I'm not sure if your producing this project or not but please implore the singer to change her choice of
"I felt der's nothing bigger"
to
"I felt there's nothing bigger".
- You should forgive the Austrian-english and be happy that she's not singing "I felt zer's nothing bigger"
The recording chain was:
Fairly well treated room - acoustic panels in a semi circle behind her
I always let her sing in two mics simultaneously with about 30cm space between her and the mics
Pair of Focusrite ISA430mk2 (ISA110 Impedance, no other processing) into an RME AD16
Bounced with matched gain and an UAD1176 with max. 3dB GR (just to get a feel what it could sound in a dynamic, open mix)
01: AKG C414-TLII
02: Shure SM58
03: Audio Technica AT4050
04: Beyer M160
05: Rode Classic 2
06: Sennheiser MD441 (Presence Boost)
07: G7 (Dale's M7)
08: EV RE20
09: Oktava MK319
10: AKG C451+CK5
11: Shure Beta57a
12: Beyer M300
13: AKG Solidtube
14: MXL 990
15: Rode Classic 2 through DIY 1176revD - soft compressed
16: Rode Classic 2 through DIY 1176revD - heavy compressed
Our favourites were the 05 Rode Classic (hence Track 15/16) and the 10 AKG C451+CK5. The Rode sits nicely in the mix without any eq and has something special, very smooth, airy, "breathy" - it feels like you hear the words directly from her throat. Compared to other mics the midrange, especially the honkey 1-2k area already sounds eq'd and softer. As for the C451+CK5 I'm once more impressed with the performance of that mic - doesn't sound spectacular on it's own, but always cuts through the mix without any processing. The Beyer has an incredible midrange, but needs a high shelve to be on par with the condensers. And the rest of the mics feel rather "meh" for her type of voice in my opinion.
Thanks for your thoughts,
Christoph