June 16, 2025 • 51 mins
This week, it's all about the front end — microphones for voiceover. George recently ran a live webinar comparing a wide range of mics from the Audio-Technica AT875R to the mighty Austrian Audio OC818, and we’re diving deep into the results.
From self-noise to low-end roll-off, polar patterns to punchy midrange, we break down what makes a great mic for VO, including:
🎧 Why the AT875R punches above its weight
🎙️ The OC818 and CC8 — why Robbo and AP love them
💡 What makes the Mojave M50 a hidden gem
💥 The big-name mics like the 416, U67 and beyond
🔬 How capsule design and manufacturing history still matter
📦 The surprising pros and cons of handheld condensers
🎤 And whether a kick drum mic could actually work for voice!
If you’ve ever wondered what mic is “the one” for VO, this is the episode for you.
A big shout out to our sponsors, Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth...
And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear..
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Y'all ready? Be history.
Get started.
Welcome.
Hi. Hi. Hi.
Hello, everyone. To the pro audio suite.
These guys are professional and motivated.
Please take the video. Stars.
George is a founder of Source Elements.
Robert Marshall,
international audio engineer Darren RobinRoberts and global voice repeaters.
Thanks to tribal Austrian audio,maging passionate elements.
(00:21):
George the tech wisdom and Rob and APIsinternational demos.
To find out more about us.
Check the Proteas sweetcorn line up.
Ready? Here we go. I'm.
And welcome to another pro audio suite.
Thanks to try. Don'tforget the tribus memo.
It's the portable oneyou can stick in your hand luggage.
(00:41):
And of course, Austrianaudio Viking passion herd.
Speaking of hearing things,while I'm always hearing things.
Actually, to be quite honest.But that's another story.
George, you've
been doing a webinarwhich is going to be on your site as well,
which is,the title being microphones for VoiceOver.
A lot of thought went into that one.
Our microphones for voiceover.
(01:03):
Yeah.
So it's a kind of, like what, webinaron microphones or voiceover.
How original.
It's kind of funnythat we really never did any content
about microphones for voiceover.
It's just one of those pieces of contentthat I've talked about ad nauseum
in so many formats,but I never just sat down and demoed
with a few folks, folkslistening in and asking questions.
(01:25):
An array of mics.
And so that's what I did today.
And I got I started at the lowest endwith the Audio Technica 875 bar
and worked my way up to the AustrianAudio OC 818,
which is in my collection anyway,which is a small collection.
It's themy most premium high end microphone.
So I just went along to hear thethe range.
(01:47):
And so and you guys thought,hey, I've never really heard the Audio
Technica 875 R.
And so here it is. Gotcha.
So that is the that isI and I went into my RODECaster Pro two.
I went into processingand I disabled processing.
So this is what the eight 75 hoursounds like.
(02:07):
It's about a fist in an inch maybe five, 4
or 5in off to my left,
pointing towards the corner of my mouthand no pop screen.
Sounds pretty good.
Well, you're going to hearsome ambient room noise.
You're going to hearsome background noise.
Because again, I'm not I'm doingzero processing.
You know, traditionally we process
(02:27):
and I have some expander and stufffor gating on this.
This is just as is.
And I've always felt thatthe EQ of this mic is really pleasing
and not a far cryfrom something like a 416
making an extremely good budget stunt mic,
or a 416 or 41 six.
(02:48):
It seems pretty smooth.
Yeah, it doesn't seem too harsh.
Actually, it's not harsh.
I don't mind thatit's it's not quite as the cut of a 416,
but it doesn't have the harshnessthat might come with that too.
It's pretty smooth.
And this is like what, $150mic was in that ballpark?
Yeah, it's well under 200 US usually.
(03:10):
And what about directionality, George,in terms of like if you were comparing it
to say, an ntg five or a 4160,are they fairly similar.
Directionality.
Well, like if I start working offaxis one, you know,
it has a fair amount ofrejection of dust and sides.
It's a
it's a it's a line gradient microphone.
(03:31):
So it's not the same design as a 441 six.
It's not an RF mic and it's not a tube.
What do they call it, a tube interference.
No, it's a it has an interference tube,but it sure looks interference to
this one does not have an interferencetube per se I don't think
because if you look at the sideyou guys can see
(03:53):
it has a very open side slotand then the capsules towards the back,
kind of like a traditional shotgun,like what's what's the model again?
The on the 81, it's called the 8875 are.
So I think this isa really great budget mic.
And I recommend it to a lot of people
(04:13):
with less than ideal roomsbecause it picks up less room noise.
It's more directional, has a very pleasingEQ, it has two weak points.
One of them is it's selfnoise is elevated.
It's definitely noisier.
You put it up in a quiet roomand you're going to notice the difference
between this and really any other,you know, popular condenser.
(04:34):
It's certainly muchhigher than an anti one.
It's noticeably higher than a 416.
You pot it up and you hear a prettygeneral kind of a white noise from this.
But it's a is a is itthe kind of noise that kind of goes away.
It's like a smooth consistent noise.
Or is it got like a peak.
No it's it's smooth.
(04:55):
It. Yeah.
It's a very smooth consistent white noise.
Very flat.
So I find objectionable.
Yeah. It's kind of like a,
you know, a tape recorder, real hiss,you know, kind of thing.
Yeah. And so it's not objectionable.
The other thing that is a pro or conand it totally depends on the user,
is a low end.
It has a built in roll off.
(05:16):
It's a pretty aggressive, low cut.
So it does not have a lot of bottom.
And so if you're going for a big bottomsound, this is not the mic.
This is not what you want to use.
Aggressive in terms of the curve oraggressive in terms of where it's cutting.
That's a good question.
And I don't know if I've ever seen a curveor lot frequency plot of the mic.
(05:38):
Just listening to it when I throw it up toa 41 six, there's a definite difference.
I mean, if you give me 30sto switch to mics
while you guys talk amongst yourselves,I'll play some elevator pretty quickly.
Go to a 416.
Well, here, I'll.
I'll give you some useless info.
I always feel like the sideopen side grilles of this
(05:59):
Audio-Technicamicrophone always look like it's broken.
And someone broke off the side of the mic.
That should have been there.
It it looks a little bitlike the side of whatever.
I think it's the PL15 should have looked like.
But if you take the grille off the side ofit, even 15, you see that kind of thing.
(06:20):
But besides that, it isit is probably one of the shortest,
I guess shotgun mics, like George said, isis it a shotgun?
Yeah, I kind of agree with you on that.
It's a it's an artfrom an industrial design perspective.
It's not premium looking.It looks kind of.
Yeah.
Not very well made, but it's it'ssuch a is such an unbelievable budget
(06:41):
that I kind of don't worry about thatas much.
But yeah, you look at it,you know like something.
What's up with that? I think I'm goingto break it if I pick it up.
Sorry.
My speakers on. Sorry about that.
All right, I'm going to lock this for.
Let's get it around the room.Right. Georgia's boom. This.
Yeah.
Which one do you talking to?
Yeah, that's a bit with the three three,but it looks like it's hundred 90 bucks.
(07:06):
Let'ssee if we can do this without a cable.
That was worth telling you.
Well, in my webinar I actually do.
I do put them like I dotalking to the back of the 41 six
so people can hear thatit has a back lobe.
Okay. Yeah.
Because that's the thing about shotguns
and super cardioid isthey do have a back, a lobe.
They pick up a bit from the back.
(07:27):
And it's interesting because it's a prettymuch a full spectrum pickup.
It's not a super filtered sound.
It's just it's just lower.
It just it doesn't quite have the reach.
It's not it's right.
It's got to pick up.
But it's not the same gainor reach as the front of it.
But it's it's kind of, figure eight ish.
Because if you think about it, a figureeight also rejects
(07:48):
incredibly well from the side and. Right.
And all that energy,you know, it's like squeezing a balloon.
The energy is somewhere else.
So now I'm on the 41 sixand my my partners
that sound, there's that sound,but you can hear that low,
the bottom octave of thethat the 88, 75 doesn't hear.
(08:09):
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
So yeah.
From a mid to high from a midto high frequency
spectrumI think the two are not too far off.
Crazy far from each other.
But the low end.
Yeah.
You don't get, you don't get the extensionfor 16 on the 875 at all.
So, so it's not going to be for everybody.
(08:29):
And, but I think for a lot of people,especially women or just people
that need something
that they can pull out of a bagand record it in the back of a car or,
you know, or in their closet or somethingthat's a quick and dirty, get a decent
sounding video. It'sa really good, quick and dirty mic.
Yeah, it doesn't sound like it'sthat hard to EQ that back end.
It depends on how steep that filter isand if it really just right
(08:52):
rolls it off or just kills it,
you know, like you can't EQ back inwhat's not there, you can fake it though.
I always find the the 41six is very harsh on a sibilant voice.
If you were
sibilant,you wouldn't want to be using a 41 six.
Having said that, I'm on.
The Austin Audio CC eight,
(09:14):
which also, heat, but I'm hearinga bit of top end as well in this thing.
Lovely bottom.
I love you on that mic.
I really do. It's a great,great microphone.
This one I'mactually trying to look up with the 88.
It's kind of funnyyou set that up in your room is like oh.
I'm just going to give this a try andlook at this become here's my six months.
Yeah, it's the ideal
(09:35):
podcast sound. That's right.
But the strange thing isI took it on the road
that this was the micI used in the back of the car.
And, and
everyone was like, Holy shit,that sounds amazing.
But it also is.
We've when we were chatting with, Kirkfrom,
Austin Audio for Kurt Torrey,
he was saying about the voicing of thismicrophone
(09:57):
is not dissimilarto the one I used in the 18.
Oh, it doeshave you can tell he's in the same family.
It's interesting.
I do like that, so I do you tend to goeven though this is a really, you know,
budget level, entry level mic,they still do print and create,
you know, a polar pattern and a frequencyresponse diagram for that mic.
(10:19):
So you can get a real honest,look at what's kind of interesting about
it is that other mics in its price pointfor shotguns would be battery
powered shotguns for that, it'strue of those camera people.
Yeah. You know, like a preamp that is 48.
And this thing is like it's at that pricepoint for the I just need a shotgun mic.
And I don't give a crap about mikesbecause I put all my money into my lens.
(10:42):
But it needs 48 Phantom,which kind of assumes
a higher level of equipment is behind.Sure.
It is very impressive.
It was bottom end isn't it? That mic?Yeah, it's it's steep.
It's a steep roll off and their axle specis that's what the key.
What's, what's the NI point 100, 100 100.
Yeah.
Then it falls off a cliff.
Just getting started. Does. Yeah.
(11:05):
Yeah. That's key down that hill. Yeah.
You notice the
frequency response spec is 90 to 20 K.
So they can they basically consider
after 90 DB you don't use this monthnothing you're going to use.
Consider this for basicallyput it on the top of the camera.
Totally. What it's for.
(11:25):
Yeah this is and it's shortfor that reason too.
So it doesn't like it's short. Yeah, yeah.
Throw it on a video camera. Itlives in the bag.
Takes a beating.
It's for people that don't carethat much about, you know, the audio.
It's just a mic that lives on the camera.
That's why I just want a camera mic.
Yeah.
As it literally says, it's for energyand e r or FP.
(11:46):
What's FP?
I know what NGO is, but what's FPaudio acquisition.
Oh it's like field production I guess.
Yeah I yeah I just didn'texpect it to be as a not
as pleasing of a microphone on a voiceas it was because I didn't.
Is it just way.
Yeah. Yeah.
It was a total surprise and I don'tremember where I first discovered the mic.
(12:08):
I don't remember where it came from.
It's just been I've had the mic foreverand it's just been around.
So yeah, it's, it's
a, it's a very commonly recommended micfor me at this point when someone's on a,
again on a budgetor they already have a 41, 6 or 95
and they want to have an ultra budget micfor not being worried about being lost.
Yeah.
(12:29):
In the broken or damaged, actually,speaking of the 41
six though, and we we talked about thisbefore we started recording.
When we did the comparison years agowith a whole bunch of mics.
In fact, the box I had hereand we put the anti one,
the rode into one up against the 41 six
and they were so close it was ridiculous.
(12:51):
Yeah. Like it was so shocking.
It was crazy.
But yeah.
But but I'm I'm getting a similar vibe
of a similar situationbecause I remember thinking how bizarre
it was that this large diaphragm likesounds like a small diaphragm shotgun mic.
And then you're saying the same thingabout the eight in the eight when they
it could not be more differentin their construction.
(13:12):
Yeah, I've just been recently.
It's weirddiving into watching this extremely long,
video tour of general like,
I don't know if you guys have seen it.
They get some production expert
or what's one of thosevery popular YouTube channels?
I think is it produced like a pro?
Is it produced like a pro?
Yeah, I think so.
It's like,is it Warren Hewitt going to show you it.
(13:34):
Yeah.
It's it's it's fun because it's, you know,they go to the museum,
there's like a basement room,you know, with all the junk.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, every,every manufacturer has their own museum.
It's like, sure has that too.
Yeah, but but that's always beentheir design philosophy is doesn't matter
how big or smallthe speaker is, has the same voice.
(13:54):
It's true is
one which is very a big deal with channelEQ, right.
Okay.
I can definitely say that about likethe number all the way up to the big boys.
Of course, as you go bigger, theyget louder and they have more low end.
Other than that, voices,they sound extremely similar, like I can
I can attest to that because, you know,when I was another country,
(14:17):
they had big three waygentle acts that had the,
I forget what the exact model was,but like 18 inch woofers.
And then we would spend a lot of our timeon the ten 30s,
and it just always felt like just the lowend kept on going down and down.
But the top end was the same.
Always like it just felt. It's funny.
(14:37):
Yeah.
Because I've got a pair of, 18 tens here,
which is the three inch, three inch,
with three cast aluminum and a tweeterchassis, cast aluminum.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,that that you could throw them downstairs.
I think that'd be fun.
But, it's amazing when you when you firethose things up, you
give them a bit of welly.
They're really, really loud.
(14:59):
I mean, there's two amplifiers in.
Yeah, they're all by tens.
That's a big. Yeah. Yeah.
And, I've had people in herecome in to record.
I did some guys recording some music,doing some vocals and stuff in here,
and we used the little Gentle Lakesas opposed to the big, Yamaha's.
They were like, oh, I'm like, is it okay?
Is that coming out of those? My
(15:19):
I think our great general likesare the 1029.
So if you know of those and those, those,you could probably squash
a pair of 80 tens with in terms of build,
they're like yeah.
But againI think I buy is that a five inch woofer.
It's like a five inch wooferwith a tweeter.
And they have a metal grillover the tweeter
and a metal grill over the woofer,and there's a volume on it,
(15:42):
and the whole thing is just like,you could just build a house out of them.
Yeah. Right.
Insane.
And, and then are they squareor are they the square ones?
They're they're square.
They're a little bitthey got some angles to them,
but they're basically just blocks.
But yeah, you throw a subwoofer on them.
Boom.
Yeah. Have a great sounding setup.
(16:03):
Yeah. Genetics are amazing.
They're beautiful speakers,that's for sure.
Back to microphones.
I am back to my if you had listened,you could have an NC one
and you could have a kid
and you'd have the large diaphragm sound
from the small diaphragm, the small.
(16:23):
Yeah.
Swap them around. Yeah.
I don't know why I don't want to,but sure, you could,
you could.
This is really a microphone.
Manufacturers don't have the same ideaabout mic design as general,
like does about monitor design.
You know, general like has a very distinctsound curve that they've established
that's generally consideredto be very honest, I guess very flat.
(16:48):
And and you know, they that's their thing.
Whereas if you made a microphone,
the thing about microphonesis they're different.
You don't have seven different sizesof mic with the same voicing.
That is a different I think yes and no.
So I think if you look at the companythat actually so the
the company that bought Austin Audioand the company that they were before
(17:08):
that was be in K mikesand those were test microphones.
And yes, every test microphone you want,it's like supposed to be flat in the same
in truth. Right.
And that's kind of what you're looking for
from a pair of monitors is here'sour version of the truth
from and Jen like is consistent likethey tell the same story all the time.
But then when you look at microphones,especially microphones for music
(17:31):
and kind of also for voice over,you are looking for a particular
paintbrush, one that works well with yourinstrument, your voice, whatever it is.
And you are looking for different sounds.
And I think that's why you see some.
If not, there would be like, you know,ten microphones out there for all of you,
I don't know.
Yeah. True.
(17:52):
That's true.
Yeah. He's a he's one to throw at you.
If channel EQ made headphoneswould they sound like the Austrian Audio
Iix headphones?
Surprisingly gentle.
Like, doesn't make headphones. Isn't it?
Yeah. Like, yeah it is.
It is interestingwhat they do choose not to make,
you know, they haven't gonethe focal route, which is
(18:14):
of course,we make a $3,000 pair of headphones.
Yeah.
I in fact, I was, I wasthey were consistent.
That is being expensive.
Yeah.
I was at the I was at the repair shopwhere my friend does all the Avalon stuff.
I was picking up two, seven,30 sevens to sell for one voice actor
dropping off three Avalon for,for an agency to be,
(18:38):
you know, benched, tuned, calibratedso I could sell them.
I'm gonna have.
Those were the Avalon preamps. Those.
Those were the straight preamps,not the tens.
Like. Yeah.
All together, I have three, seven,three sevens and 220, 22.
The 2020 twos are the two channels.
Solid state,you know, external power supply,
(19:01):
very high high fidelity preamps.
Yeah.
But I was thereand he, had a had a set of vocal
utopias with a broken yoke.
So, you know, the yoke thatthe cup supported inside your headphone.
Yeah. Carbon fiber.
He said the part is $900.
(19:24):
Oh my gosh, I brought you,
crazy.
That's unnecessary. Yeah.
Yeah, it's that's formula one. It is.
It is like the F1 of headphones is true.
Like the really no budget, you know.
So maybe these things have gonebeyond Stax is what you're telling me.
So Cal has, like, taken the $5,000 headspeaker and taken it to the next level.
(19:49):
Yeah.
I mean,
I don't know whatthe top of the line for cars are,
because there seems to be no limit as tohow much you can price a headphone for.
Just like there seems to be no limitto how much you can price a car for
at this point.
And people still sell,they still sell out.
So, you know, itjust every time I hear about more high end
gear and cars and everything,I just realize there's just that
(20:10):
many more people that can affordthese cars than there used to be.
Which is weird.
That's why there's a lot more peoplethat can't afford these.
So those arethose are focal utopias, right?
The ones that I saw on the benchwere a full utopias, right?
They had carbon.Those are $5,000 microphone.
So you're telling me that the yoke is onefifth of the price?
Headphones. Sorry. Headphones.
(20:31):
Well,you could probably use them as a mic too.
But yeahit probably it's a $5,000 headphone.
Yeah. Yeah yeah.
Exactly.
And you're telling methat one of the yokes
is a fifth of the price of that thing?
That's right.
Well,I have a whole nother story to talk about
from that same shopthat might be in another episode.
Doing a meanwhile back on microphones.
(20:52):
Yeah, yeah. That's.
So when are we gonna start using drummicrophones for for voiceover I think
I think the secret hidden micfrom for voiceover is D1 112.
I do get to say 112.
You knew it was used to say the D1 12.
Well think about it. It's got that.
It's got that mid frequency popfor all your heavy metal kick drums
(21:13):
to pop through. Right.
And it's got the bass to itand it's like you know
kick mikes off and do work well for voice.
You know you have your PL 20and your and buyer
M 88 and mikes that work on kick drums.
Workhorse die for silver.You're an innovator Robert.
You really are aiming the RC 20. Yeah.
(21:34):
Do you need a cloudlifteror something for a D1 12?
Yeah. PL 2320. Same Mike.
Yeah. Same mic.
So now we're on the M50, so you guysmay not be too aware of this company.
It's a small U.Scompany based in LA called Mojave.
It's been around a while.
The Mike SA designed by David Royer,David Royer of the Royer
(21:56):
Microphone Company, which normally makesyou known for ribbon and that's right.
That's their. Yeah. Yeah.
But he also designs the mikes for Mojave.
So they're like sister companies.
And and Royer Ribbonmikes are really one of the better ribbon
like a EAA and Royer kind of make thesome of the top end ribbon.
They're the ones that everybody comparesto exactly the, the ones used in on drum
(22:20):
overheads and orchestrasand you know they're fantastic. Sam.
Fantastic mikes.
It's like that.
So anyway but yeah yeah the M50
is another great soundinglarge diaphragm contender.
It's, it's
it's very pleasing.
It's not harsh, it's smooth.
(22:41):
It's got the full spectrum.
There's no low cut switchesor anything on this mic.
So, you know,if you have a rumble problem, these mics
do a lovely jobof picking out rumble and low frequency.
But I demonstrated that in my booth
and I was letting people seeand hear the room tone.
And we were looking at the Rmse meteron Twisted wave, and,
this one's room tone measuredthe highest compared to the 91
(23:05):
and the 41 six,
because simplyit just picks up more low frequency input.
And so the more low frequency sensitivitya mic is going to have, the higher
your metering is going to reflecton your room tone measurement.
This is why we get so caught upin talking about room tone.
And people like,I want to get a lower than a -60 DB.
(23:27):
So, you know, room tone in my studioand I'm like, yeah, you have to consider
the whole frequency spectrumand the low end is the hardest to control.
So I tell people, look, for a lot of folksjust applying a high pass
filter is going to be an adequatetreatment to that issue
is that you can just leave it aloneand let your engineer take care of it.
(23:48):
Yeah, or leave it alone.
If the engineer doesn't carewhat your meter say,
which a professional doesn't carewhat the meter say.
They only careabout mixing with your eyes.
Yeah. Yes.
They don't care what the meter say.
But that's the problem.
When there's athere's this notion that some
the -60 has become the golden numberfor room tone.
(24:08):
And it's because of it.
Audio book companies.
Yeah.
They, they've really put the fear of Godinto all these voiceover people.
Right.
Because they put so much burdenof engineering onto the voiceover person.
Right?
Yep. Now interestingly,when I put up my 41 six in the booth
and I was recording with peaksat just about under zero because I was,
I was using the passportVo with the compressor.
(24:31):
So I had the gain up pretty hot andI was going right up to just about zero.
It's I was getting about -60 on the meteron the 41 six.
So coincidence I don't know.
But that's just where that Mike tendsto meter
out on the room tone,you know, on the self noise.
So, you know, it's justwhat does it sound like?
(24:53):
That's what matters.
Remember that, right?
Yeah, I'd say I used to.
Yeah, I'd say this Mojave seems to havea very smooth top end to it.
Like, from what I can tell, not not much.
I use one of those.
Yeah, I use one of those
probably 15 years ago, mate of minewho had a studio when he for a session,
(25:14):
he just bought that microphoneor it may have been the, brother.
So the M50 is theiris their entry point mic.
So they wanted to come out with somethinga little bit more,
you know, cost effective.
So this one entry pointbeing 500 bucks right.
Entry point being 5 to $600 I think itactually went up in price a little bit.
(25:35):
The Ma
200 201and the 301 and that they have a 301 FET.
That's more likely the mic you'reprobably using.
I don't know if you rememberif it was a tube or a fat mic.
Andrew.
It was a fit and I know
it was actually an entry level onebecause the guy that was using it,
he said, look, thisthis was actually really cheap.
And he said, it sounds fantastic. Yeah.
(25:57):
So it may have been when this came outor may have been the 201,
which is, which was probablyin a similar price point to this.
Was that that this one waswhen it came out.
Yeah. And yeah, they're,they're all great.
You know, the thing about mics is it
how does it soundand what's the quality control like.
Right. Like these mics are hand-built.
The to a degree
(26:18):
the capsule on
the M50 arguablyis probably not a hand-built capsule.
I don't know how they sourcethe capsule on this.
I was going to say like,are they making their own or are they,
at this price point for the M50?
I'd have to find out.
I have to ask, I don't know, I don't wantto I don't want to assume anything.
But the, the QC is a big part of it, too.
(26:40):
The quality control,David really does bench heavy
mic himself,you know, before it walks out of the door,
he puts it up, he listens to it,he signs off and calibrates it.
And that's a big deal for therestill to be the mic designer himself.
His earsgo on that mic before goes out the door.
I think that that means a lot.
Pretty rare these days.
(27:00):
And what are you to saythe price point was for that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for 99 for a while.
The last I checked it was closer to five.
It was closer to 60.I'm I'm looking at one right now.
That's five and a quarter.
That's pretty reasonable still.
And and then it looks like the map is 650,which is not bad.
That's okay. Yeah. Yeah.
And then I'm going back to my last train.
(27:21):
Audio.
Oh. See 707.
Is that what the, condenser handheld is?
Yeah. 707 is it.
This thing has a pod. Go.
Yeah, well, this has an audio.
Q And I'm going to I'm goingto turn off my processing, on this mic.
It just it just has the, that stage likeit just dropped the low end kind of thing.
Yeah.
So this is, it seems that someone's goingto be because you're not too close to it.
(27:44):
Right? Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is like flatand it has this mid-range punch.
There's like a little bit of a range
tent in the, inthe curve, which they said is intentional.
I mean, that was
I don't, you know, I haven't done livesound in so long, so I don't remember
the way I would EQ my handheld
(28:05):
mics a lot,but apparently there's always needing to.
This is a frequency rangethat's desirable in a live sound mic,
because you're trying to get the voiceto kind of
elevate and liftabove the mud of the guitars and stuff.
So I guess that makes sense.
But in a vacuum, when it's just voice,no music, no nothing, I the EQ,
(28:27):
this is not my favorite.
And so I just, I kind of smooth outwhat's what's the model of that one again.
Oh see 707 so this guy is sounds right.
Sorry about that. Yeah.
Oh see 707and the reason I got them to send me
this mic wasI really wanted to see what would be.
I wouldn't mind taking it towhat could be the ultimate travel mic.
(28:51):
You want a micthat has a built in plosive pop filter
you want to might as a buildingshock mount, you want to might.
It has a really nice pickup,
but isn't overly sensitive to lowfrequency and rumble.
These are all things that I think of usas a good travel Mike.
So basically the key that Andrew has,
but without the Q curve of the 707.
(29:13):
So if they made a mic, that was the eight,but the curve, the sound of the car
in the shock mountand the plosive pop production
and out of the OC 707 that could becould be an ultimate portable mic.
I don't. There you go. That's my theory.
Yeah, yeah,
I, I think I think they were goingfor a bit of an sm57 thing with that, like
(29:36):
in terms of its curve IQ.
So yeah, so,so like like a, like a 57 looking at it,
it's got a bump rated around.
It looks likeit's probably like to starting at two K
and ending at aroundten K peaking at five K.
It's got a bump.
Oh yeah.
(29:56):
And then before thatit's pretty damn flat.
Except it you can ski down the hill
at around 157.
It kind of drops off quick.
And then we look at the Austrian.
Audio 707 airliner.
Sam Andrew. Got it, I got it.
(30:16):
Yeah, I was okay.
There we go.
Okay, so the Austrian audio flatter,smoother, like like less jagged.
But it's got a bump that peaks out rightaround four and a half.
K starts at one and a half K,
and then it has a little
extra bump rated around 12 K. So.
(30:37):
But as far as that, that five k bump
in that area that the 57 has,the 707 has it.
And then similarly the 707 is pretty flatfrom one k backwards.
But then you get to 100Hz and
falls off the cliff, I think
I think that's very characteristicof a stage handheld Mike.
(30:57):
Yeah.
The 707 got a really interestingbasket though because it's at
the back of the basket is open. Yeah.
And they probably do thatas you get better smoother off axis
rejection I'm sure. Yeah.
A lot of the sounds of microphones.
Is it the sound of what's in front of it.
It's the sound of what'snot in front of it and how it rejects it
(31:19):
without making that stuffsound bad, like the off axis rejection.
If it sounds good, even though it's off
axis, the idea is that you wantthe sound to attenuate in volume,
but what you don't want is the off axissound to attenuate in some crazy way.
So that all you hearis all the high end crappy stuff.
You know, that's like crappy, like bleed.
(31:40):
But if it's just, hey,a little extra volume of that stuff, it's
a lot more manageable on stagethan every time I pull the singer up.
I get all of the symbols in a harsh,nasty way.
Yeah, yeah.
So, George, where can people go to yourwebinar to hear all these microphones?
Well, have we heard the,where would they find?
We heard the 818 up or where we go.
(32:01):
Well, you've been listeningto one whole episode.
Oh, yeah.
So that's.
Yeah,
I wanted to I wanted to try to get theI guess I didn't notice or,
like like when you switched from the, M50to the 818, I was, I was, I was going to.
That's kind of curious about that.Don't throw it.
Oh, do you want to hear that? Yeah.Yeah yeah, yeah.
(32:22):
All right.
Give me, give me 20sto walk into the booth and grab it.
And do you know the interesting thingthat I find with the 818,
I did a comparison with, for one for eBay.
Even though it's the nylon capsulewhich everyone get is nylon capsule.
Get the brass capsule.
I don'tI don't think is the brass capsule,
(32:42):
in my opinion,is that much different to the nylon one.
The fact that people actuallysent them off repair came back
with a vinyl capsuleand they didn't know, kind of.
Yeah. Agrees with that, that comment.
But anyway, I did it
and it was really interestingbecause the 818 on the, for one for web,
were very similar.
(33:02):
You just you could just hear the 414was just a bit dull in comparison, but
they certainly were in the same ballparkand same same design.
Obviously there's the they are, the K 12.
I mean, even the name of the capsulesare pretty similar.
What does it like the C k 12 scale1212 and c k 12.
(33:22):
Yeah yeah yeah.
So so they, they were very honest about itI think.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because it was the K 12 capsule.
They were,they were trying to make a c k 12.
That was easier to manufacture I think.
Yeah George has the best handheld 818.
Yeah I just
I don't feel like I'mthreading the shock now.
(33:43):
Right now for the other mic,but yeah this is now the 818,
hangingroughly in the same place as the M50.
I'm holding it by my hand and
it's on cardioid,it's on flat and it's no pad.
So that's that's what that might soundslike with nothing going on.
Just the mic itself. No processing.
(34:03):
There may be some post-processing,
you know, on the mics of the showhere a little bit, but that's it.
That's the 818.
So it is a different it'sa different sound than the M50 isn't it.
And it's officially
my favorite voice over micI love it trying to recall that M50 now.
And do you guys have any thoughts onwhat the differences were or
are you going to put that 50 back upthere? George.
(34:25):
Looks like there's the M50.
Now I'm back on the M3.
Okay.
So some more top endI think maybe 50 is a little bit
more quote unquote hi fi or disco smile.
Yeah.
Yeah yeah. It sounds like it's more to me.
Yeah. Yeah.
And the A1 eight is a little bitmore flat, a little bit more honest.
(34:47):
You know just differentI think I like the 818 better
when they sound like a better betterkind of
balance to it.
But they are a nice mike.
They I love it.
They're very nice.
In fact I just checked I just checkedmy CCI and I've got a six, 60
highpass 000.
(35:07):
You flip the switch on itfor the 60 high pass.
Yeah. It was, it was on there.
I actually had it flicked.
I think it doesthe tour from the sentence work
to flip that switch.
That's one of the.
It's one of those cars thing.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah. There you go.
Well there you go.
(35:27):
Masterclass in microphones.
Yeah exactly.
At the mi 50 voicingis really there's sort of like this thing
I think with voicing there's
when you're,when you're new to voice over or not.
Not new to voiceover.
Really new to voice recordingor even audio engineering.
You know in your musiciana mike that sounds more exciting
(35:48):
is going to sell better.
It just if it's got a little bitmore brightness, a little more cut,
it's just that's what people want to hear.
Just like with headphones, if it's got alittle bit more top end, it's more sizzle.
It's justthe sizzle is what people look for.
But when you become more, your tasteimproves.
You know, when you're hearing the finewines, you know what I mean?
You notice those. You don't, you don't.
(36:11):
You're not fooled by things that colorthe sound to sell the mic.
And this makesit sound like I'm cheapening the M50.
I'm really not.
But they're an understanding the marketfor that, Mike, is entry point.
And I would saythe equivalent statement is like,
if you go to Best Buy or whateverand you go check out your stereo systems
(36:31):
and you just buy it based onlike which one has more low end.
Yeah. Which one's got most.
But you're not really getting the bettersound.
Yeah,yeah. It's just like you're just. Yeah.
Oh, I'm more impressed.
You know, likewhich car engine is louder or something.
But what we care about more is like,how equable is that, Mike?
Can it be.
Can I get everything I need out of that?Mike?
Are all the frequencies there? That's.
(36:54):
And and and in a smooth way.
Like, they're not like some jagged thing.
So that when I pop this frequency area up,I get my jagged mouth.
Weird becomes even more weird.
Yeah.
Like if I add a four kilohertz bump
and that also going to make, like thisreally jagged tooth stick out, you know,
(37:16):
because there's like a right bumpin the like, you know,
that's why the smootherthe response is better.
We get one DB there. Derivation
plus or minus.
You know as you add more and more boost,it's going to stand out even more.
It's going to just really jump out of.Yeah.
So and that's and that'swhy one of the funny things that's like,
you know, ribbon mikes,they're lower output.
(37:37):
They tend to be noisier.
They tend to not have as much high end.
But one thing I can say about ribbonmikes, very often
they take two EQ extremely well. Yeah.
And they sound frequencies missing.
There's no frequencies missingand there's no frequencies
artificially.
They don't tend to be like smootherand they just sort of sound.
(37:58):
They have a natural almost
a boringness to them is yes, the problem.
Road actually release that into youryou know that their ribbon might.
Oh yeah.
I don't know whatever happened to it.
I don't think they pushed it very hard
and it kind of sat on a few shelvesin music stores, I guess.
But I always wanted to try,
wanted to see what it was like,because what I read was,
(38:18):
unlike most ribbon mics,this one was actually quite
hyped in the top end,which is ultra ribbon possible.
They must have just tuned it well,and it's also like, how do you do that?
In a way, it's
like how you tension the ribbon and stuff,because I believe that ribbon mikes,
you know, like, okay, condensermikes have a lot of electronics in them.
(38:40):
Ribbon mikes tend not to
they're usually a transformer, a magnet,and a ribbon for the most part.
Yeah.
And similarwith the with a dynamic moving coil.
Mike, their coil diaphragm,
a transformer quite often.
I don't know how many, in fact, are theremany transformer less dynamic mikes?
(39:01):
I don't even know if there are.
So they, they just tend to have lessgoing on with them.
But it does hearken back towhen we were talking to,
Derek at Vanguard,and the thing that he kept on going back
to, the biggest differenceis the voicing of the capsule.
It's true what a fine art that is voicing.
Absolutely.
You know, the electronicsare going to make your difference
(39:23):
with the noise floor and that stuff,but the sound of it is going to be,
I guess, a lot to do with the, the capsule
and the basket.
True.
Here's a question for you,George and Robert in fact.
And really, really,
if there was no budget, you didn'thave to worry about being spendy or not.
(39:43):
What microphone do you thinkwould be the best one for a voice.
And we'll won't say.
I reckon it depends on the voicebecause I like is it in studios here
that you're not thinkingabout traveling or anything.
Just like what's the best thinglike given a given the right
environment, the right, you know,a good proper studio environment?
Oh man, I like it.
Use 67 I love it, I love the 67,
(40:07):
if you weren't sure andand you had an unlimited budget.
I'll be honest,the mic I would probably pick is A416,
because it's the sound that people expectfor voiceover.
Yeah, for voiceover.Yeah, yeah. It's true.
If you if you're not sure, if you've gotno idea 41 six and you can't go wrong.
It's true.
Okay.
I would agree that the 41 six probablyfor most projects, especially broadcast
(40:29):
oriented commercialsand things like that, it's
just going to get you there quickerwithout it.
Sounds familiar.
This is the way I sayit just sounds familiar.
I do think like a really nice.
Yeah.
Like I go to the best mic, you know,they I've ever recorded on is an original
use 67 and it's like, you know likefirst time you smoked pot or something.
(40:52):
I've never smoked pot.
Oh. I feel think I should try it.
I highly recommend it.
And the 60.
You hear the mic later and throw up.
Right. It does it.
Well, I'm lucky
because I got to use and hear thatMike quite a bit with David Kay.
And the reason we stopped usingit was just purely
(41:14):
just this persnicketynature of those mikes.
And yeah,that Peluso PS 67 was a good enough stand
in thatthat that Mike took over his daily driver.
So he still has one use 67 in the closet.
You know, it sounds great.
My two favorite mikes that I use that Iif I could only have
(41:38):
one, if I could only have one microphoneI think it would be an eight one.
I, I was a great, versatile.
And I'm not saying thatbecause like we always say Austrian
audio sponsored this show,but I'm not saying because of that.
It's just a fucking good mic.
I don't care what it is.It's a great mike.
And the only other oneI would consider if I had two would be
(41:58):
maybe the, Mike chick fil,
my 92.11.
That's that's a beautiful Mike.
That one still sitting in the box.
So so
Andrew did marry
his true lovethat he's got he's got the legacy lives.
Exactly.
Yeah, I, I only have a fake 67.
(42:19):
I don't know enough that I'll say this.
If anybody's going, they're biased.
Of course they like they when they.
I mean, check out the Andrewyou Know, podcast.
It just reveals 818.
I mean, he's like.
And that guy literally doesnothing but sit there
and listen to Michael microphones.
Yeah. All day in comparison.
And he always puts them up against theyou 87 and 103 and
(42:40):
and he was blown away by the eight when he
I mean he just was likethis is a instant classic.
He literally used the wordthis is an instant classic.
I, I thinkI think another one thing about the 818
is itpunches so high above its price point,
I totally I, I got mine about a year agoand I
and I was always swapping mikes becauseI'd be happy with something for a while.
(43:04):
And then it got,I haven't taken this down in a year.
Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, to me that says pretty muchit says a lot.
So. Yeah.
And keep in mind it'sreally it's really like two microphones.
You get that dual output.
It is technically capable of
so much more than othermikes, just in terms of,
(43:27):
you know,
remotely switching patternsand I guess even like, I didn't
I haven't even messed with it now,but using the polar pattern thing
and then embedding that into the mike,
the, the, you know, the softwarewhere you can then send that.
Isn'tthat something you can do with the 818.
Yeah. The pattern, the polar design.
Yeah. Yeah.
(43:49):
Yeah it's yeah it's definitelyan incredible mike and that's what it.
Yeah.
1200 bucks right. Yeah. It's a bit more.
You said it's about 1800 1900 hereprobably.
Yeah.
It's still andand you know that plug in great value
I think that it's not just a plug in thatyou have to run in a dog either,
you know because yeah that'swhat I'm saying.
(44:09):
You can embed that said Mike. Right.
You can bet into the firmware of the mikethrough that little Bluetooth
dongle thing.
And now that secret, your own secretpickup pattern that's unique to you
that nobody else has is in the mikeand nobody has that.
I have not seen anybody tried to do that.
That is a 100% unique feature.
(44:30):
Yes, it really is.
Yes. I knowLouis tried to do stuff like that,
and I don't know whether they added thatas well, but, they certainly have the two,
if I dare say there's sister companies,maybe they're not in the sense
that they came out of the parentbeing AKG brothers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
So let's let's see here is Lou it fell
(44:53):
and then Austrian audio is Neumannor because some people think
that actually fell is the true Neumannnine one.
That's absolutely is.
So then Austrian audio is the giftfell in that context.
Yeah. So that was good.
So I mean
the probably people are wonderingwhat the hell are you talking about?
(45:13):
The the thing aboutif you think about Neumann, it's actually,
a mother company, right.
Because it's owned by Sennheiser.
And give Phil has all the original,
tooling and everythingbecause and that all goes back to
and no one knowsthat goes back to World War two
when they sliced Germany in half,the factory was in one place.
And then Neumann,the guy ran to the west, right.
(45:37):
He got out thehe went back to Berlin and reopened.
But all of the original toolswere in the East.
Yeah.
So Neumann was inCA fell because of the bombings in Berlin.
So they got the factory up and went to getfell in, which became East Germany.
And and then Norman went backand started up Neumann again in Berlin.
(45:58):
Well, it fell justand they actually worked together
for quite a while until the wall went up.
And once the wall went up,that was the end of that.
So Kessel got isolatedand just continue doing that.
But you want amike built on the original equipment?
It's a it's a good kefir.
Yeah.
If you want an M7 capsule built on theoriginal tooling then you get a good fill.
Yeah yeah yeah.
(46:19):
So yeah.
So so then and then where is where is AKG.
And that whole thinglike AKG shows up after the war.
They're not a companythat's before the war. Right.
I'm not sure when they started actuallyI don't know I think were they not
I have no idea.
Like I mean they certainly show uppretty soon after because the C12
is like kind of and you know,they're doing stuff for Tesla Funkin.
(46:40):
So yeah.
So they're they're definitely in thatlike by the 60s they're definitely well
established, which meansthey probably added absolute 50s.
You know, you know you know
Newman's 1140s because those 47you know things like that.
So yeah
I don't know exactly how old it is.
19 1947. Yeah.
Because it's not the same timeno anymore okay.
(47:02):
Yeah. 1947.
So because they were supplyingtelephone con and the alarm
five one and C12 were actuallythe same microphone pretty much.
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah.
So AKG is definitely a postwar company.
Yeah.
And they and they it's like it's so funnybecause it's like that
original capsule that c k 12 capsulethat's like that designed from
(47:24):
because the C the C12 is one of theirfirst mics for AKG.
Right.
The AKG din series were at the time thattime manufactured by hand by five workers.
In 1949, the first AKG headphonescame on the market.
There you go.
Two years later.
Wow. Okay.How is it that these guys. Yeah.
How is it today?
Essentially, for all, for lack of a betterway, I mean, for a lack of,
(47:47):
you know, a better way of saying
how do they essentially perfectthe mic capsule in the 40s
before we had the monitoring backto monitor the full range of sound
the way we do now, or I think they werethey were somehow testing them.
They were telling them by hand.
Well, it was it was all hand tension,but it was it was one of the things
(48:08):
you'd also have to optimize it forwhatever was the benchmark at the time.
I suppose we knew. Right?
You know,
I don't know what the tension was because
did they have like how do you check,you know, like like you think about a drum
head, you can push on itand you can check the tension on it,
but something as fragile as a microphonediaphragm.
How do you I think they were just handtensioning them and
(48:32):
and somehow feeling the tension on eitherend of whatever film they place it on.
In the early designs,we're trying to figure out what,
what what are theycut back straight or something
that they placed the gold ontoand it was mylar substrate.
It became prop substrate.That's the word. Right.
And they would,you know, like mylar was good
(48:52):
and they had all thesegreat pop properties,
but then they found out, as in the caseof the M7, that it deteriorates over time
and whatever it is that AKG uses
and thenand then how to screw it all together.
And that's where the brass capsulewas a pain in the ass.
So the nylon capsulewas like more like snap together.
And so they refined the manufacturingprocess by doing the nylon capsule.
(49:15):
But somehow. But you still had to.
They were still tuned by ear,though, weren't they?
I wonder if they use it like an it.
Was it an oscilloscope telescope?
Would they use that?
I don't know how you put us.
You're not putting electricitythrough a diaphragm.
You're putting physical vibrations.They're moving.
Yeah, I,
I think I think what they were doing isthey would make a bunch of capsules,
(49:36):
hand tension them.
So they probably had some sort of to toolthat would tell you the tension.
But it's like a drum head.
There's many tensionsgoing across a circular thing.
So it's really kind of an art to getconsistent tension across everything.
And then you got to clamp it downat the right moment
when you have it all tensionedso a million things can go wrong.
They make a bunch of capsules
(49:57):
and they listen to themand they chuck the ones that are bad.
Yeah.
Which is what they did with the C12and was why
they moved from brass to nylon,because they have a lot of rejects.
This is like a comic stripstarted off as let's talk about mice and,
you know, studio mice.
And now all of a sudden we're
sort of like back in the war, backwhen I were a child.
Yeah, Iwhen I realized, you know, it was right.
(50:20):
War time. You know,it wasn't like that in mind. I
did not.
Microphone.
No. We used to live in a little boxin the middle of the road.
And I think that's also why you talk a lotabout those vintage mikes
and not all that.
All vintage mics sound the same, you know.
No, there isn't the handmade natureof them.
(50:41):
Yeah, things like that.
It's like you buy a handmade carand no one is the same.
Yeah, that's true.That's why I don't buy Handmade County.
But there you go. Yeah,
well, we've gone from microphonesto what else?
To history. Really.
So they're. Yeah. History cars now. Yeah.
That's right.
I think that if you,if you ever do get to a Germany
(51:02):
and you want to go and seea really interesting museum,
take a train ticket, selland go and check out the microtech
officials, have you been there?
Because it's got all that, you know,but I've watched it on its own line.
I got to go save face. Next job.
He's going to become a tour guide.
Yeah, he's he's just warming up.
That's right.
Well that was fun.
Is it over the audio. Sweet.
(51:25):
Thanks to Driver and Austrian audiorecorded
using Source Connectedited by Andrew Peaches and Nick spiral.
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Just ask Rob Aucoin.
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Welcome.
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Hello, everyone. To the pro audio suite.
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Robert Marshall,
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(00:21):
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Ready? Here we go. I'm.
And welcome to another pro audio suite.
Thanks to try. Don'tforget the tribus memo.
It's the portable oneyou can stick in your hand luggage.
(00:41):
And of course, Austrianaudio Viking passion herd.
Speaking of hearing things,while I'm always hearing things.
Actually, to be quite honest.But that's another story.
George, you've
been doing a webinarwhich is going to be on your site as well,
which is,the title being microphones for VoiceOver.
A lot of thought went into that one.
Our microphones for voiceover.
(01:03):
Yeah.
So it's a kind of, like what, webinaron microphones or voiceover.
How original.
It's kind of funnythat we really never did any content
about microphones for voiceover.
It's just one of those pieces of contentthat I've talked about ad nauseum
in so many formats,but I never just sat down and demoed
with a few folks, folkslistening in and asking questions.
(01:25):
An array of mics.
And so that's what I did today.
And I got I started at the lowest endwith the Audio Technica 875 bar
and worked my way up to the AustrianAudio OC 818,
which is in my collection anyway,which is a small collection.
It's themy most premium high end microphone.
So I just went along to hear thethe range.
(01:47):
And so and you guys thought,hey, I've never really heard the Audio
Technica 875 R.
And so here it is. Gotcha.
So that is the that isI and I went into my RODECaster Pro two.
I went into processingand I disabled processing.
So this is what the eight 75 hoursounds like.
(02:07):
It's about a fist in an inch maybe five, 4
or 5in off to my left,
pointing towards the corner of my mouthand no pop screen.
Sounds pretty good.
Well, you're going to hearsome ambient room noise.
You're going to hearsome background noise.
Because again, I'm not I'm doingzero processing.
You know, traditionally we process
(02:27):
and I have some expander and stufffor gating on this.
This is just as is.
And I've always felt thatthe EQ of this mic is really pleasing
and not a far cryfrom something like a 416
making an extremely good budget stunt mic,
or a 416 or 41 six.
(02:48):
It seems pretty smooth.
Yeah, it doesn't seem too harsh.
Actually, it's not harsh.
I don't mind thatit's it's not quite as the cut of a 416,
but it doesn't have the harshnessthat might come with that too.
It's pretty smooth.
And this is like what, $150mic was in that ballpark?
Yeah, it's well under 200 US usually.
(03:10):
And what about directionality, George,in terms of like if you were comparing it
to say, an ntg five or a 4160,are they fairly similar.
Directionality.
Well, like if I start working offaxis one, you know,
it has a fair amount ofrejection of dust and sides.
It's a
it's a it's a line gradient microphone.
(03:31):
So it's not the same design as a 441 six.
It's not an RF mic and it's not a tube.
What do they call it, a tube interference.
No, it's a it has an interference tube,but it sure looks interference to
this one does not have an interferencetube per se I don't think
because if you look at the sideyou guys can see
(03:53):
it has a very open side slotand then the capsules towards the back,
kind of like a traditional shotgun,like what's what's the model again?
The on the 81, it's called the 8875 are.
So I think this isa really great budget mic.
And I recommend it to a lot of people
(04:13):
with less than ideal roomsbecause it picks up less room noise.
It's more directional, has a very pleasingEQ, it has two weak points.
One of them is it's selfnoise is elevated.
It's definitely noisier.
You put it up in a quiet roomand you're going to notice the difference
between this and really any other,you know, popular condenser.
(04:34):
It's certainly muchhigher than an anti one.
It's noticeably higher than a 416.
You pot it up and you hear a prettygeneral kind of a white noise from this.
But it's a is a is itthe kind of noise that kind of goes away.
It's like a smooth consistent noise.
Or is it got like a peak.
No it's it's smooth.
(04:55):
It. Yeah.
It's a very smooth consistent white noise.
Very flat.
So I find objectionable.
Yeah. It's kind of like a,
you know, a tape recorder, real hiss,you know, kind of thing.
Yeah. And so it's not objectionable.
The other thing that is a pro or conand it totally depends on the user,
is a low end.
It has a built in roll off.
(05:16):
It's a pretty aggressive, low cut.
So it does not have a lot of bottom.
And so if you're going for a big bottomsound, this is not the mic.
This is not what you want to use.
Aggressive in terms of the curve oraggressive in terms of where it's cutting.
That's a good question.
And I don't know if I've ever seen a curveor lot frequency plot of the mic.
(05:38):
Just listening to it when I throw it up toa 41 six, there's a definite difference.
I mean, if you give me 30sto switch to mics
while you guys talk amongst yourselves,I'll play some elevator pretty quickly.
Go to a 416.
Well, here, I'll.
I'll give you some useless info.
I always feel like the sideopen side grilles of this
(05:59):
Audio-Technicamicrophone always look like it's broken.
And someone broke off the side of the mic.
That should have been there.
It it looks a little bitlike the side of whatever.
I think it's the PL15 should have looked like.
But if you take the grille off the side ofit, even 15, you see that kind of thing.
(06:20):
But besides that, it isit is probably one of the shortest,
I guess shotgun mics, like George said, isis it a shotgun?
Yeah, I kind of agree with you on that.
It's a it's an artfrom an industrial design perspective.
It's not premium looking.It looks kind of.
Yeah.
Not very well made, but it's it'ssuch a is such an unbelievable budget
(06:41):
that I kind of don't worry about thatas much.
But yeah, you look at it,you know like something.
What's up with that? I think I'm goingto break it if I pick it up.
Sorry.
My speakers on. Sorry about that.
All right, I'm going to lock this for.
Let's get it around the room.Right. Georgia's boom. This.
Yeah.
Which one do you talking to?
Yeah, that's a bit with the three three,but it looks like it's hundred 90 bucks.
(07:06):
Let'ssee if we can do this without a cable.
That was worth telling you.
Well, in my webinar I actually do.
I do put them like I dotalking to the back of the 41 six
so people can hear thatit has a back lobe.
Okay. Yeah.
Because that's the thing about shotguns
and super cardioid isthey do have a back, a lobe.
They pick up a bit from the back.
(07:27):
And it's interesting because it's a prettymuch a full spectrum pickup.
It's not a super filtered sound.
It's just it's just lower.
It just it doesn't quite have the reach.
It's not it's right.
It's got to pick up.
But it's not the same gainor reach as the front of it.
But it's it's kind of, figure eight ish.
Because if you think about it, a figureeight also rejects
(07:48):
incredibly well from the side and. Right.
And all that energy,you know, it's like squeezing a balloon.
The energy is somewhere else.
So now I'm on the 41 sixand my my partners
that sound, there's that sound,but you can hear that low,
the bottom octave of thethat the 88, 75 doesn't hear.
(08:09):
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
So yeah.
From a mid to high from a midto high frequency
spectrumI think the two are not too far off.
Crazy far from each other.
But the low end.
Yeah.
You don't get, you don't get the extensionfor 16 on the 875 at all.
So, so it's not going to be for everybody.
(08:29):
And, but I think for a lot of people,especially women or just people
that need something
that they can pull out of a bagand record it in the back of a car or,
you know, or in their closet or somethingthat's a quick and dirty, get a decent
sounding video. It'sa really good, quick and dirty mic.
Yeah, it doesn't sound like it'sthat hard to EQ that back end.
It depends on how steep that filter isand if it really just right
(08:52):
rolls it off or just kills it,
you know, like you can't EQ back inwhat's not there, you can fake it though.
I always find the the 41six is very harsh on a sibilant voice.
If you were
sibilant,you wouldn't want to be using a 41 six.
Having said that, I'm on.
The Austin Audio CC eight,
(09:14):
which also, heat, but I'm hearinga bit of top end as well in this thing.
Lovely bottom.
I love you on that mic.
I really do. It's a great,great microphone.
This one I'mactually trying to look up with the 88.
It's kind of funnyyou set that up in your room is like oh.
I'm just going to give this a try andlook at this become here's my six months.
Yeah, it's the ideal
(09:35):
podcast sound. That's right.
But the strange thing isI took it on the road
that this was the micI used in the back of the car.
And, and
everyone was like, Holy shit,that sounds amazing.
But it also is.
We've when we were chatting with, Kirkfrom,
Austin Audio for Kurt Torrey,
he was saying about the voicing of thismicrophone
(09:57):
is not dissimilarto the one I used in the 18.
Oh, it doeshave you can tell he's in the same family.
It's interesting.
I do like that, so I do you tend to goeven though this is a really, you know,
budget level, entry level mic,they still do print and create,
you know, a polar pattern and a frequencyresponse diagram for that mic.
(10:19):
So you can get a real honest,look at what's kind of interesting about
it is that other mics in its price pointfor shotguns would be battery
powered shotguns for that, it'strue of those camera people.
Yeah. You know, like a preamp that is 48.
And this thing is like it's at that pricepoint for the I just need a shotgun mic.
And I don't give a crap about mikesbecause I put all my money into my lens.
(10:42):
But it needs 48 Phantom,which kind of assumes
a higher level of equipment is behind.Sure.
It is very impressive.
It was bottom end isn't it? That mic?Yeah, it's it's steep.
It's a steep roll off and their axle specis that's what the key.
What's, what's the NI point 100, 100 100.
Yeah.
Then it falls off a cliff.
Just getting started. Does. Yeah.
(11:05):
Yeah. That's key down that hill. Yeah.
You notice the
frequency response spec is 90 to 20 K.
So they can they basically consider
after 90 DB you don't use this monthnothing you're going to use.
Consider this for basicallyput it on the top of the camera.
Totally. What it's for.
(11:25):
Yeah this is and it's shortfor that reason too.
So it doesn't like it's short. Yeah, yeah.
Throw it on a video camera. Itlives in the bag.
Takes a beating.
It's for people that don't carethat much about, you know, the audio.
It's just a mic that lives on the camera.
That's why I just want a camera mic.
Yeah.
As it literally says, it's for energyand e r or FP.
(11:46):
What's FP?
I know what NGO is, but what's FPaudio acquisition.
Oh it's like field production I guess.
Yeah I yeah I just didn'texpect it to be as a not
as pleasing of a microphone on a voiceas it was because I didn't.
Is it just way.
Yeah. Yeah.
It was a total surprise and I don'tremember where I first discovered the mic.
(12:08):
I don't remember where it came from.
It's just been I've had the mic foreverand it's just been around.
So yeah, it's, it's
a, it's a very commonly recommended micfor me at this point when someone's on a,
again on a budgetor they already have a 41, 6 or 95
and they want to have an ultra budget micfor not being worried about being lost.
Yeah.
(12:29):
In the broken or damaged, actually,speaking of the 41
six though, and we we talked about thisbefore we started recording.
When we did the comparison years agowith a whole bunch of mics.
In fact, the box I had hereand we put the anti one,
the rode into one up against the 41 six
and they were so close it was ridiculous.
(12:51):
Yeah. Like it was so shocking.
It was crazy.
But yeah.
But but I'm I'm getting a similar vibe
of a similar situationbecause I remember thinking how bizarre
it was that this large diaphragm likesounds like a small diaphragm shotgun mic.
And then you're saying the same thingabout the eight in the eight when they
it could not be more differentin their construction.
(13:12):
Yeah, I've just been recently.
It's weirddiving into watching this extremely long,
video tour of general like,
I don't know if you guys have seen it.
They get some production expert
or what's one of thosevery popular YouTube channels?
I think is it produced like a pro?
Is it produced like a pro?
Yeah, I think so.
It's like,is it Warren Hewitt going to show you it.
(13:34):
Yeah.
It's it's it's fun because it's, you know,they go to the museum,
there's like a basement room,you know, with all the junk.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, every,every manufacturer has their own museum.
It's like, sure has that too.
Yeah, but but that's always beentheir design philosophy is doesn't matter
how big or smallthe speaker is, has the same voice.
(13:54):
It's true is
one which is very a big deal with channelEQ, right.
Okay.
I can definitely say that about likethe number all the way up to the big boys.
Of course, as you go bigger, theyget louder and they have more low end.
Other than that, voices,they sound extremely similar, like I can
I can attest to that because, you know,when I was another country,
(14:17):
they had big three waygentle acts that had the,
I forget what the exact model was,but like 18 inch woofers.
And then we would spend a lot of our timeon the ten 30s,
and it just always felt like just the lowend kept on going down and down.
But the top end was the same.
Always like it just felt. It's funny.
(14:37):
Yeah.
Because I've got a pair of, 18 tens here,
which is the three inch, three inch,
with three cast aluminum and a tweeterchassis, cast aluminum.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,that that you could throw them downstairs.
I think that'd be fun.
But, it's amazing when you when you firethose things up, you
give them a bit of welly.
They're really, really loud.
(14:59):
I mean, there's two amplifiers in.
Yeah, they're all by tens.
That's a big. Yeah. Yeah.
And, I've had people in herecome in to record.
I did some guys recording some music,doing some vocals and stuff in here,
and we used the little Gentle Lakesas opposed to the big, Yamaha's.
They were like, oh, I'm like, is it okay?
Is that coming out of those? My
(15:19):
I think our great general likesare the 1029.
So if you know of those and those, those,you could probably squash
a pair of 80 tens with in terms of build,
they're like yeah.
But againI think I buy is that a five inch woofer.
It's like a five inch wooferwith a tweeter.
And they have a metal grillover the tweeter
and a metal grill over the woofer,and there's a volume on it,
(15:42):
and the whole thing is just like,you could just build a house out of them.
Yeah. Right.
Insane.
And, and then are they squareor are they the square ones?
They're they're square.
They're a little bitthey got some angles to them,
but they're basically just blocks.
But yeah, you throw a subwoofer on them.
Boom.
Yeah. Have a great sounding setup.
(16:03):
Yeah. Genetics are amazing.
They're beautiful speakers,that's for sure.
Back to microphones.
I am back to my if you had listened,you could have an NC one
and you could have a kid
and you'd have the large diaphragm sound
from the small diaphragm, the small.
(16:23):
Yeah.
Swap them around. Yeah.
I don't know why I don't want to,but sure, you could,
you could.
This is really a microphone.
Manufacturers don't have the same ideaabout mic design as general,
like does about monitor design.
You know, general like has a very distinctsound curve that they've established
that's generally consideredto be very honest, I guess very flat.
(16:48):
And and you know, they that's their thing.
Whereas if you made a microphone,
the thing about microphonesis they're different.
You don't have seven different sizesof mic with the same voicing.
That is a different I think yes and no.
So I think if you look at the companythat actually so the
the company that bought Austin Audioand the company that they were before
(17:08):
that was be in K mikesand those were test microphones.
And yes, every test microphone you want,it's like supposed to be flat in the same
in truth. Right.
And that's kind of what you're looking for
from a pair of monitors is here'sour version of the truth
from and Jen like is consistent likethey tell the same story all the time.
But then when you look at microphones,especially microphones for music
(17:31):
and kind of also for voice over,you are looking for a particular
paintbrush, one that works well with yourinstrument, your voice, whatever it is.
And you are looking for different sounds.
And I think that's why you see some.
If not, there would be like, you know,ten microphones out there for all of you,
I don't know.
Yeah. True.
(17:52):
That's true.
Yeah. He's a he's one to throw at you.
If channel EQ made headphoneswould they sound like the Austrian Audio
Iix headphones?
Surprisingly gentle.
Like, doesn't make headphones. Isn't it?
Yeah. Like, yeah it is.
It is interestingwhat they do choose not to make,
you know, they haven't gonethe focal route, which is
(18:14):
of course,we make a $3,000 pair of headphones.
Yeah.
I in fact, I was, I wasthey were consistent.
That is being expensive.
Yeah.
I was at the I was at the repair shopwhere my friend does all the Avalon stuff.
I was picking up two, seven,30 sevens to sell for one voice actor
dropping off three Avalon for,for an agency to be,
(18:38):
you know, benched, tuned, calibratedso I could sell them.
I'm gonna have.
Those were the Avalon preamps. Those.
Those were the straight preamps,not the tens.
Like. Yeah.
All together, I have three, seven,three sevens and 220, 22.
The 2020 twos are the two channels.
Solid state,you know, external power supply,
(19:01):
very high high fidelity preamps.
Yeah.
But I was thereand he, had a had a set of vocal
utopias with a broken yoke.
So, you know, the yoke thatthe cup supported inside your headphone.
Yeah. Carbon fiber.
He said the part is $900.
(19:24):
Oh my gosh, I brought you,
crazy.
That's unnecessary. Yeah.
Yeah, it's that's formula one. It is.
It is like the F1 of headphones is true.
Like the really no budget, you know.
So maybe these things have gonebeyond Stax is what you're telling me.
So Cal has, like, taken the $5,000 headspeaker and taken it to the next level.
(19:49):
Yeah.
I mean,
I don't know whatthe top of the line for cars are,
because there seems to be no limit as tohow much you can price a headphone for.
Just like there seems to be no limitto how much you can price a car for
at this point.
And people still sell,they still sell out.
So, you know, itjust every time I hear about more high end
gear and cars and everything,I just realize there's just that
(20:10):
many more people that can affordthese cars than there used to be.
Which is weird.
That's why there's a lot more peoplethat can't afford these.
So those arethose are focal utopias, right?
The ones that I saw on the benchwere a full utopias, right?
They had carbon.Those are $5,000 microphone.
So you're telling me that the yoke is onefifth of the price?
Headphones. Sorry. Headphones.
(20:31):
Well,you could probably use them as a mic too.
But yeahit probably it's a $5,000 headphone.
Yeah. Yeah yeah.
Exactly.
And you're telling methat one of the yokes
is a fifth of the price of that thing?
That's right.
Well,I have a whole nother story to talk about
from that same shopthat might be in another episode.
Doing a meanwhile back on microphones.
(20:52):
Yeah, yeah. That's.
So when are we gonna start using drummicrophones for for voiceover I think
I think the secret hidden micfrom for voiceover is D1 112.
I do get to say 112.
You knew it was used to say the D1 12.
Well think about it. It's got that.
It's got that mid frequency popfor all your heavy metal kick drums
(21:13):
to pop through. Right.
And it's got the bass to itand it's like you know
kick mikes off and do work well for voice.
You know you have your PL 20and your and buyer
M 88 and mikes that work on kick drums.
Workhorse die for silver.You're an innovator Robert.
You really are aiming the RC 20. Yeah.
(21:34):
Do you need a cloudlifteror something for a D1 12?
Yeah. PL 2320. Same Mike.
Yeah. Same mic.
So now we're on the M50, so you guysmay not be too aware of this company.
It's a small U.Scompany based in LA called Mojave.
It's been around a while.
The Mike SA designed by David Royer,David Royer of the Royer
(21:56):
Microphone Company, which normally makesyou known for ribbon and that's right.
That's their. Yeah. Yeah.
But he also designs the mikes for Mojave.
So they're like sister companies.
And and Royer Ribbonmikes are really one of the better ribbon
like a EAA and Royer kind of make thesome of the top end ribbon.
They're the ones that everybody comparesto exactly the, the ones used in on drum
(22:20):
overheads and orchestrasand you know they're fantastic. Sam.
Fantastic mikes.
It's like that.
So anyway but yeah yeah the M50
is another great soundinglarge diaphragm contender.
It's, it's
it's very pleasing.
It's not harsh, it's smooth.
(22:41):
It's got the full spectrum.
There's no low cut switchesor anything on this mic.
So, you know,if you have a rumble problem, these mics
do a lovely jobof picking out rumble and low frequency.
But I demonstrated that in my booth
and I was letting people seeand hear the room tone.
And we were looking at the Rmse meteron Twisted wave, and,
this one's room tone measuredthe highest compared to the 91
(23:05):
and the 41 six,
because simplyit just picks up more low frequency input.
And so the more low frequency sensitivitya mic is going to have, the higher
your metering is going to reflecton your room tone measurement.
This is why we get so caught upin talking about room tone.
And people like,I want to get a lower than a -60 DB.
(23:27):
So, you know, room tone in my studioand I'm like, yeah, you have to consider
the whole frequency spectrumand the low end is the hardest to control.
So I tell people, look, for a lot of folksjust applying a high pass
filter is going to be an adequatetreatment to that issue
is that you can just leave it aloneand let your engineer take care of it.
(23:48):
Yeah, or leave it alone.
If the engineer doesn't carewhat your meter say,
which a professional doesn't carewhat the meter say.
They only careabout mixing with your eyes.
Yeah. Yes.
They don't care what the meter say.
But that's the problem.
When there's athere's this notion that some
the -60 has become the golden numberfor room tone.
(24:08):
And it's because of it.
Audio book companies.
Yeah.
They, they've really put the fear of Godinto all these voiceover people.
Right.
Because they put so much burdenof engineering onto the voiceover person.
Right?
Yep. Now interestingly,when I put up my 41 six in the booth
and I was recording with peaksat just about under zero because I was,
I was using the passportVo with the compressor.
(24:31):
So I had the gain up pretty hot andI was going right up to just about zero.
It's I was getting about -60 on the meteron the 41 six.
So coincidence I don't know.
But that's just where that Mike tendsto meter
out on the room tone,you know, on the self noise.
So, you know, it's justwhat does it sound like?
(24:53):
That's what matters.
Remember that, right?
Yeah, I'd say I used to.
Yeah, I'd say this Mojave seems to havea very smooth top end to it.
Like, from what I can tell, not not much.
I use one of those.
Yeah, I use one of those
probably 15 years ago, mate of minewho had a studio when he for a session,
(25:14):
he just bought that microphoneor it may have been the, brother.
So the M50 is theiris their entry point mic.
So they wanted to come out with somethinga little bit more,
you know, cost effective.
So this one entry pointbeing 500 bucks right.
Entry point being 5 to $600 I think itactually went up in price a little bit.
(25:35):
The Ma
200 201and the 301 and that they have a 301 FET.
That's more likely the mic you'reprobably using.
I don't know if you rememberif it was a tube or a fat mic.
Andrew.
It was a fit and I know
it was actually an entry level onebecause the guy that was using it,
he said, look, thisthis was actually really cheap.
And he said, it sounds fantastic. Yeah.
(25:57):
So it may have been when this came outor may have been the 201,
which is, which was probablyin a similar price point to this.
Was that that this one waswhen it came out.
Yeah. And yeah, they're,they're all great.
You know, the thing about mics is it
how does it soundand what's the quality control like.
Right. Like these mics are hand-built.
The to a degree
(26:18):
the capsule on
the M50 arguablyis probably not a hand-built capsule.
I don't know how they sourcethe capsule on this.
I was going to say like,are they making their own or are they,
at this price point for the M50?
I'd have to find out.
I have to ask, I don't know, I don't wantto I don't want to assume anything.
But the, the QC is a big part of it, too.
(26:40):
The quality control,David really does bench heavy
mic himself,you know, before it walks out of the door,
he puts it up, he listens to it,he signs off and calibrates it.
And that's a big deal for therestill to be the mic designer himself.
His earsgo on that mic before goes out the door.
I think that that means a lot.
Pretty rare these days.
(27:00):
And what are you to saythe price point was for that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for 99 for a while.
The last I checked it was closer to five.
It was closer to 60.I'm I'm looking at one right now.
That's five and a quarter.
That's pretty reasonable still.
And and then it looks like the map is 650,which is not bad.
That's okay. Yeah. Yeah.
And then I'm going back to my last train.
(27:21):
Audio.
Oh. See 707.
Is that what the, condenser handheld is?
Yeah. 707 is it.
This thing has a pod. Go.
Yeah, well, this has an audio.
Q And I'm going to I'm goingto turn off my processing, on this mic.
It just it just has the, that stage likeit just dropped the low end kind of thing.
Yeah.
So this is, it seems that someone's goingto be because you're not too close to it.
(27:44):
Right? Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is like flatand it has this mid-range punch.
There's like a little bit of a range
tent in the, inthe curve, which they said is intentional.
I mean, that was
I don't, you know, I haven't done livesound in so long, so I don't remember
the way I would EQ my handheld
(28:05):
mics a lot,but apparently there's always needing to.
This is a frequency rangethat's desirable in a live sound mic,
because you're trying to get the voiceto kind of
elevate and liftabove the mud of the guitars and stuff.
So I guess that makes sense.
But in a vacuum, when it's just voice,no music, no nothing, I the EQ,
(28:27):
this is not my favorite.
And so I just, I kind of smooth outwhat's what's the model of that one again.
Oh see 707 so this guy is sounds right.
Sorry about that. Yeah.
Oh see 707and the reason I got them to send me
this mic wasI really wanted to see what would be.
I wouldn't mind taking it towhat could be the ultimate travel mic.
(28:51):
You want a micthat has a built in plosive pop filter
you want to might as a buildingshock mount, you want to might.
It has a really nice pickup,
but isn't overly sensitive to lowfrequency and rumble.
These are all things that I think of usas a good travel Mike.
So basically the key that Andrew has,
but without the Q curve of the 707.
(29:13):
So if they made a mic, that was the eight,but the curve, the sound of the car
in the shock mountand the plosive pop production
and out of the OC 707 that could becould be an ultimate portable mic.
I don't. There you go. That's my theory.
Yeah, yeah,
I, I think I think they were goingfor a bit of an sm57 thing with that, like
(29:36):
in terms of its curve IQ.
So yeah, so,so like like a, like a 57 looking at it,
it's got a bump rated around.
It looks likeit's probably like to starting at two K
and ending at aroundten K peaking at five K.
It's got a bump.
Oh yeah.
(29:56):
And then before thatit's pretty damn flat.
Except it you can ski down the hill
at around 157.
It kind of drops off quick.
And then we look at the Austrian.
Audio 707 airliner.
Sam Andrew. Got it, I got it.
(30:16):
Yeah, I was okay.
There we go.
Okay, so the Austrian audio flatter,smoother, like like less jagged.
But it's got a bump that peaks out rightaround four and a half.
K starts at one and a half K,
and then it has a little
extra bump rated around 12 K. So.
(30:37):
But as far as that, that five k bump
in that area that the 57 has,the 707 has it.
And then similarly the 707 is pretty flatfrom one k backwards.
But then you get to 100Hz and
falls off the cliff, I think
I think that's very characteristicof a stage handheld Mike.
(30:57):
Yeah.
The 707 got a really interestingbasket though because it's at
the back of the basket is open. Yeah.
And they probably do thatas you get better smoother off axis
rejection I'm sure. Yeah.
A lot of the sounds of microphones.
Is it the sound of what's in front of it.
It's the sound of what'snot in front of it and how it rejects it
(31:19):
without making that stuffsound bad, like the off axis rejection.
If it sounds good, even though it's off
axis, the idea is that you wantthe sound to attenuate in volume,
but what you don't want is the off axissound to attenuate in some crazy way.
So that all you hearis all the high end crappy stuff.
You know, that's like crappy, like bleed.
(31:40):
But if it's just, hey,a little extra volume of that stuff, it's
a lot more manageable on stagethan every time I pull the singer up.
I get all of the symbols in a harsh,nasty way.
Yeah, yeah.
So, George, where can people go to yourwebinar to hear all these microphones?
Well, have we heard the,where would they find?
We heard the 818 up or where we go.
(32:01):
Well, you've been listeningto one whole episode.
Oh, yeah.
So that's.
Yeah,
I wanted to I wanted to try to get theI guess I didn't notice or,
like like when you switched from the, M50to the 818, I was, I was, I was going to.
That's kind of curious about that.Don't throw it.
Oh, do you want to hear that? Yeah.Yeah yeah, yeah.
(32:22):
All right.
Give me, give me 20sto walk into the booth and grab it.
And do you know the interesting thingthat I find with the 818,
I did a comparison with, for one for eBay.
Even though it's the nylon capsulewhich everyone get is nylon capsule.
Get the brass capsule.
I don'tI don't think is the brass capsule,
(32:42):
in my opinion,is that much different to the nylon one.
The fact that people actuallysent them off repair came back
with a vinyl capsuleand they didn't know, kind of.
Yeah. Agrees with that, that comment.
But anyway, I did it
and it was really interestingbecause the 818 on the, for one for web,
were very similar.
(33:02):
You just you could just hear the 414was just a bit dull in comparison, but
they certainly were in the same ballparkand same same design.
Obviously there's the they are, the K 12.
I mean, even the name of the capsulesare pretty similar.
What does it like the C k 12 scale1212 and c k 12.
(33:22):
Yeah yeah yeah.
So so they, they were very honest about itI think.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because it was the K 12 capsule.
They were,they were trying to make a c k 12.
That was easier to manufacture I think.
Yeah George has the best handheld 818.
Yeah I just
I don't feel like I'mthreading the shock now.
(33:43):
Right now for the other mic,but yeah this is now the 818,
hangingroughly in the same place as the M50.
I'm holding it by my hand and
it's on cardioid,it's on flat and it's no pad.
So that's that's what that might soundslike with nothing going on.
Just the mic itself. No processing.
(34:03):
There may be some post-processing,
you know, on the mics of the showhere a little bit, but that's it.
That's the 818.
So it is a different it'sa different sound than the M50 isn't it.
And it's officially
my favorite voice over micI love it trying to recall that M50 now.
And do you guys have any thoughts onwhat the differences were or
are you going to put that 50 back upthere? George.
(34:25):
Looks like there's the M50.
Now I'm back on the M3.
Okay.
So some more top endI think maybe 50 is a little bit
more quote unquote hi fi or disco smile.
Yeah.
Yeah yeah. It sounds like it's more to me.
Yeah. Yeah.
And the A1 eight is a little bitmore flat, a little bit more honest.
(34:47):
You know just differentI think I like the 818 better
when they sound like a better betterkind of
balance to it.
But they are a nice mike.
They I love it.
They're very nice.
In fact I just checked I just checkedmy CCI and I've got a six, 60
highpass 000.
(35:07):
You flip the switch on itfor the 60 high pass.
Yeah. It was, it was on there.
I actually had it flicked.
I think it doesthe tour from the sentence work
to flip that switch.
That's one of the.
It's one of those cars thing.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah. There you go.
Well there you go.
(35:27):
Masterclass in microphones.
Yeah exactly.
At the mi 50 voicingis really there's sort of like this thing
I think with voicing there's
when you're,when you're new to voice over or not.
Not new to voiceover.
Really new to voice recordingor even audio engineering.
You know in your musiciana mike that sounds more exciting
(35:48):
is going to sell better.
It just if it's got a little bitmore brightness, a little more cut,
it's just that's what people want to hear.
Just like with headphones, if it's got alittle bit more top end, it's more sizzle.
It's justthe sizzle is what people look for.
But when you become more, your tasteimproves.
You know, when you're hearing the finewines, you know what I mean?
You notice those. You don't, you don't.
(36:11):
You're not fooled by things that colorthe sound to sell the mic.
And this makesit sound like I'm cheapening the M50.
I'm really not.
But they're an understanding the marketfor that, Mike, is entry point.
And I would saythe equivalent statement is like,
if you go to Best Buy or whateverand you go check out your stereo systems
(36:31):
and you just buy it based onlike which one has more low end.
Yeah. Which one's got most.
But you're not really getting the bettersound.
Yeah,yeah. It's just like you're just. Yeah.
Oh, I'm more impressed.
You know, likewhich car engine is louder or something.
But what we care about more is like,how equable is that, Mike?
Can it be.
Can I get everything I need out of that?Mike?
Are all the frequencies there? That's.
(36:54):
And and and in a smooth way.
Like, they're not like some jagged thing.
So that when I pop this frequency area up,I get my jagged mouth.
Weird becomes even more weird.
Yeah.
Like if I add a four kilohertz bump
and that also going to make, like thisreally jagged tooth stick out, you know,
(37:16):
because there's like a right bumpin the like, you know,
that's why the smootherthe response is better.
We get one DB there. Derivation
plus or minus.
You know as you add more and more boost,it's going to stand out even more.
It's going to just really jump out of.Yeah.
So and that's and that'swhy one of the funny things that's like,
you know, ribbon mikes,they're lower output.
(37:37):
They tend to be noisier.
They tend to not have as much high end.
But one thing I can say about ribbonmikes, very often
they take two EQ extremely well. Yeah.
And they sound frequencies missing.
There's no frequencies missingand there's no frequencies
artificially.
They don't tend to be like smootherand they just sort of sound.
(37:58):
They have a natural almost
a boringness to them is yes, the problem.
Road actually release that into youryou know that their ribbon might.
Oh yeah.
I don't know whatever happened to it.
I don't think they pushed it very hard
and it kind of sat on a few shelvesin music stores, I guess.
But I always wanted to try,
wanted to see what it was like,because what I read was,
(38:18):
unlike most ribbon mics,this one was actually quite
hyped in the top end,which is ultra ribbon possible.
They must have just tuned it well,and it's also like, how do you do that?
In a way, it's
like how you tension the ribbon and stuff,because I believe that ribbon mikes,
you know, like, okay, condensermikes have a lot of electronics in them.
(38:40):
Ribbon mikes tend not to
they're usually a transformer, a magnet,and a ribbon for the most part.
Yeah.
And similarwith the with a dynamic moving coil.
Mike, their coil diaphragm,
a transformer quite often.
I don't know how many, in fact, are theremany transformer less dynamic mikes?
(39:01):
I don't even know if there are.
So they, they just tend to have lessgoing on with them.
But it does hearken back towhen we were talking to,
Derek at Vanguard,and the thing that he kept on going back
to, the biggest differenceis the voicing of the capsule.
It's true what a fine art that is voicing.
Absolutely.
You know, the electronicsare going to make your difference
(39:23):
with the noise floor and that stuff,but the sound of it is going to be,
I guess, a lot to do with the, the capsule
and the basket.
True.
Here's a question for you,George and Robert in fact.
And really, really,
if there was no budget, you didn'thave to worry about being spendy or not.
(39:43):
What microphone do you thinkwould be the best one for a voice.
And we'll won't say.
I reckon it depends on the voicebecause I like is it in studios here
that you're not thinkingabout traveling or anything.
Just like what's the best thinglike given a given the right
environment, the right, you know,a good proper studio environment?
Oh man, I like it.
Use 67 I love it, I love the 67,
(40:07):
if you weren't sure andand you had an unlimited budget.
I'll be honest,the mic I would probably pick is A416,
because it's the sound that people expectfor voiceover.
Yeah, for voiceover.Yeah, yeah. It's true.
If you if you're not sure, if you've gotno idea 41 six and you can't go wrong.
It's true.
Okay.
I would agree that the 41 six probablyfor most projects, especially broadcast
(40:29):
oriented commercialsand things like that, it's
just going to get you there quickerwithout it.
Sounds familiar.
This is the way I sayit just sounds familiar.
I do think like a really nice.
Yeah.
Like I go to the best mic, you know,they I've ever recorded on is an original
use 67 and it's like, you know likefirst time you smoked pot or something.
(40:52):
I've never smoked pot.
Oh. I feel think I should try it.
I highly recommend it.
And the 60.
You hear the mic later and throw up.
Right. It does it.
Well, I'm lucky
because I got to use and hear thatMike quite a bit with David Kay.
And the reason we stopped usingit was just purely
(41:14):
just this persnicketynature of those mikes.
And yeah,that Peluso PS 67 was a good enough stand
in thatthat that Mike took over his daily driver.
So he still has one use 67 in the closet.
You know, it sounds great.
My two favorite mikes that I use that Iif I could only have
(41:38):
one, if I could only have one microphoneI think it would be an eight one.
I, I was a great, versatile.
And I'm not saying thatbecause like we always say Austrian
audio sponsored this show,but I'm not saying because of that.
It's just a fucking good mic.
I don't care what it is.It's a great mike.
And the only other oneI would consider if I had two would be
(41:58):
maybe the, Mike chick fil,
my 92.11.
That's that's a beautiful Mike.
That one still sitting in the box.
So so
Andrew did marry
his true lovethat he's got he's got the legacy lives.
Exactly.
Yeah, I, I only have a fake 67.
(42:19):
I don't know enough that I'll say this.
If anybody's going, they're biased.
Of course they like they when they.
I mean, check out the Andrewyou Know, podcast.
It just reveals 818.
I mean, he's like.
And that guy literally doesnothing but sit there
and listen to Michael microphones.
Yeah. All day in comparison.
And he always puts them up against theyou 87 and 103 and
(42:40):
and he was blown away by the eight when he
I mean he just was likethis is a instant classic.
He literally used the wordthis is an instant classic.
I, I thinkI think another one thing about the 818
is itpunches so high above its price point,
I totally I, I got mine about a year agoand I
and I was always swapping mikes becauseI'd be happy with something for a while.
(43:04):
And then it got,I haven't taken this down in a year.
Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, to me that says pretty muchit says a lot.
So. Yeah.
And keep in mind it'sreally it's really like two microphones.
You get that dual output.
It is technically capable of
so much more than othermikes, just in terms of,
(43:27):
you know,
remotely switching patternsand I guess even like, I didn't
I haven't even messed with it now,but using the polar pattern thing
and then embedding that into the mike,
the, the, you know, the softwarewhere you can then send that.
Isn'tthat something you can do with the 818.
Yeah. The pattern, the polar design.
Yeah. Yeah.
(43:49):
Yeah it's yeah it's definitelyan incredible mike and that's what it.
Yeah.
1200 bucks right. Yeah. It's a bit more.
You said it's about 1800 1900 hereprobably.
Yeah.
It's still andand you know that plug in great value
I think that it's not just a plug in thatyou have to run in a dog either,
you know because yeah that'swhat I'm saying.
(44:09):
You can embed that said Mike. Right.
You can bet into the firmware of the mikethrough that little Bluetooth
dongle thing.
And now that secret, your own secretpickup pattern that's unique to you
that nobody else has is in the mikeand nobody has that.
I have not seen anybody tried to do that.
That is a 100% unique feature.
(44:30):
Yes, it really is.
Yes. I knowLouis tried to do stuff like that,
and I don't know whether they added thatas well, but, they certainly have the two,
if I dare say there's sister companies,maybe they're not in the sense
that they came out of the parentbeing AKG brothers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
So let's let's see here is Lou it fell
(44:53):
and then Austrian audio is Neumannor because some people think
that actually fell is the true Neumannnine one.
That's absolutely is.
So then Austrian audio is the giftfell in that context.
Yeah. So that was good.
So I mean
the probably people are wonderingwhat the hell are you talking about?
(45:13):
The the thing aboutif you think about Neumann, it's actually,
a mother company, right.
Because it's owned by Sennheiser.
And give Phil has all the original,
tooling and everythingbecause and that all goes back to
and no one knowsthat goes back to World War two
when they sliced Germany in half,the factory was in one place.
And then Neumann,the guy ran to the west, right.
(45:37):
He got out thehe went back to Berlin and reopened.
But all of the original toolswere in the East.
Yeah.
So Neumann was inCA fell because of the bombings in Berlin.
So they got the factory up and went to getfell in, which became East Germany.
And and then Norman went backand started up Neumann again in Berlin.
(45:58):
Well, it fell justand they actually worked together
for quite a while until the wall went up.
And once the wall went up,that was the end of that.
So Kessel got isolatedand just continue doing that.
But you want amike built on the original equipment?
It's a it's a good kefir.
Yeah.
If you want an M7 capsule built on theoriginal tooling then you get a good fill.
Yeah yeah yeah.
(46:19):
So yeah.
So so then and then where is where is AKG.
And that whole thinglike AKG shows up after the war.
They're not a companythat's before the war. Right.
I'm not sure when they started actuallyI don't know I think were they not
I have no idea.
Like I mean they certainly show uppretty soon after because the C12
is like kind of and you know,they're doing stuff for Tesla Funkin.
(46:40):
So yeah.
So they're they're definitely in thatlike by the 60s they're definitely well
established, which meansthey probably added absolute 50s.
You know, you know you know
Newman's 1140s because those 47you know things like that.
So yeah
I don't know exactly how old it is.
19 1947. Yeah.
Because it's not the same timeno anymore okay.
(47:02):
Yeah. 1947.
So because they were supplyingtelephone con and the alarm
five one and C12 were actuallythe same microphone pretty much.
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah.
So AKG is definitely a postwar company.
Yeah.
And they and they it's like it's so funnybecause it's like that
original capsule that c k 12 capsulethat's like that designed from
(47:24):
because the C the C12 is one of theirfirst mics for AKG.
Right.
The AKG din series were at the time thattime manufactured by hand by five workers.
In 1949, the first AKG headphonescame on the market.
There you go.
Two years later.
Wow. Okay.How is it that these guys. Yeah.
How is it today?
Essentially, for all, for lack of a betterway, I mean, for a lack of,
(47:47):
you know, a better way of saying
how do they essentially perfectthe mic capsule in the 40s
before we had the monitoring backto monitor the full range of sound
the way we do now, or I think they werethey were somehow testing them.
They were telling them by hand.
Well, it was it was all hand tension,but it was it was one of the things
(48:08):
you'd also have to optimize it forwhatever was the benchmark at the time.
I suppose we knew. Right?
You know,
I don't know what the tension was because
did they have like how do you check,you know, like like you think about a drum
head, you can push on itand you can check the tension on it,
but something as fragile as a microphonediaphragm.
How do you I think they were just handtensioning them and
(48:32):
and somehow feeling the tension on eitherend of whatever film they place it on.
In the early designs,we're trying to figure out what,
what what are theycut back straight or something
that they placed the gold ontoand it was mylar substrate.
It became prop substrate.That's the word. Right.
And they would,you know, like mylar was good
(48:52):
and they had all thesegreat pop properties,
but then they found out, as in the caseof the M7, that it deteriorates over time
and whatever it is that AKG uses
and thenand then how to screw it all together.
And that's where the brass capsulewas a pain in the ass.
So the nylon capsulewas like more like snap together.
And so they refined the manufacturingprocess by doing the nylon capsule.
(49:15):
But somehow. But you still had to.
They were still tuned by ear,though, weren't they?
I wonder if they use it like an it.
Was it an oscilloscope telescope?
Would they use that?
I don't know how you put us.
You're not putting electricitythrough a diaphragm.
You're putting physical vibrations.They're moving.
Yeah, I,
I think I think what they were doing isthey would make a bunch of capsules,
(49:36):
hand tension them.
So they probably had some sort of to toolthat would tell you the tension.
But it's like a drum head.
There's many tensionsgoing across a circular thing.
So it's really kind of an art to getconsistent tension across everything.
And then you got to clamp it downat the right moment
when you have it all tensionedso a million things can go wrong.
They make a bunch of capsules
(49:57):
and they listen to themand they chuck the ones that are bad.
Yeah.
Which is what they did with the C12and was why
they moved from brass to nylon,because they have a lot of rejects.
This is like a comic stripstarted off as let's talk about mice and,
you know, studio mice.
And now all of a sudden we're
sort of like back in the war, backwhen I were a child.
Yeah, Iwhen I realized, you know, it was right.
(50:20):
War time. You know,it wasn't like that in mind. I
did not.
Microphone.
No. We used to live in a little boxin the middle of the road.
And I think that's also why you talk a lotabout those vintage mikes
and not all that.
All vintage mics sound the same, you know.
No, there isn't the handmade natureof them.
(50:41):
Yeah, things like that.
It's like you buy a handmade carand no one is the same.
Yeah, that's true.That's why I don't buy Handmade County.
But there you go. Yeah,
well, we've gone from microphonesto what else?
To history. Really.
So they're. Yeah. History cars now. Yeah.
That's right.
I think that if you,if you ever do get to a Germany
(51:02):
and you want to go and seea really interesting museum,
take a train ticket, selland go and check out the microtech
officials, have you been there?
Because it's got all that, you know,but I've watched it on its own line.
I got to go save face. Next job.
He's going to become a tour guide.
Yeah, he's he's just warming up.
That's right.
Well that was fun.
Is it over the audio. Sweet.
(51:25):
Thanks to Driver and Austrian audiorecorded
using Source Connectedited by Andrew Peaches and Nick spiral.
Those good your own audio issues.
Just ask Rob Aucoin.
Tech support for George the tech wisdom.
Don't forget to subscribe to the showand join
in the conversation on our Facebook groupto leave a comment, suggest a topic
or just say goodbye, drop us a noteat our website, proteus.com.
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