| To make this shootout even more
inclusive, I assembled a panel of audio engineers, producers, musicians
and songwriters - amateurs and pros alike - to listen blindly to
30-second sound files of 60 of the 84 small diaphragm condenser mics I
recorded. I gave them ten days to listen and return their top 15 picks
via email. The people I asked to participate in this test hail from as
far away as France, upstate New York and northern California, and while
most are working engineers or producers of some stripe, one person is a
lyricist and two others are self-proclaimed amateur engineers. Two were
even women. I know. I can't believe I got that many women involved. Particpants include Richie Monroe of Bardwire Productions, Daniel Gil of Reicher Recording, Douglas Ferguson and Randall Squires of The Still Recording, Tim Britton of Pied Piper Productions, lyricist and writer Susan Hunt, Mark Wurfl of Wurfl Productions, Matthew McGlynn of RecordingHacks.com, amateur engineer Didier Brest, John Harvey and Mary Podio of Top Hat Productions, Doug Joyce of Animix Productions, singer-songwriter Ehren Ebbage, Nathan Roussu of HV Studio, songwriter and engineer Alan Bachman, independent engineer Adam Tews, Palmer Wilkins of Millwright Sound, Jeffrey Hiatt and Rob Shaffer of Turtle Studios, Britton Beisenherz of Ramble Creek Recording and attorney, musician and home recordist Henri Minette. The 21-member panel listened to 61 sound files in all, because I entered the vintage Neumann KM 84 twice - one owned by me and another owned by a friend of mine. Only one guy picked both KM 84s, but then he also picked the KM 83 and the KM 184. Dude likes the Neumann KM series a lot -- pretty impressive since it was a blind test. Every mic was picked at least once and since I cut the list down from 84 mics to 60, I'm not going to divulge the full list, mainly because I'm afraid the manufacturers whose mics got excluded from the listening panel will send their goons after me. It happens. There were some complaints from panel members about the methodology. One person thought the files were too bassy, and I did record the Collings as if I were mic'ing the guitar for a solo album as opposed to a track for a rock mix so there was ample low end. Two people said there was an annoying tone at 1.25khz and they were right. Beats me where that came from, probably a harmonic caused by the room, the guitar or both. Finally, one engineer wondered why the files were stereo interleaved when each guitar sample was recorded in mono, but I had a good answer for that -- it's because I'm an idiot. When it came time to bounce them to 16-bit (from 24-bit, 44.1) habit took over and I selected "Stereo Interleaved" in Pro Tools. The sound files I make available for public download will now be mono to keep the size down and make them convenient for people who want to load them into their digital audio workstations. Anyway, I'm burying the lead here - let's get to the mics the panel thought were the best. There turned out to be 19 top picks overall. Only five mics got eight or more votes, but 14 mics garnered seven votes -- much more inclusive. And the winners are.. (in no particular order) Audio-Technica AT4021, Jim Williams AKG C460b, Neumann KM184 (that's right, I wrote it), Violet Design Gold-Finger, Mercenary Audio KM-69, vintage AKG C451EB, vintage Sony C-535p, B&K 4011, Beyerdynamic MC930, Nevaton MC49, Rode NT5, DPA 4099, Milab DC-96b, Sanken CO-100k, CharterOak M900, Schoeps CMC Mk5 Omni, Shure KSM141, Mark Fouxman modded Oktava MC012, and the Milab VM44. The mic that was selected most often was the Audio Technica AT4021. Again, it's important to remember that there was no particular order -- I just asked people to list their top 15 mics and out of those 21 top-15 lists the AT4021 appeared the most often. But for all I know it was everyone's 15th favorite microphone. So there you go. Instead of the lone opinion you usually get in a gear review, you've got the opinion of 21 other people besides me. Make of that what you will. |