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[MDM,]

more samples!

[Barry Hufker]

So Martin,

How about the answers?  To whatever it is we're doing?

[Martin Kantola]

MDM, wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 01:27

more samples!

More samples of what? The same microphones, other microphones or other sources? Please tell me.

Martin

[Martin Kantola]

Barry Hufker wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 01:48

So Martin, How about the answers?  To whatever it is we're doing?

Yes, thought I'd wait for another day or so, just to see if somebody's been away enjoying the weekend and wants to join in late.

It's 4 AM here now, but with all my remaining energy: THANK YOU ALL!

Hope you will find this as interesting as I do once you know what X and Y represent.
Also did an attempt to assemble all the comments for easier reading, don't know if it makes any sense so might skip that.

You'll hear from me soon...

Peace,

Martin

[Tomas Danko]

Both tracks sound truly awesome, to begin with.

Microphone X managed to reach out to me on a more emotional tangent, it had more of that sex appeal. More heft and a beefier content, while at the same time that raspiness added euphonic qualities higher up in the frequencies. Bummer on the odd distorted sibilant though.

Microphone Y sounded a bit more lean to me, more controlled sibilants but at the same time it just didn't pull me in and have me connect to the singer the way Microphone X did. Somehow it sounded scooped in the lower mids more than boosted in the higher frequencies. For a modern pop album perhaps this take would sit better in the mix.

I call the magic to be in Microphone X.

After having listened, I took a brief look at the spectrum analysis. Obviously Microphone X has a much smoother response, whereas Microphone Y seems to have a high freq phase issue somehow creating a lot of comb filtering.

Applying a phase linear sloped LPF at 15kHz on Microphone Y evened things out a lot. The end result looked suspiciously similar to the response of Microphone X, but exactly 6 dB louder.

[matti]

PM us the info once you feel so!

Matti

[hopsing]

X is the more emotionally engaging microphone for me, just from the first impression, not analyzing the sound. I prefer it on that voice (and probably on other sources ,too).
After listening closer, it is a little more sibilant, it is a little harder in the high mids and has more pops (could be placement) than y, but sounds truer to the voice, to my ears. Y sounds kind of phasey in the highs and has an extended bass compared to x, it sounds a bit cleaner but more processed overall.
Where the difference comes from is hard to guess...
The pops might indicate something else, but I would guess, it is the same capsule on different electronics, but that is really just a guess.
Thanks for the test, both mics sound great and I really would be happy using both.
Tobias

[compasspnt]

Is there a nylon pop screen on one of them?

[jimlongo]

a cappella I prefer recording X, to me it has a more balanced and fuller sound than Y which has a bit of a hyped high end, and not as even throughout the mids and lows.  As for some distortions and sibilance they could be performance related as much as microphone qualities.

But Y might be better in a track.

And since they're both processed, unless there both the same processing I gotta question what i'm listening to.  To be fair, I'd rather evaluate them without any EQ and compression.

[Martin Kantola]

Some background info regarding recent questions:

- no popscreens used on either mic.
- identical processing for both mics.

Thanks again,

Martin

[Barry Hufker]

OK.  I found myself having to listen again to see if my opinion had changed.  And it has.  I prefer X.  I now find Y thinner sounding with much more midrange boost than X.  The X midrange sounds smoother with the overall sound being more pleasant.

I'm glad I listened again.  Maybe with fresher ears this time.

No, I'm not changing my mind again.  I prefer X.  Put that on my tombstone.

[maarvold]

Barry Hufker wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 12:52

... Put that on my tombstone.

Barry,

What's your hurry?

But seriously... I'm wondering if these are 2 different capsules--same model--on the same mic.  There are things about the way the voice excites [what sounds to me like the resonance of] the capsule similarly, although the resonant center frequencies are clearly in different places frequency-wise.  I will say that if someone offered me $1,000 to listen to a loop of one track or the other for an hour straight at 0 vu = 85 dB, I would pick X without hesitation.  BTW, I'm listening on my full range monitors now, not the Sennheiser HD 600 headphones.  

[MDM,]

sounds like it could be the amp which makes the difference(the internal amp of the X mic) to me.

[MagnetoSound]

jimlongo wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 17:19

I prefer recording X, to me it has a more balanced and fuller sound than Y which has a bit of a hyped high end, and not as even throughout the mids and lows. As for some distortions and sibilance they could be performance related as much as microphone qualities.

+1.

[Markus Sauschlager]

Yesterday I quickly listened to the mp3s on the quite cheap mini-hifi that's connected to my internet computer. I intuitively liked X better.

I just finished critical listening of the wavs through the DAW.
I cut each take in pieces, aligned them and matched levels of the corresponding pieces. Then it got really interesting!

The differences I heard strongly reminded me of a mic comparison I recently did. I compared a UM57 with Thiersch reskinned (Polyester)M7 to a CMV563 with original ("vintage") PVC M7 lollipop (both mic amps have Telefunken EC92).
I listened back and forth between your and my comparison and was just amazed.
Although the CMV and UM57 amp may be sightly different and the grille acoustics were different too, the sound difference was scaringly close to your X and Y files. The X is similar to the Polyester M7, the Y is similar to the vintage PVC M7.
Given that I'm not entirely wrong, you may have used an U47 amp?

I'm extremly curious what the difference between X and Y really is !!

Best,
Markus

BTW: the talkback mic of the console seems to be an AKG D109