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[luckybastard]

sounds good, josh. what kind of pre were you going through?

[josh]

luckybastard wrote on Wed, 26 October 2005 19:19

sounds good, josh. what kind of pre were you going through?

Yamaha PM1000

[Jack Schitt]

Geoff, What do you think of the Kel's so far? They seem pretty unique in regards to freq. response and price. I haven't seen anything else like them.

In regards to the LDC, I just ordered a AT4050. The RED mics with a B7 capsule was very tempting but it was a single pattern, no pad, no bass roll off and I couldn't audition them. As much as something in the same city as a U47 sound is tempting I couldn't pull the trigger on something I couldn't hear and had virtually no word of mouth good or bad.

The 4050 has the features and track record and I have heard it and other AT 40 series mics and new what I was getting. Plus it leaves a few pennies for something else down the road if needed.

[R Geoff Ruby]

I gave my Kels a VERY brief run through a couple days ago. Just set 'em up in my usual go to starting position (about 6 or 8 inches off the eight fret (ish) aiming at where the neck meets the body, and the other over my right shoulder) for recording my Collings acoustic.

First impressions: they sounded quite nice. Natural, not overly bright top, a bit boomy on the bottom maybe, but I didn't fiddle with placement at all, so could be a bit of proximity, and the mids sounded maybe slightly scooped, but in a nice way. I'll try and give them a bit more attention in the next week or so, but I think I'm going to like them.

Denny, enjoy the 4050. I think they're nice mics. I stand behind my previous advice to you: don't second guess your purchase too much, especially based on others comments online. Use it, learn its strengths, what works for you and what doesn't. A year or two down the road, evaluate whether it does what you want out of it, and if it isnt cutting it, sell it and move on. (Of course, assuming that you don't hate it from the start, but I dont think you will).

Cheers,
Geoff Ruby

[Kurt Foster]

hargerst wrote on Tue, 25 October 2005 10:12

copperx wrote on Tue, 25 October 2005 12:05 Has anybody compared these KEL HM-1's to the MXL 990s? Kurt Foster was supposed to send me a pair to try them, but I haven't heard any more from him.  I could certainly test them against the 990's.

Harvey,
OOPS! I guess I dropped the ball on this one!

We have had a bit of disaster / havoc on this end recently so I haven't had the opportunity to get to this. Sorry.

Please PM me with your mailing address or send it to me via email and I will try to get them out to you as soon as I can.

On another note, I recorded a live band in a bar / remote session last night and I used the HM-1's on a guitar amp and on a snare drum. I expected good results on the guitar amp and I wasn't disappointed. Great sound without all the "crackle - fizzies"  that so often plague guitar amp tracks but the real shocker for me was how great the HM-1 sounded on snare drum. Really fat and full, plenty of snap, a ton of punch and good rejection of unwanted spill. It really made the headphones pound, even with the cheezie pre amps I use for remotes!  ... The more I use these little mics, the more I like them.

[Jack Schitt]

R Geoff Ruby wrote on Sun, 30 October 2005 21:40

Denny, enjoy the 4050. I think they're nice mics. I stand behind my previous advice to you: don't second guess your purchase too much, especially based on others comments online. Use it, learn its strengths, what works for you and what doesn't. A year or two down the road, evaluate whether it does what you want out of it, and if it isnt cutting it, sell it and move on. (Of course, assuming that you don't hate it from the start, but I dont think you will). Cheers, Geoff Ruby

I appreciate the advice Geoff. I'm sure I will love the 4050. I had an opportunity to test drive the 4050 and several other 40 series mics as well as several others. I'm actually looking forward to trying some recording techniques like M/S that I couldn't do previously with single pattern mics. Sometimes I like to make light of the fact that others don't necessarily agree with my choices but the truth is trends rarely influence my selection. I'm just too anal and do to much research into these kinds of things including asking the experienced guys what they think. I pick the stuff that sounds best to me. What I end up choosing may not be the first choice of some of the top shelf guys we share space with here but I am always certain my choices fit my needs, budget and application.

If I recall correctly the best quote I have scene regarding something I use was one individual saying he wouldn't mix a milkshake on RME converters. More power to him. It was still funny even if I don't concur.

I started recording with boom boxes, a 4 channel Realistic line mixer and a $20 Radio Shack mic when I was a kid. Getting the last bit of performance out of the gear I have has always been one of the more enjoyable aspects of recording for me. Watching jaws hit the floor from hearing a recording done on a tascam 8 track cassete recorder those same people told me was "a complete piece of shit" was a real eye opener in my younger days. If I ever doubt that its the engineer, not the gear I just put on anything Rudy Van Gelder did for Blue Note. If his brilliant work isn't a reality check in that regard I don't know what is.  

[copperx]

Someone send a pair of KEL HM-1s to Harvey for review ... I wanto to hear his opinion  

[Empty Planet]

The couple of tracks I've heard of this mic on acoustic guitar were enough to make me shell out for an experiment.  Just the ticket for someone suffering from fizzy China-mic-itis.    

Dark and Beatley it sounded to me, but then compared to what's on the radio just about anything sounds dark, and then of course they could've just been dark guitars well-engineered.  Ah well, we'll see when they arrive.

[$a1Ty]

i just got a pair and they are nice, heap of bottom end but that easily taken out

sure they are dark but its easy to turn darkness down, easier than turning brightness down

[Empty Planet]

Mine just arrived and I've been recording some acoustic guitar this morning.  Had to come 'round and throw in my two cents.  

Shockingly good for the price.  That's basically it.  I have a functional Guild "True American"   which is  passable but nothing special, and this mic actually makes it sound like something pretty darn nice.  I've not heard a mic so flattering for this guitar, somehow it particularly makes little scale runs and riffs rich and musical in a way that sounds like somebody snuck around behind my back and actually hired a good engineer    -- but this time I got it just by throwing the mic up and playing.  

I think this is going to be a really easy mic to work with.  I'm running it through a Tab-Funkenwerk V78m, so that's clearly helping out, but in comparison to other mics at that price level, there's just no comparison.

"Dark" in comparison to my Studio Projects mic, perhaps, but apart from a small bump around 90 and another around 450, the response is flat.  I'm delighted to compare it to my C1, because I've tried for years to coax nice acoustic guitar tones through that mic and it's just more trouble than it's worth; too many unmusical, unpleasant resonances and of course the oft-mentioned brittle highs.  Neither of those issues are a problem with this Kel mic.  In fact, I'd lean a little more toward "warm" and "round" in describing its sound, with my guitar through my chain.

Very impressed with the mic -- I wish Kelly and his company great success.

Cheers.