a pannel of modded and original mics compared

[cielapeute]

Hello. As a professional voice over and film dubber, I made my high tech home studios, today, it is my sixth. I have just made a specific page here
http://lucmiteran.com/materiel.php to let people listen to the result with a good number of mics I use. Some are for sale, some not. It is in french, but I guess everyone can understand what's happening.
My point here is not to sell ( I will only sell to France) but to show what I think could interest some people here.
Regards
Luc

 

[rock soderstrom]

but to show what I think could interest some people here.

What is the C12k style capsule you are using? Mic&Mod?

 

[cielapeute]

nope, it is another one that sound great

 

[rock soderstrom]

Where did you get them or do you want to keep it a secret?

 

[cielapeute]

Of course, these are cheap chinese capsules, because if you have seen the price of the mics I am selling after my changing the capsules and sometimes other parts, these could not have been expensive ones. But I also have tested the expensive ones, and as one can hear it in the audio results I show, even if there are differences, the quality is good. My idea is to be able to make a cheap chinese mic sound much better. The problem I am trying to solve is the following, in fact : I am a professional voice talent and dubbing and voice over teacher.

nearly all of the people that contact me and all of my pupils are trying to work in this field and they follow stupid advice from people who lie to sell or form people who don't want them to have their opportunity to work and then by efficient competitors. one of the worst example I have seen is that one : one of my female colleagues (I precise female, because mic techniques , recording methods and knowledge are unhappily not a woman's interest. I don't criticize, I just could acknowledge it. And when women get to be interested in that field, they have to fight to stand equal to men, and finally, they often get better than men) had a tlm103, she was a real pro, had been working for years for tv, radio, etc... but I found her samples poor in sound, and definitely not at the level of a tlm103, which I had owned too. she was also complaining about it and asked me for an advice. she told me a professsional voice talent and sound ingeneer had installed her set. I asked a photo of her home studio. the tlm103 was pointing at the window... opposite to her. She just had to return it that was perfect.

What I want to say with this short story is that most people who use or want to use mics professionally are easy to swindle and I found it particularly sad, because most of the time, they don't realise they have been trapped and they relay it to newcomers.

Another example : a pro voice talent was advising newcomers to buy an at 2020 to work as a pro. But this mic is not at all used by any professional, real recording studio. And the point is that if you start in the field, and say you are a pro and your mic is that, nobody will take this seriously, and worse, you will considered as someone who doesn't know what he is talking about, even, who can be a liar, saying he is a pro. then, you will find no job with the real clients, and the clients you'll find will only accept to work with you if your fare is ridiculously low. and the clients who don't pay will search for people like you and you will never be paid. so, I find this awful.

you know, when you are looking for a mic and you go to ebay, you will see many that say "pro", at 30 euros or less. Pros never use that. then, if people or my pupils don't have the money to buy for instance an at4033, which is the mi I started with, and which is recognized by a good deal of real pros, my idea is to propose a modded chinese mic for a low price, out of which my point is not to make a maximum profit, but to give a possibility to have a pro sounding mic for 100 or 150 euros. so, the capsules I found sound very good for a pro job ( I have very good ears), they are around 35 euros. I don't find a valuable 130 more euros difference in non chinese capsule. For the time being, I am looking for a both sided 47 type caspule that would sound this good, and I didn't find them yet. I am discovering this forum with great pleasure and I think I will find answers to this.

 

[kingkorg]

Of course, these are cheap chinese capsules, because if you have seen the price of the mics I am selling after my changing the capsules and sometimes other parts, these could not have been expensive ones. But I also have tested the expensive ones, and as one can hear it in the audio results I show, even if there are differences, the quality is good. My idea is to be able to make a cheap chinese mic sound much better. The problem I am trying to solve is the following, in fact : I am a professional voice talent and dubbing and voice over teacher. nearly all of the people that contact me and all of my pupils are trying to work in this field and they follow stupid advice from people who lie to sell or form people who don't want them to have their opportunity to work and then by efficient competitors. one of the worst example I have seen is that one : one of my female colleagues (I precise female, because mic techniques , recording methods and knowledge are unhappily not a woman's interest. I don't criticize, I just could acknowledge it. And when women get to be interested in that field, they have to fight to stand equal to men, and finally, they often get better than men) had a tlm103, she was a real pro, had been working for years for tv, radio, etc... but I found her samples poor in sound, and definitely not at the level of a tlm103, which I had owned too. she was also complaining about it and asked me for an advice. she told me a professsional voice talent and sound ingeneer had installed her set. I asked a photo of her home studio. the tlm103 was pointing at the window... opposite to her. She just had to return it that was perfect. What I want to say with this short story is that most people who use or want to use mics professionally are easy to swindle and I found it particularly sad, because most of the time, they don't realise they have been trapped and they relay it to newcomers. Another example : a pro voice talent was advising newcomers to buy an at 2020 to work as a pro. But this mic is not at all used by any professional, real recording studio. And the point is that if you start in the field, and say you are a pro and your mic is that, nobody will take this seriously, and worse, you will considered as someone who doesn't know what he is talking about, even, who can be a liar, saying he is a pro. then, you will find no job with the real clients, and the clients you'll find will only accept to work with you if your fare is ridiculous low. and the clients who don't pay will search for people like you and you will never be paid. so, I find this awful. you know, when you are looking for a mic and you go to ebay, you will see many that say "pro", at 30 euros or less. Pros never use that. then, if people or my pupils don't have the money to buy for instance an at4033, which is the mi I started with, and which is recognized by a good deal of real pros, my idea is to propose a modded chinese mic for a low price, out of which my point is not to make a maximum profit, but to give a possibility to have a pro sounding mic for 100 or 150 euros. so, the capsules I found sound very good for a pro job ( I have very good ears), they are around 35 euros. I don't find a valuable 130 more euros difference in non chinese capsule. For the time being, I am looking for a both sided 47 type caspule that would sound this good, and I didn't find them yet. I am discovering this forum with great pleasure and I think I will find answers to this.

You are one of the lucky ones with sane reasoning and good ears. If you are lucky to have the right target sound in your head, and know how a good mic should sound, you don't need a locker of 10 elam 251 to choose from. Despite what YouTube and GS producers would like you to think.

 

[k brown]

Of course, these are cheap chinese capsules, because if you have seen the price of the mics I am selling after my changing the capsules and sometimes other parts, these could not have been expensive ones. But I also have tested the expensive ones, and as one can hear it in the audio results I show, even if there are differences, the quality is good. My idea is to be able to make a cheap chinese mic sound much better. The problem I am trying to solve is the following, in fact : I am a professional voice talent and dubbing and voice over teacher. nearly all of the people that contact me and all of my pupils are trying to work in this field and they follow stupid advice from people who lie to sell or form people who don't want them to have their opportunity to work and then by efficient competitors. one of the worst example I have seen is that one : one of my female colleagues (I precise female, because mic techniques , recording methods and knowledge are unhappily not a woman's interest. I don't criticize, I just could acknowledge it. And when women get to be interested in that field, they have to fight to stand equal to men, and finally, they often get better than men) had a tlm103, she was a real pro, had been working for years for tv, radio, etc... but I found her samples poor in sound, and definitely not at the level of a tlm103, which I had owned too. she was also complaining about it and asked me for an advice. she told me a professsional voice talent and sound ingeneer had installed her set. I asked a photo of her home studio. the tlm103 was pointing at the window... opposite to her. She just had to return it that was perfect. What I want to say with this short story is that most people who use or want to use mics professionally are easy to swindle and I found it particularly sad, because most of the time, they don't realise they have been trapped and they relay it to newcomers. Another example : a pro voice talent was advising newcomers to buy an at 2020 to work as a pro. But this mic is not at all used by any professional, real recording studio. And the point is that if you start in the field, and say you are a pro and your mic is that, nobody will take this seriously, and worse, you will considered as someone who doesn't know what he is talking about, even, who can be a liar, saying he is a pro. then, you will find no job with the real clients, and the clients you'll find will only accept to work with you if your fare is ridiculous low. and the clients who don't pay will search for people like you and you will never be paid. so, I find this awful. you know, when you are looking for a mic and you go to ebay, you will see many that say "pro", at 30 euros or less. Pros never use that. then, if people or my pupils don't have the money to buy for instance an at4033, which is the mi I started with, and which is recognized by a good deal of real pros, my idea is to propose a modded chinese mic for a low price, out of which my point is not to make a maximum profit, but to give a possibility to have a pro sounding mic for 100 or 150 euros. so, the capsules I found sound very good for a pro job ( I have very good ears), they are around 35 euros. I don't find a valuable 130 more euros difference in non chinese capsule. For the time being, I am looking for a both sided 47 type caspule that would sound this good, and I didn't find them yet. I am discovering this forum with great pleasure and I think I will find answers to this.

Paragraphs, please - much easier to read.

 

[cielapeute]

You are one of the lucky ones with sane reasoning and good ears. If you are lucky to have the right target sound in your head, and know how a good mic should sound, you don't need a locker of 10 elam 251 to choose from. Despite what YouTube and GS producers would like you to think.

thanks a lot, Kingkorg. Very nice of you. Yap, I know how a good mic sounds. the idea is to let my pupils be aware too.

 

[cielapeute]

Paragraphs, please - much easier to read.

done

 

[k brown]

Regarding the AT2020, it was really bad marketing for AT to put the 2035 in a nearly identical body as the 2020; it's a much superior mic with a very nice 25mm gold capsule, rather than the cheap, aluminum 16mm OEM capsule in the 2020.

Seeing that the capsule was seemingly identical to that in the 3035 I used to have, but not sounding as good, I suspected the output transformer (which was considerably smaller than the one in the 3035), so I converted it's output to impedance-balanced, and it sounded much better; closer to how I remembered the 3035.

It's a quite flat capsule, with no hype, so that's why many didn't care for the 3035.

 

[cielapeute]

Regarding the AT2020, it was really bad marketing for AT to put the 2035 in a nearly identical body as the 2020; it's a much superior mic with a very nice 25mm gold capsule, rather than the cheap, aluminum 16mm OEM capsule in the 2020.

Seeing that the capsule was seemingly identical to that in the 3035 I used to have, but not sounding as good, I suspected the output transformer (which was considerably smaller than the one in the 3035), so I converted it's output to impedance-balanced, and it sounded much better; closer to how I remembered the 3035.

It's a quite flat capsule, with no hype, so that's why many didn't care for the 3035.

I also had the 4040 and the 4050. the 4040 sounded a bit better than the 4033, but I was not fond of the 4050
I would have liked to try a 4060.

 

[Daniel Frank-Vetter]

Paragraphs, please - much easier to read.

Hello, thats my first day at this forum. In a video on YT wak kingkorg recommended. I am from Germany and was searching for such good advices as a beginner in Voiceover-talent jobs.
Thank you all here from Germany, where i miss such professional tipps, as in this thread.
Best, Daniel

 

[kags]

I also had the 4040 and the 4050. the 4040 sounded a bit better than the 4033, but I was not fond of the 4050
I would have liked to try a 4060.

I’ve had the 4033, 4040, 4050, 4060, and the 5040 and 5047. I love the 4033 (used on many top records for leads and/back vox). 4040 never got used. 4050 is good all arounder, but a bit too neutral for most people. The 4060 is great a small fraction of the time and not good the rest (like many mics).

The 5040 and 5047 are excellent and belong to a class of their own. They are excellent on VO, horns (especially sax), drum room or mono overhead. Truly great sounding, just not a top lead vocal mic for pop or R&B.

I’d be happy with a locker full of 4033 and 4050. If you get a chance, check out Aaron Neville “To Make Me Who I Am.” I tracked, mixed and/or co-produced half the album and we used an AT4033 for much of it. The title cut was mixed by George Massenburg and he commented on how natural the vocals sounded. The album was Grammy Nominated for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance. Not bad for a lil ol Audio Technica 4033!

 

[k brown]

I’ve had the 4033, 4040, 4050, 4060, and the 5040 and 5047. I love the 4033 (used on many top records for leads and/back vox). 4040 never got used. 4050 is good all arounder, but a bit too neutral for most people. The 4060 is great a small fraction of the time and not good the rest (like many mics).

The 5040 and 5047 are excellent and belong to a class of their own. They are excellent on VO, horns (especially sax), drum room or mono overhead. Truly great sounding, just not a top lead vocal mic for pop or R&B.

I’d be happy with a locker full of 4033 and 4050. If you get a chance, check out Aaron Neville “To Make Me Who I Am.” I tracked, mixed and/or co-produced half the album and we used an AT4033 for much of it. The title cut was mixed by George Massenburg and he commented on how natural the vocals sounded. The album was Grammy Nominated for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance. Not bad for a lil ol Audio Technica 4033!

And a transformerless SDC electret, at that! Dispels a few mic myths.

 

[kags]

And a transformerless SDC electret, at that! Dispels a few mic myths.

Is the 4033 considered small? I always refer to it as medium

 

[k brown]

Is the 4033 considered small? I always refer to it as medium

With a 12mm (smaller than Schoeps) diaphragm, that's an SDC; could never figure out why so many reviews called it a medium diaphragm - fooled by that multi-hole ring the capsule's mounted in, I guess. But even that makes it appear to be an LDC, not MDC.