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

>Maybe we need an EQ topic as well.

You can make one anytime you want.
From all hardware with EQs I used only ULTRADRIVE PRO DCX2496.
I think still no reasonable analog exist.

johnnym

@pvjames PSP are great plugs. Maybe we need an EQ topic as well.

Mark_the_Harp

This "law of diminishing returns" sounds like the 80-20 rule. For those who don't know it, it says that 20% of the effort will get you 80% of the way, and 80% of the effort will get you the remaining 20% of the way. That seems to work in most fields.

pvjames

@svart @shaveblog
Very interesting. Its like that with cams. You have to pay a pretty penny for that last upper eschelon 10% of quality. There's so much going on in a mix. Especially rock. Other kinds of music there may be less. I always thought a 'cheaper' mic like an SM7 into a 1073 would be the way to go then necessarily having to get a U47 type. I think the mic-pre is above in importance to the mic. There are alot of great bang4buck mics and mic-pres now. The plug-ins are also really good compared to the hardware. The mic i would like to get is the TLM49.

@johnnym
Did you also look at the new NobleQ? There's a great holiday deal now. 2 for 1.
(pspaudio)

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@svart

As for Chinese mikes, I think you can find anything you like.
They started making mikes long ago, because it is one of the things with very high added value.
Today it is no problem to find very flat mike (or use ribbon with muted HF).

johnnym

Mine too.

Have you tried Pro-Q from Fabfilter for carving? It's a lot of fun.

svart

The sound engineer certainly has a large part in the overall sound of the mix. The largest problem in mixing is getting a clear mix. If you solo each track in a professional mix, the tracks will sound very small and bass-less. This is because the mix engineer will generally cut lows and low-mids to account for the tendency for those ranges to "build up" which ends up sounding "normal" when all tracks are together even though the separate tracks do not sound good by themselves. They will also use EQ to carve out spaces in different instruments where other instruments sound better together instead of trying to make each instrument sound good by themselves and trying to add them together, which always sounds too jumbled.

There is also a phenomenon called psychoacoustics where a listener will hear things in a mix that are not truly in the mix. Any amount of noise/harmonics can add and subtract and create or remove sounds in the mix. The new thing is to mix for Ipods/phones which don't have the ability to reproduce low frequencies. Mix engineers have applied psychoacoustics by cutting the low frequencies but using devices to generate the 2nd/3rd harmonics of the frequencies they cut. For example, if you want to reproduce 60hz on a system that can only go down to 75hz, you would create 120hz and 180hz harmonics and the brain of the listener will actually "create" the 60hz sound.

When dealing with mics, most folks LOVE very harmonic rich voices, especially ones with a lot of upper harmonics. Most of the Chinese mics also have a horrible upper frequency boost because they copied earlier mic capsules which had built in boosts. However they didn't copy the preamp circuitry that had a high frequency cut. Together those acted as a rudimentary emphasis/de-emphasis system to reduce tube hiss. So when people like the Chinese mics, it's usually because of two reasons. Reason #1: the better made mics sound BLAND. They really do. They aren't dark or un-detailed, they just don't sound hyped and lively. Reason #2: The non-linearity of the cheap mic system spits out a lot of distortion as well as having the upper frequency boost because both give the false impression of detail to the audio. When you put these in dense mixes, especially with distorted guitars, those harmonics and peaky frequencies really conflict with each other and it ends up sounding worse.

Those have been my experiences, anyway.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@svart

It is interesting moint about the mix.
Why do you think it happens?
Don't you think it tells more not about mike, but about sound engineer who made the mix?

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