Looking to add a second vocal mic for recording

[mettelus]

Have you considered focusing on your FX chain instead? As long as the signal is captured cleanly, that FX chain does the grunt work (and can even shift the EQ profile from one mic to another, which is on a few websites to "check" different mics). The reason I say this is because say you have a incredibly dominant third harmonic in your voice... the mic isn't going to resolve that in any way (it walks the spectrum depending on the note you are singing). The mics you have now should ALL be fine for capture purposes... I would focus on the output and create an FX chain that yields the results you want.

Side note here... Take a look at your captured dry signal and spend time analyzing that in gory detail with SPAN (or similar). If you have harmonics that cause the issues (this is a common issue actually), Melda's MCharacter is worth doing a trial on to test (make sure it is on the dry signal, and other FX are after it). It is the only plugin I am aware of to dynamically adjust the timbre of a signal (and excels on monophonic dry material).

Quick Edit: The MCharacter teaser may better demonstrate what I was trying to articulate above (around 1:30 into that teaser is a clearer explanation).

Edited July 12 by mettelus

[Gary Carey]

19 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

They read like nice mics. Very inexpensive. I would be interested more in the OC18-did you ever use one of those?

Thanks

Hi, I haven't tried the OC18 as I don't need the pad or additional roll-off setting. Happy to save a bit of money to spend on other gear! On paper the OC18 has lower self noise and higher sensitivity. Probably the big advantage of the OC18 is that any two off the shelf mics can be used as a matched pair, tolerances are higher. Austrian Audio say the capsules are tuned differently but all the reviews I've read give the impression they are very similar in sound.

After buying my OC16 I came across the following review on YouTube. Warren Huart's comments are very much in agreement with what I found. (Ignore the sound quality on his spoken bits - apparently the video editor used noise reduction which created some artifacts. Lovely music track to listen to, though).  

 

Edited July 12 by Gary Carey

[Pathfinder]

6 hours ago, mettelus said:

Have you considered focusing on your FX chain instead? As long as the signal is captured cleanly, that FX chain does the grunt work (and can even shift the EQ profile from one mic to another, which is on a few websites to "check" different mics). The reason I say this is because say you have a incredibly dominant third harmonic in your voice... the mic isn't going to resolve that in any way (it walks the spectrum depending on the note you are singing). The mics you have now should ALL be fine for capture purposes... I would focus on the output and create an FX chain that yields the results you want.

Side note here... Take a look at your captured dry signal and spend time analyzing that in gory detail with SPAN (or similar). If you have harmonics that cause the issues (this is a common issue actually), Melda's MCharacter is worth doing a trial on to test (make sure it is on the dry signal, and other FX are after it). It is the only plugin I am aware of to dynamically adjust the timbre of a signal (and excels on monophonic dry material).

Quick Edit: The MCharacter teaser may better demonstrate what I was trying to articulate above (around 1:30 into that teaser is a clearer explanation).

Appreciate the good info. But I would just like to buy another mic. not to correct any perceived issues. If I made it sound like this was to fix anything that was NOT my intention. Like I said-Good info-Thanks

[Gswitz]

On 7/1/2024 at 6:10 PM, Starship Krupa said:

Sounds like your budget is higher than mine, but I just bought one of these Blue Baby Bottles on sale at Amazon for $164:

https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Creators-Microphone-Recording-Streaming/dp/B01N7TTXZ5

I'm not much of a mic maven, but years ago a studio owner friend of mine used one of these to record me and it sounded great.

This is a great mic.  It comes with a tiny pop filter. The 414 does too but it is bigger and I use the one on the blue bottle. I skip it on the 414.

The blue is hypercardiod. Just terrific. 

The 414 is more versatile  and there are more ways to miss use it. My blue is 20 years old and light blue. 

Edited July 15 by Gswitz

[Starship Krupa]

37 minutes ago, Gswitz said:

This is a great mic.  It comes with a tiny pop filter.

Mine didn't come with the pop filter, unfortunately. I suspect that when Logitech bought the brand and started having the mics made in China, they did away with it.

Still, it came with a very nice shock mount and the traditional wooden box.

I've tried singing into it without a pop filter and it is very resistant to plosives on its own.