Great video, thanks! I KNEW that you would mention DPA :) I was surprised when you said "just down the road" and I thought "are you in Denmark or what"...because yes, DPA are from Denmark and I have several friends who work for them. AWESOME company and microphones - some of the best I've ever used...crystal clear...almost more clear than ears ;)
DPA Microphones (originally Danish Pro Audio) is the direct descendant of Bruel & Kjaer. It was started by Morten Stove and Ole Brosted Sorensen when B&K decided to shut down their pro audio division and the two former employees contracted to take over sales of the remaining stock, service, and eventually development and manufacturing of new designs (from glitchy memory confirmed by Wikipedia).
DPA is the descendant of the microphone branch of Brüel & Kjaer, famous for their acoustical measuring systems. By design these were measuring mics. With upcoming digtal audio they proofed for recording, especially for classical recordings as main mics and B&K started to develop for this use. 1992 B&K has been sold, splitted and two B&K guys continued it as DPA. The word 'Better' means not allways the same. While the technical improvements are mostly utilized for classical, acoustic recordings, for other music styles a strongly sounding mic is appreciated. A U47 can be the first choice then because of coloring the sound as desired.
Earthworks is just up the road from my studio and I use them also. They are spectacular! They were started by David Bradley of DBA fame in NYC. To my understanding, he wanted to “retire” outside of NYC and found Wilton, NH to be ideal and started Earthworks.
This is such a great question. The answer does a huge amount of twisting and turning that just creates more questions - people have literally written books on the subject. Microphones are definitely better today in a lot of ways, but somehow they aren't as "classic" as a U-47 or a Telefunken 251. They are definitely quieter when it comes to self-noise, they have a much wider and more accurate frequency response, more agile dynamic range. but are they as "musical"? Do the electronics, capsules and transformers slightly alter the sound of sources in ways that are uniquely pleasing to the human ear, or are the overly analytical and sterile (Which is often the characteristic of an extremely "accurate" microphone) ? It becomes a bit difficult sometimes to quantify what "better" means; it really depends on what you're trying to do with it.
I often hear how some pieces of gear are more musical than others, and I agree. However, when I record a great singer, or guitar player, or pianist, then the musicality of the gear does not matter at all. What I want to say is that we always want a better technical product, which often leads to less musical results in a simple A to B testing, old vs new, so finding a sweet spot between technical perfection and musicality is important. But what I find most important is still the quality of the music and interpretation, the musicality of the composer and performer resolves all the technical perfections of modern gear that, as we like to say, lacks the musicality.
I agree it is like comparing a 57' Chevy to a new Toyota, which one is better? The answer is always, depends on what you are using it for. Microphones have become much more affordable but more importantly the way you can manipulate the sound after it's been recorded give you nearly endless options. I am a purist at heart but faced with buying a $10,000 mic or a $1000 mic, I am going for the $1000 mic, you can get nearly identical results ,in a blind test most listeners will not be able to tell the difference, including sound engineers. I would tell you how I know, let's just say I lost the bet and I really don't want to talk about it.
I used the Sanken CO-100K when recording voice actors’ creature performances for the movie The Nun. Recorded at 24/192 and you could pitch shift it down 3-4 semitones with hardly any aliasing and still have sibilance as well!
Maybe the most important thing is that nowadays you can have a real good sounding microphone at an affordable price. When I started as a professional engineer in studio's there were a only a few serious options for vocals and they were expensive, like the U87, AKG414 and I was fortunate to have two U47's at the time. When homerecording got serious in the mid 80s (with for example a Fostex 8-track and a Atari computer and SMPTE) most still recorded with SM58's etc. Nothing wrong with that, but the times have changed... 😉 BTW I love Earthworks mikes. I have a couple of them and they're like a Swiss army knife: I can use them in almost every situation!
I was about to say something similar. Expensive mics generally haven't changed much but cheaper mics are worlds better than even 20 years ago. In 2003, $120 got you an absolutely awful condenser mic. Now the same price can get you something totally usable. That's a real marvel when you condenser inflation.
Back in the day we used multing boxes we made with multiple Cannon jacks to connect two dynamic mics either in phase or out of phase. In phase added, out of phase cancelled.
Love the DPA (used to be B&K) and Schoeps. So transparent and open sounding with a good preamp. Just wish I could afford them. I'll keep using my AKG for now.
@@Mkohlbauer I'm using their 391 and 393 "Blueline" mics from the late 1990s and love them. In retrospect I should have just gone ahead and bought their 461 series and never looked back. Keeping thinking of some Schoeps - one day.
My blues venue recently switched to all Audix mics and ditched Shure mics forever. We don't want to see another SM58 again. Earthworks makes great drum mics, but the Audix D6 is the best bass mic. We're very happy with our Audix DP7 drum mic kit and don't feel any need to upgrade to Earthworks. But that's purely a financial decision, obviously. We do live music and not studio recordings. The Audix OM series are great vocal mics. We have several models to choose from depending on the singer's voice. We also have a Blue mic that we really love. I'd like to explore that brand more as well. I'm interested in comments. This is just the route we chose with our live sound. Also the Audix i5 sounds amazing and transparent on our 1969 Super Reverb and Hotrod Deluxe guitar amps. For bass, the Aguilar Tonehammer DI box is unbeatable. As well, we have QSC speakers. K12.2, KS118, and CP12. Life is good.
You often extol the benefits of tubes in the front end of amplification. Surely you can't get more front end than a tube pre amp of a vintage microphone. Personally, I don't think any modern orchestra recordings I have, has bettered the Deutsche Gramophone and particularly some of the Decca symphony orchestra recordings of the 50's and 60"s. Again, just because some modern microphones can jump through hoops when being measured, doesn't necessarily make it better than the old classic mics. What these recording engineers achieved all those years ago and not just classical music and all analogue, is truly astonishing and stands the test of time and technology, so let's not throw the vintage baby out with the Digital dregs.
Earthworks and Sennheiser are good, as are Schoeps and DPA, but odds most of the music you listen to was probably recorded on a Telefunken, Neumann, or AKG designed from the 40s to the 60s. They still sound excellent and are incredibly sought-after. Why fix what isnt broke? For vocals the standard are always old school large diaphragm microphones. You'd never put an Earthworks or DPA on a close mic vocal.
Aww C'mon Paul..... "Dynamic Condensors??" If you are going to hype a Sennhieser mic so much, then you've GOT to tell us what it is. Are you talking about the MD-441? The square-ish one? That's a hyper-cardioid dynamic mic, not a condenser. Yes, it's fantastic. I've got one. People call it the "Stevie Nicks mic" as she famously used it on stage.
Just because a microphone is rated 20hz-20khz does not mean this is the absolute limit. Many mics can do well above 20k even though its specs are listed as 20-20k.
20Hz to 20KHz means nothing unless you specify the range as well. If a mic is 15 dbs down at 20K, then it will sound dull. But if a mic is 20Hz to 20 KHz +- 3 dBs that means something more. That's when a proper response graph will tell you loads!
You can't hear down to 4hz. That's several octaves below the human hearing range. Even if you could, your speakers can't replicate it. Picking up those frequencies is not really a good thing, it unnecessarily takes up space on your 2-bus unless you use HPFs on everything.
True you can't hear it but on a proper High End Audio system you certainly can feel it. Also, remember that any low pass function come with phase shift which, in the upper frequencies, you can hear.
well, that was a bit too easy of an explanation. what you hi-fi guys never seem to understand, is, that, recording engineers and producers number 1 job is to create an illusion. *always!*. even in classic music. and there is the place where the classic sought after equipement comes in to place, with its specific behavior which makes the job easier.
I am always fascinated when folks make blanket statements like this. What makes you think we HiFi guys don't get it? The creation and reproduction of that "illusion" means everything to us. It's why we started our own record label. Why we spend years designing equipment that recreates that "illusion". It's what's missing in so many of today's recordings. Sadly.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio well, Sir, i should have worded that differently. i appreciate your work and i'm subscribed to your channel. i just got triggered by the "improvement" of microphones going up to 100khz. the super linear, ultra bandwith microphones just don't get much use in a typical recording studio. and yes you pointed that out as well. good job. they do get used sometimes though. but still i'm pretty sure the biggest part of the hifi community has no plan how music gets produced. i know that you do, thats why i'm, again, subscribed,. all the best
You didn't mention any RCA 44's ??? Or the aspect of what role RCA played in microphones and recording and broadcasting & thus studio's....Paul shame on you at your age growing up with NBC & the relationship to RCA and 30 Rock......much less Wolfman Jack.....
Great video, thanks! I KNEW that you would mention DPA :) I was surprised when you said "just down the road" and I thought "are you in Denmark or what"...because yes, DPA are from Denmark and I have several friends who work for them. AWESOME company and microphones - some of the best I've ever used...crystal clear...almost more clear than ears ;)
Thanks. Indeed, their USA headquarters are just down the road from us. Good guys and they let us borrow whatever we want.
DPA Microphones (originally Danish Pro Audio) is the direct descendant of Bruel & Kjaer. It was started by Morten Stove and Ole Brosted Sorensen when B&K decided to shut down their pro audio division and the two former employees contracted to take over sales of the remaining stock, service, and eventually development and manufacturing of new designs (from glitchy memory confirmed by Wikipedia).
DPA is the descendant of the microphone branch of Brüel & Kjaer, famous for their acoustical measuring systems. By design these were measuring mics. With upcoming digtal audio they proofed for recording, especially for classical recordings as main mics and B&K started to develop for this use. 1992 B&K has been sold, splitted and two B&K guys continued it as DPA.
The word 'Better' means not allways the same. While the technical improvements are mostly utilized for classical, acoustic recordings, for other music styles a strongly sounding mic is appreciated. A U47 can be the first choice then because of coloring the sound as desired.
Yep. I have some DPA 4011s, but my favorite is still a Neumann U67.
Earthworks is just up the road from my studio and I use them also. They are spectacular! They were started by David Bradley of DBA fame in NYC. To my understanding, he wanted to “retire” outside of NYC and found Wilton, NH to be ideal and started Earthworks.
Cool! Yeah, I love those mics.
David Blackmer*
This is such a great question. The answer does a huge amount of twisting and turning that just creates more questions - people have literally written books on the subject. Microphones are definitely better today in a lot of ways, but somehow they aren't as "classic" as a U-47 or a Telefunken 251. They are definitely quieter when it comes to self-noise, they have a much wider and more accurate frequency response, more agile dynamic range. but are they as "musical"? Do the electronics, capsules and transformers slightly alter the sound of sources in ways that are uniquely pleasing to the human ear, or are the overly analytical and sterile (Which is often the characteristic of an extremely "accurate" microphone) ? It becomes a bit difficult sometimes to quantify what "better" means; it really depends on what you're trying to do with it.
I often hear how some pieces of gear are more musical than others, and I agree. However, when I record a great singer, or guitar player, or pianist, then the musicality of the gear does not matter at all.
What I want to say is that we always want a better technical product, which often leads to less musical results in a simple A to B testing, old vs new, so finding a sweet spot between technical perfection and musicality is important. But what I find most important is still the quality of the music and interpretation, the musicality of the composer and performer resolves all the technical perfections of modern gear that, as we like to say, lacks the musicality.
I agree it is like comparing a 57' Chevy to a new Toyota, which one is better? The answer is always, depends on what you are using it for. Microphones have become much more affordable but more importantly the way you can manipulate the sound after it's been recorded give you nearly endless options. I am a purist at heart but faced with buying a $10,000 mic or a $1000 mic, I am going for the $1000 mic, you can get nearly identical results ,in a blind test most listeners will not be able to tell the difference, including sound engineers. I would tell you how I know, let's just say I lost the bet and I really don't want to talk about it.
No mention of Sanken but they are doing amazing work with extended frequency range microphones.
I used the Sanken CO-100K when recording voice actors’ creature performances for the movie The Nun. Recorded at 24/192 and you could pitch shift it down 3-4 semitones with hardly any aliasing and still have sibilance as well!
Maybe the most important thing is that nowadays you can have a real good sounding microphone at an affordable price. When I started as a professional engineer in studio's there were a only a few serious options for vocals and they were expensive, like the U87, AKG414 and I was fortunate to have two U47's at the time.
When homerecording got serious in the mid 80s (with for example a Fostex 8-track and a Atari computer and SMPTE) most still recorded with SM58's etc. Nothing wrong with that, but the times have changed... 😉
BTW I love Earthworks mikes. I have a couple of them and they're like a Swiss army knife: I can use them in almost every situation!
I was about to say something similar. Expensive mics generally haven't changed much but cheaper mics are worlds better than even 20 years ago. In 2003, $120 got you an absolutely awful condenser mic. Now the same price can get you something totally usable. That's a real marvel when you condenser inflation.
Back in the day we used multing boxes we made with multiple Cannon jacks to connect two dynamic mics either in phase or out of phase. In phase added, out of phase cancelled.
Love the DPA (used to be B&K) and Schoeps. So transparent and open sounding with a good preamp. Just wish I could afford them. I'll keep using my AKG for now.
Nothing wrong with AKGs!
@@Mkohlbauer I'm using their 391 and 393 "Blueline" mics from the late 1990s and love them. In retrospect I should have just gone ahead and bought their 461 series and never looked back. Keeping thinking of some Schoeps - one day.
The Neumann M-150 is not a large diaphagm capsule, by any measurement.
Earthworks calls theirs a large diaphragm but they are technically a small diaphragm its really tiny
My blues venue recently switched to all Audix mics and ditched Shure mics forever. We don't want to see another SM58 again.
Earthworks makes great drum mics, but the Audix D6 is the best bass mic. We're very happy with our Audix DP7 drum mic kit and don't feel any need to upgrade to Earthworks. But that's purely a financial decision, obviously. We do live music and not studio recordings.
The Audix OM series are great vocal mics. We have several models to choose from depending on the singer's voice.
We also have a Blue mic that we really love. I'd like to explore that brand more as well.
I'm interested in comments. This is just the route we chose with our live sound.
Also the Audix i5 sounds amazing and transparent on our 1969 Super Reverb and Hotrod Deluxe guitar amps. For bass, the Aguilar Tonehammer DI box is unbeatable. As well, we have QSC speakers. K12.2, KS118, and CP12. Life is good.
Md441 is the mic you mention.
Thanks for a great video, Paul. I found it really interesting.
Thanks, John. Appreciate the kind words.
Mic’s are sort of like cooking with different spices, all depends what you are trying to achieve.
Agreed, same with speakers as well. Seems like Paul is stating that their dynamic range has greatly increased...?
Are you referring to the sennheiser mkh 416 shotgun mic ?
Great answer
awesome video 🔥 what a interesting question
You often extol the benefits of tubes in the front end of amplification. Surely you can't get more front end than a tube pre amp of a vintage microphone. Personally, I don't think any modern orchestra recordings I have, has bettered the Deutsche Gramophone and particularly some of the Decca symphony orchestra recordings of the 50's and 60"s. Again, just because some modern microphones can jump through hoops when being measured, doesn't necessarily make it better than the old classic mics. What these recording engineers achieved all those years ago and not just classical music and all analogue, is truly astonishing and stands the test of time and technology, so let's not throw the vintage baby out with the Digital dregs.
Bob Heil makes some of the best broadcast microphones.
"Dynamic condenser" microphones? As in, electret condensers? Hard to imagine a high fidelity electret. That can't be right.
Even in 2023, theres people out there who swear by the almighty SM57 for basically everything!
Earthworks and Sennheiser are good, as are Schoeps and DPA, but odds most of the music you listen to was probably recorded on a Telefunken, Neumann, or AKG designed from the 40s to the 60s. They still sound excellent and are incredibly sought-after. Why fix what isnt broke? For vocals the standard are always old school large diaphragm microphones. You'd never put an Earthworks or DPA on a close mic vocal.
A new Neumann U47. Costs $14 grand but still the standard
Holy moly you remind me of Mr. Wizard. You look like him AND sound like him!
Microphone technology has changed a lot, but I can hear that your microphone technique is still in the 1930s. That's ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.
Aww C'mon Paul..... "Dynamic Condensors??" If you are going to hype a Sennhieser mic so much, then you've GOT to tell us what it is. Are you talking about the MD-441? The square-ish one? That's a hyper-cardioid dynamic mic, not a condenser. Yes, it's fantastic. I've got one. People call it the "Stevie Nicks mic" as she famously used it on stage.
I caught that as well, 👍
Yup, that's the one, and yes, you're right. I misspoke.
Just because a microphone is rated 20hz-20khz does not mean this is the absolute limit. Many mics can do well above 20k even though its specs are listed as 20-20k.
20Hz to 20KHz means nothing unless you specify the range as well. If a mic is 15 dbs down at 20K, then it will sound dull.
But if a mic is 20Hz to 20 KHz +- 3 dBs that means something more. That's when a proper response graph will tell you loads!
You can't hear down to 4hz. That's several octaves below the human hearing range. Even if you could, your speakers can't replicate it. Picking up those frequencies is not really a good thing, it unnecessarily takes up space on your 2-bus unless you use HPFs on everything.
True you can't hear it but on a proper High End Audio system you certainly can feel it. Also, remember that any low pass function come with phase shift which, in the upper frequencies, you can hear.
3Hz-50kHz...what?! 😟
well, that was a bit too easy of an explanation. what you hi-fi guys never seem to understand, is, that, recording engineers and producers number 1 job is to create an illusion. *always!*. even in classic music. and there is the place where the classic sought after equipement comes in to place, with its specific behavior which makes the job easier.
I am always fascinated when folks make blanket statements like this. What makes you think we HiFi guys don't get it? The creation and reproduction of that "illusion" means everything to us. It's why we started our own record label. Why we spend years designing equipment that recreates that "illusion". It's what's missing in so many of today's recordings. Sadly.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio well, Sir, i should have worded that differently. i appreciate your work and i'm subscribed to your channel. i just got triggered by the "improvement" of microphones going up to 100khz. the super linear, ultra bandwith microphones just don't get much use in a typical recording studio. and yes you pointed that out as well. good job. they do get used sometimes though. but still i'm pretty sure the biggest part of the hifi community has no plan how music gets produced. i know that you do, thats why i'm, again, subscribed,. all the best
@@pongmaster123 That makes perfect sense and yes, I completely agree with you. Thanks!
You think a better sounding microphone is because of frequency response? Lol
Yes, just listen to Taylor Swift's voice. 😍
Her vocal mic is a Neumann U47 tube mic from the late 1940s.
You didn't mention any RCA 44's ??? Or the aspect of what role RCA played in microphones and recording and broadcasting & thus studio's....Paul shame on you at your age growing up with NBC & the relationship to RCA and 30 Rock......much less Wolfman Jack.....
Did you expect Paul do rundown the whole history of recording in 5 minutes?
I'll take Coles 4038, personally.