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anonymous 9 February 2006

dear all,
for a specific recording set-up I'm trying to get, i am wanting to get a condenser mic that has the same sound as that you get from the built-in mic on a recording walkman/dictaphone/iriver, etc, but that can handle at least a little bit of bass (where a lot of the small clip-on mics etc fall down). i have a good quality condenser mic already, but for this i'm simply wanting a mic that has that cheap, beefy compression (but without all the motor noise & tape hiss!). Does such a thing exist? please reply soon, or else i'm going to have to get a cheap mic off ebay the next day or two just to experiment.

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anonymous Fri, 02/10/2006 - 03:07

well, im using a beringer ultragain as a preamp to give a bit of body to the sound, & recording to laptop. im quite happy with the sound, its just getting a guitar tone i like that is eluding me. maybe i will simply have to compress it all afterwards, but i figured if the mics built INTO walkmans gives me the sound i like, surely there must be microphones OUTside of them that have it too?

Cucco Fri, 02/10/2006 - 10:18

harper wrote: well, im using a beringer ultragain as a preamp to give a bit of body to the sound, & recording to laptop. im quite happy with the sound, its just getting a guitar tone i like that is eluding me. maybe i will simply have to compress it all afterwards, but i figured if the mics built INTO walkmans gives me the sound i like, surely there must be microphones OUTside of them that have it too?

Definitely NOT a common statement...

(Paraphrasing) I like the sound I get with my cheap walkman microphone and NOT with a regular studio set up...

Hmmm...Well, tell us a little more. Specifically what are you after.

There should be no compression on those types of microphones (save the occassional brickwall limiter on some devices) and they are generally eq'ed with the "smiley face" curve (which, IMO is about as painful to listen to as Mahler 2 through Bose Acousticrap speakers...)

If you're looking for a full, saturated sound, I would say, get a good mic and lose the Behringers. For HUGE saturated sounds, I default to my Summits with a LDC. For crystal clear, I go Grace or DAV.

In any case, these are a far cry from Behringers and a walkman... :D

BTW - Welcome to RO!

J. (y)

took-the-red-pill Fri, 02/10/2006 - 23:47

if the mic's what you like, why not yard it out of the walkman to get it away from the motor noise and such?

The other thing is that if you like the combination of the cheap mic, the cheap compression, and the simley face EQ they put on it, maybe you could yank all that, and get it all away from the Walkman noise?

Furthermore, I'm assuming you're recording an electric guitar, and so once you get a good deal of volume happening, wouldn't it overwhelm any hiss inherant in the 'system?'

As an aside, I have a book on recording that says Michelle Shocked's first album was recorded on a Walkman, and therefore costs more to buy than it did to make. Okay, that's getting way off topic.

My 25 cents.
Keith

RemyRAD Sat, 02/11/2006 - 18:06

All you need is a Radio Shaft condenser microphone element, about $.98 cents. Then within a software compressor, set the ratio to 10:1 and adjust the threshold to -45 DB. Then use the software equalizer to roll off everything below 100 hertz and above 10,000 hertz and voilà! Cheap sound, cheaply!

Cheap woman
Ms. Remy Ann David

Cucco Sat, 02/11/2006 - 18:57

RemyRAD wrote: All you need is a Radio Shaft condenser microphone element, about $.98 cents. Then within a software compressor, set the ratio to 10:1 and adjust the threshold to -45 DB. Then use the software equalizer to roll off everything below 100 hertz and above 10,000 hertz and voilà! Cheap sound, cheaply!

Cheap woman
Ms. Remy Ann David

:lol: :lol:

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