I found this entertaining…
S
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Just on a side note - anyone out there have this kind of treatment in their studio? It reminds me of the ending of the Matrix 2 when Neo meets the Architect…
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Didn’t think any of them sounded bad, really.
Does the comparison tell the whole story, though? Will the cheap mic still work in 18 months, for example? The U87ai, despite being an industry standard, is kinda midrange-forward and doesn’t work for everyone, besides being (don’t shoot me…) relatively overpriced.
A softly sung vocal doesn’t tell you a lot about what they do to transients, or how they stand up to being screamed into. A studio that looks like the Tardis branch of the Apple Store doesn’t tell you much about off-axis response, something that would be critical if you, say, mic a drum kit or a choir.
It’s still quite impressive for such a cheap mic, though! My wife has a thing against gold, on the other hand, so I won’t buy one 
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I quite enjoyed the comparison. It didn’t really provide any real surprises, though. No matter which mic he sang through, I still hated the song 
I’ve been doing some singing lately on a track I’m working on. I was feeling lazy, so rather than construct my “mic stand & doona” temporary vocal booth and use my valve condenser, I just sang the guide vocal and all the backgrounds using my trusty SM57. I was actually thinking at this point that I might just use the guide vocal in the final mix, as it seemed to work ok.
Then, wanting to explore the possibilities to get the best result, I decided to sing a “proper” lead vocal with the condenser after all. Still feeling somewhat lazy, I thought, “what the hell, I’ll just sing it as is without all the temporary vocal booth palava”. I sang a few takes and listened back. Predictably, the condenser picked up a tonne of room sound, so I grudgingly complied with the dictates of physics and pulled out the doonas and mic stands.
Despite having a room that is ostensibly not that live sounding, the difference between the treated and untreated condenser mic takes was nothing less than stunning.
Becoming more curious, I compared the SM57 takes with the condenser takes. While the contrast was more subtle than the previous comparison, the clear winner was the condenser.
In harmony with the conclusion in this video, my takeaway from the experience is: You can make do with just about any mic, but if you have a choice of a few different types, it’s definitely worth recording them and shooting out what works best for the situation and the source… Oh, and never underestimate the contribution of the acoustic environment.
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Yes, the song is not very good, other than it proves there’s someone out there who’s worse at doing song lyrics than I.
The guy has excellent video skills, though. Fast-paced, funny and informative. I give him 8/10 for “video”.
(He lost one point for not having a single bikini-clad gal show up…)
I hated the SM58 and I now know why I have never wanted one…
The difference between the Neumann and everything else is staggering. Same as test I have done myself have shown…
S
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