Archive for the ‘Microphones’ Category
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
To be honest I’ve never given much thought to USB mics, I never understood why you’d want one instead of a proper mic and interface. Then I was in the situation where I could buy a Blue Snowflake for just $20 and I opened up my mind a bit. Blue is a pretty respectable brand and strangely less than an hour earlier someone showed me the Blue Icicle which was pretty nice for what it is. The # 1 thing I liked about the Icicle was that there was zero effort required to get it working with a mac and condenser mic. The # 2 thing I liked about it was I could use the built-in headphone jack on the mac for monitoring, essentially using to interfaces at once, it worked just fine.
So a guy offered to sell me his Blue Snowflake for $20, (I think he needed booze or drug money) and that’s a pretty good deal even if I only ever need it once. So the dude that never thought much about USB mics now owns one.
http://www.bluemic.com/snowflake/
So now that I owned it, I needed to figure out if I had any actual use for it and if it sounded even marginally good. My expectations were low, but there are much worse things I could have spent the money on. Let’s look at some Pro and Cons of this particular mic.
Pros
- Very portable, small & lightweight
- Inexpensive
- Very simple to setup
- Sensitive condenser mic
Cons
- Only 16 bit/44.1kHz
- Gain is computer controlled (not that bad with ‘Sound Source’ for mac)
- Thin USB cable will eventually wear out
- Sound quality not as good as a real interface + mic
Possible Applications
- Pre-production demos
- Field recorder for ‘found sounds’ out of my studio
- Skype
- Better mic for screencasting (tutorial vids for you guys)
So how does it sound? Well for under $100 I don’t expect much from anything. This is pretty decent I suppose but I didn’t directly compare it to a proper condenser mic at the time. Below are some examples of the co-op student at work playing acoustic guitar, comparing the Snowflake with the built-in mic on the Mac Book Pro.
So what do you think?
Posted in Gear, Microphones, Review | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
I normally talk about what gear I want to buy on Wednesdays, but this week I figured I’d change it up by showing off my most recent purchase.
One night a couple weeks ago I was browsing for mics on eBay. I came across a few interesting mics all from the same seller. Because I never ever get a good deal on eBay (and because it was well after midnight and clearly not thinking straight) I decided to send a message to the guy and make an offer on 3 mics.
So I got these 3 mics for $220 shipped, which is pretty decent, considering they’re all basically new in excellent condition, and even if I don’t like them much I can easily resell them for a profit. They arrived last night.
The mics are:
- Electro Voice RE410 Handheld cardioid condenser [more info]
- Electro Voice Raven – Cardioid Dynamic [more info]
- Blue Ball – Cardioid Dynamic [more info]
I’ve been incredibly busy this week so I’ve barely done anything other than check that they work for the Raven and Ball. I used the RE410 for the latest podcast episode (HRS #56) and I like it for that. It’s got a nice detail and crispness compared to the SM58 I’ve been using lately. I don’t normally like condensers on my voice (too much stupid detail!) so the 410 with a foam wind filter to soften it a bit works quite well.
I would likely never go into a store and specifically look for any of these mics, it was totally an impulse buy, I only grabbed them because it was a good deal. I think I’m going to have to set up my router to block ebay after midnight to protect myself.
I can’t wait to try them out in a session and really see what they’re good at.
Let me know if you’ve tried and loved or hated any of these mics.
Posted in Gear, Microphones | No Comments »
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
This is a continuation of the recent shootout with female vocals.
The mics:
- M-Audio Nova
- Audio Technica AT2035
- M-Audio Solaris
- M-Audio Sputnik
- AKG C 414 B-XL II
- Audio-Technica AT4060
The source was Will singing the second line of ‘9 Crimes’ by Damien Rice. Each recording is a separate take. No processing has been done. Drop all the files into your DAW, keep the piano track active if you like.
Scroll down to the bottom to get the files.
The order of the files has been changed so you’ll need to guess which is which.
Leave a comment with which mic sounds like the best fit for his voice and I’ll email you the answers. EDIT – I don’t have the answers anymore!
Other things to think about:
Which mic sounds like it’s the cheapest?
Which mic sounds the most expensive?
Which 2 mics are the tube mics?
The sound files
Get the files here: http://files.getdropbox.com/u/1053122/VocalMicShootOut2.rar
Posted in Gear, Microphones, Shootout, music | 9 Comments »
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
As part of the Home Recording 101 class at Revolution Audio, this past Thursday we did a shootout of 6 vocal mics. The mics selected were some of the top sellers at the store and ranged in price from the M-Audio Nova at $119 to the AT4060 at $1905.
You may wonder why there are so many M-Audio mics in this shoot out. Well that’s because they make good mics for the price, we had a variety on hand, and it seems like these mics don’t get a lot of attention.
The mics:
- M-Audio Nova
- Audio Technica AT2035
- M-Audio Solaris
- M-Audio Sputnik
- AKG C 414 B-XL II
- Audio-Technica AT4060
The source was Kate singing the first line of ‘9 Crimes’ by Damien Rice. Each recording is a separate take, though she is very consistent. No processing has been done. Drop all the files into your DAW, keep the piano track active if you like. Scroll down to the bottom to get the files. The order of the files has been changed so you’ll need to guess which is which.
Leave a comment with which mic sounds like the best fit for her voice and I’ll email you the answers.
Other things to think about:
Which mic sounds like it’s the cheapest?
Which mic sounds the most expensive?
Which 2 mics are the tube mics?
(more…)
Posted in Gear, Microphones, Shootout, music | 39 Comments »
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
I finally found a good use for a D112.
click to find out
Posted in Gear, Microphones, commentary | 2 Comments »
