# Mic shopping is HARD - I thought there were a lot of overdirve pedals!



## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

The 200-300 dollar condenser mic market is pretty full! I hadn't been considering a ribbon mic until I happened upon the Cascade Fathead at Moog audio. Is anyone here recording at home and in the same market? What have you chosen and why? I'm mainly going to use whatever I finally choose as a vocal mic.

Some current front runners for me:

Cascade Vin-Jet
Cascade Fathead
Advanced Audio CM47Fet
AKG C2000
Apex 460 tube condenser (mainly because it can be modded into something special down the road)
AT440

I really like the fathead demos I've heard, but am not sure the figure 8 pattern would work well in my tiny closet of a recording space. Cardiod makes sense I think.

Anyway, any input would be appreciated.


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## cbg1 (Mar 27, 2012)

you might be suprised at how handy the figure 8 pattern can be....it should work well in a booth where you don't have to worry about reflections.....

you can position the mike sideways and adjust its position to capture a vocal and instrument with one mike...

you can use it with an omni or a cardoid to do mid-side recordings....

a pair of 8's can be set up in a blumlien pattern..............

enjoy
ets


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## hardasmum (Apr 23, 2008)

mrmatt1972 said:


> The 200-300 dollar condenser mic market is pretty full! I hadn't been considering a ribbon mic until I happened upon the Cascade Fathead at Moog audio. Is anyone here recording at home and in the same market? What have you chosen and why? I'm mainly going to use whatever I finally choose as a vocal mic.
> 
> Some current front runners for me:
> 
> ...


All of the microphones you've listed are made in China (even the C2000). I'm pretty sure that the Cascades and Apex are made in the same factory. Nady, MXL, Studio Project and many others all have similar microphone lines built in the same factories. Not unlike buying offshore guitars the quality differs depending on who they're being built for. 

The AKG C214 ($399) and the Sennheiser MK4 ($299) are the only microphones in this price range that are actually made in Germany. 

I was recently in the market for a good budget all rounder and opted for the MK4. What you get is a microphone made in the Neumann factory, what you don't get are any bells and whistles. Fixed cardioid polar pattern, no pad, no HPF, no shock mount and no case. The C214 does come with the bells and whistles but I preferred the sound of the MK4.

For the record I'm not bashing the Chinese microphones. I think you'd get good results from any of the options you've listed, especially if you're recording in an untreated home studio space.

Fifteen years ago I picked up an Apex 420, it was one of the first budget Chinese U87 knock offs to come out. 

I brought it into work recently while testing out my new MK4.

I put the Apex ($150) up against an original 60's Neumann U87 ($3-4k).

They sound pretty similar, the Apex definitely gets you into the same ballpark as the U87. 

The U87 however has a much lower noise floor....like way low, the Apex is pretty noisy by comparison. The U87 has a much tighter polar pattern and also has a less pronounced proximity effect compared to the Apex.

There is one other big difference between the two. The Apex (and a lot of other Chinese mics I've heard) have this weird thing going on in the top end. They can sound a little hyped or false, the same way some consumer headphones can sound. I don't hear that in the C214 or MK4.

All that being said, the noise and hyped top end probably won't amount to much if you're tracking a couple of vocals in your home studio. IMPO they only start causing you problems when you have a bunch of tracks all recorded with these types of mics. 

There are a lot of choices but you'll soon notice there's a lot of overlap because most of the microphones in this price range are the same except for the name on them.

My point is you'll probably be happy with any of the mics you've listed. 

The only other thing I'll mention is don't trust any online demos you hear, the only relevant test will be how it sounds in your space. So if there's anyway to rent a couple of these mics to try out it might be to your advantage.

I hope this helps you in some way!


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

Thanks for both replies. I checked out mid-side here http://www.uaudio.com/blog/mid-side-mic-recording/. Downloaded the wav files and tried it out here on my laptop. That's freakin cool. Cascade plus a pencil mic should = massive sound field. That's undeniably cool.

hardasmum, I did see that sennheiser you mentioned, but it is out of stock everywhere I looked (online). Also, are you sure about the Advanced Audio being chinese? I thought they were a Canadian company who sold direct.


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## hardasmum (Apr 23, 2008)

mrmatt1972 said:


> hardasmum, I did see that sennheiser you mentioned, but it is out of stock everywhere I looked (online). Also, are you sure about the Advanced Audio being chinese? I thought they were a Canadian company who sold direct.


Maybe Advanced Audio designs them but has them made offshore or assembles them here from offshore parts? I can't remember the specifics at the moment. I'll have to do some digging to refresh my memory.

I can tell you that they were recommended to me by an engineer that I respect and I've only heard good things about the brand.

I also seem to remember Audio Technica manufacturing some of there mics in Japan but I don't know which ones.


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## hardasmum (Apr 23, 2008)

Aha! Found it. 


"Under the Advanced Audio banner, David offers both FET and valve microphones based on, but not directly copied from, some of the most sought-after classic models (and he plans to add mic preamps to the range in the near future). Various capsule configurations are available, and Advanced Audio make both FET and valve models of the two mics reviewed here. Apparently his mics start life in China, then key parts, including the valve (AA generally fit Sovtek valves), the transformer and crucial capacitors, are replaced with more highly specified parts — hence the surprisingly affordable nature of these microphones."

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec13/articles/advanced-cm12-cm47.htm


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

Ok, compromise being the better part of marriage, I kept myself to a budget (taxes pushed me 15 bucks over 300...) and got an ART M-five which is apparently pretty well identical to the Fathead and has been well reviewed, and a Rode M3, which looks to be a killer mic. I'm looking forward to doing the mid/side method with these. I figure if M-five has ribbon problems I'll return it and get the fathead or go condenser, but i wanted to take advantage of free shipping so I needed to buy the 2 together. In the meantime I'm borrowing some mics from a friend to play around with the idea.

Happy birthday to me.


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