&Since I started recording my students, I have become fascinated with microphones. I never paid much attention to them before, they were the thing you needed close when in a recording session, or the thing you needed close during a gig.
It’s very interesting stuff to me how they work, and why they sound a certain way. I started off my “collection” with a Nady SCM1000 microphone, then progressed to a Shure 57, then a Shure Beta 57, then an AKG C1000, then a Sennheiser 421. All of them sound different. Not bad, but different.
The Nady was just too noisy (self noise), but I liked the detail it could capture. The Shure 57s sound ok, but they don’t seem to do justice to the overtones that one can get when playing saxophone. ..
The Beta 57 was a little better. The tighter pickup pattern (hypercardiod) was good, as bleed-over from the neighboring drum studio sometimes happens with a regular cardiod pattern. But the Beta 57 seems a little too unnatural sounding to me. The AKG C1000 captures a full spectrum (up to 20Khz. Shure 57s go to 16Khz I believe, and Betas go to 17Khz), but after using one for a couple of months, it seems to me to fall into the Beta 57 category. It doesn’t sound natural. Not that it sounds bad. None of the mics sound bad. They all do a great job capturing sound. The Nady would be excellent if it didn’t have such a high self noise issue (well, for $100, what do you expect?). It’s just that I wanted something that sounded like what I heard when we laid down a track.
Perhaps after doing a lot of student recordings, and recordings in “professional” studios, I was developing an ear for it. Anyhow, this quest brought me to a Sennheiser 421. It’s the mic that you see Lenny Pickett from Saturday Night Live use (I dunno about currently, but in the 90s he used it). Great sax mic, I think it does an excellent job capturing a sax sound. But, it seems to lack in the higher overtones. I mean, I’m one of those people who can hear those high pitched noises that like most everyone else cannot hear. In fact, there is a neighbor down the street who has this insect or animal repeller thing that I can hear when I drive by.
ANYHOW, back to the topic. Mics. So, my arsenal had grown to consist of Shure 57s, Beta 57s, AKGC1000s, a Nady SCM1000, and a Sennheiser 421. Generally, I’ve been using the Sennheiser on saxophone, and the AKGC1000s on flute and clarinet (mainly cause of the higher frequency pickups). But, I wanted more. Should I invest in a Neumann 87 which is the “studio standard” mic? That would be a huge investment, probably at least $2,000. I couldn’t justify it.
Which brings me to the AKG C414B-ULS. I have known about it, and it’s advertised as “the most well-known studio condenser microphone in the world”. Yeah yeah. Advertising. But, after watching a DVD about the making of the producers, and seeing that the mic used to record the 1st reed player was indeed an AKG C414 (at least it sure looks like one), I decided to investigate more. AKG sent me a multimedia CD called “AKG Mic Test”. On the CD there are tracks were they compare 5 mics on saxophone. The C414 is one of them, but it doesn’t sound the “best” to me compared to some of the others (C12VR and C451B). But I’m not sure if that is because of the mic “adding” something or not.
After some debating, and figuring out how much I owed the IRS this year, I decided to invest in an AKG C414B-ULS. Luckily AMS has this addicting 3 payment plan. The mic came, and I must say, it is what I was looking for. It sounds great on sax. I’d say better than my Sennheiser 421. It sounds great on flute, and on clarinet. The difference between the AKGC1000 and the 414 on flute is subtle but noticeable. I think the biggest difference is recording clarinet. I finally am happy with clarinet recordings using this mic.
Ok, to sum up, since this seems to have become a rather long rant and history session about Eric’s microphone experiences, the AKG C414B-ULS is a great mic. If you’re going to do some home/small studio recording, this would be a great investment. If you plan on recording flute, clarinet, and saxophone, this mic is the one. Yeah, other mics will work too. But if you want one mic that can do it all, I think I’ve found it. It’s the AKG C414B-ULS. Unless you want to spend $2,000+. Then you’d want a Neumann U87.
Update: 05/11 20:23 GMT by E :Oh, these “tests” were done on a Mac G4 cube with a MOTU 828. All the recordings were done at 48Khz. Yes, I can hear a difference between 44.1 and 48Khz.
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