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Best on-air broadcast dynamic microphone
- Thread starter gtomas
- Start date
Sennheiser 421,Heil PR40 or EV RE20...Most FM's i;ve seen use the RE20,but the Heil PR40 sounds just as good and less expensive..I still love the 421 flavor..
Michael said:
The 441 is richer and not a lot more expensive.
Many years ago, there was a heated discussion about what mic to buy. The PD preferred the Sure SM5, the morning guy wanted an SM7, a couple of votes were cast for the MD421, and I thought the RE-20 was the best choice. So, I setup a double blind test where everone recorded the same liner using each of the four mics and was then asked to listen to the result later and rank them. The result was most enlightening. The RE-20 was the top pick on every evaluation, much to the surprise of most. We realized that listening to yourself in a headphone is a very different experience to listening on a speaker. When talent puts on headphones, they favor a mic with lots of midrange because it makes their voices stand out over the music, but that's not what the audience hears. The audience prefers a mic with rich low response. When the talent hear themselves on a recording, it's much easier to accurately assess the tonal quality of the various mics.
Beyer M-88 (TG-88 today I think) and the Sennheiser 431 are two favorites because they sound "fat."
I also like the EV RE-16 (on my voice at least). The Heil 40 is a brighter more modern sound than the RE-20. That's important today.
But what's important is the pre-amp. A good quality recording style mic pre can make the lowly Shure SM-57/58 sound special!
I also like the EV RE-16 (on my voice at least). The Heil 40 is a brighter more modern sound than the RE-20. That's important today.
But what's important is the pre-amp. A good quality recording style mic pre can make the lowly Shure SM-57/58 sound special!
D
Denny E.
Guest
If you can find a Shure SM5B in great condition buy it. I did have three and sold one of them two years ago for a chunk of cash. Next in line would have to be an Electrovoice RE20. You can work them as close as you want without accentuating the low frequency response being a Variable-D design. Third I would probably choose the Sennheiser MD 441, a very nice sounding microphone, but it is about 60% more in price than the MD421. I did a television commercial for a local AM station about 20 years ago and we used my 441 as the prop mic.
Dennis
Dennis
I've always loved the SM7, but it does best with the proper processing on it... and after working with the Heil I was shocked to feel my loyalty waiver... the Heils are bright, crisp and rich... I always felt like the EVs were too nasal-y, at least for my voice... I know plenty who disagree with me! (Most of them who have used Heil are fans of them, though.)
One of the reasons that the MD 421 was so popular in the 70's & 80's as an AM announce mike was that it accentuates the asymmetry in the voice (look at the output of one on a scope). Depending on equipment set up, this could be helpful to an AM station by adding to positive modulation. It is not helpful to any format with a symmetric overload point like recording or FM broadcast. It is also a negative to any data reduced format as asymmetric waveforms are rich in even order harmonics and bits are used by the codec to code the harmonics.
I have personally observed codec artifacts on a POTS codec using an MD421 but when the mic was replaced by a SM58 the artifacts were greatly reduced. Of course, the amount of artifacts varied by voice as the asymmetry of voices vary.
Bob
I have personally observed codec artifacts on a POTS codec using an MD421 but when the mic was replaced by a SM58 the artifacts were greatly reduced. Of course, the amount of artifacts varied by voice as the asymmetry of voices vary.
Bob
Hopefully, no one in broadcasting has to worry about how a POTS codec colors the output of a 421 - or any other mic for that matter. If you're doing a remote via phoneline, an SM58 would be a great choice simply because it's cheap, has darn good sound reproduction, and might be bulletproof - depending on caliber.
I love reading this thread, especially about some of older mics that people still love. BUT, how many stations are feeding the mic directly into the board anymore?? Between that mic and the board input is some sort of mic preamp that can drastically alter the microphones sound (for better or worse). I bet the guy who did the blind test could hook up a Radio Shack mic through a top of the line mic preamp and with a little tweaking be shocked and amazed at the results!
For me, I love my RE-20 through a dbx 286a.
For me, I love my RE-20 through a dbx 286a.
If I had my choice of purchasing an Electro Voice RE20, Sennheiser MD421, or Shure SM7 (the dynamic standards of the industry), and with what I know now (after being in radio for 36 years), I would probably go with the SM7. But I would make sure to go with the original design pop filter of the SM7, which was the slimmer thinner foam, as compared to the larger football type we now see in most pictures of this mic. If you can't purchase it with the slimmer foam, Shure still makes it as a replacement part (Shure part # RK345). If you've never experimented, you may not realize how drastically different a mic can sound by how much foam you add to the front of it. Placing a thick foam pop filter on your mic will drastically reduce those upper frequencies. One of my production guys loves the SM7's, without any foam, but instead with a round gooseneck type pop filter in front of them. The SM7 also has this to die for silky smooth upper end, which is hard to fake with a mic processor, using any other mic. The high frequency SM7 output just sounds so natural and authentic. You just can go wrong buying an SM7. Plus, the SM7 is self contained, so you don't need to maintain a for instance, EV309A shock mount (as we all know, those elastic bands dry out and need replacing at some point). All of the SM7 shock mount is self contained in the mic, just like the SM5, to an extent was.
If you really had some bad acoustics, or lots of leakage from outside the studio (cheap doors, air conditioning noise, etc.), you might consider the Sennheiser MD441. That mic is considered a super-cardioid, where the others that were mentioned above are all cardioids. However, what I've found when using the MD441 in an on-air environment is that it's looks can be a bit deceiving, and the air talent may have the urge to talk off axis into the side of this mic. That will sound awful with this mic, as it is not designed for off axis work. The other dynamics listed above are more forgiving for talking off-axis. So if you used a MD441 for on-air, you would have to instruct your air talent not to talk into the side of it (good luck with that). Looking back, I was never really happy with the sound of the MD441 on the air either. I think that is why we really don't see them out there in the normal broadcast studio that much.
To sum up, I have used, and in some part of my on-air radio experience, have talked into, all of the above mentioned microphones. But if I had to chose between the 4, I would still go with the Shure SM7 (with the slimmer thinner foam pop filter).
If you really had some bad acoustics, or lots of leakage from outside the studio (cheap doors, air conditioning noise, etc.), you might consider the Sennheiser MD441. That mic is considered a super-cardioid, where the others that were mentioned above are all cardioids. However, what I've found when using the MD441 in an on-air environment is that it's looks can be a bit deceiving, and the air talent may have the urge to talk off axis into the side of this mic. That will sound awful with this mic, as it is not designed for off axis work. The other dynamics listed above are more forgiving for talking off-axis. So if you used a MD441 for on-air, you would have to instruct your air talent not to talk into the side of it (good luck with that). Looking back, I was never really happy with the sound of the MD441 on the air either. I think that is why we really don't see them out there in the normal broadcast studio that much.
To sum up, I have used, and in some part of my on-air radio experience, have talked into, all of the above mentioned microphones. But if I had to chose between the 4, I would still go with the Shure SM7 (with the slimmer thinner foam pop filter).
Proof read. I guess 4 times wasn't enough.
You just can go wrong buying an SM7.
That should say, you just *can't go wrong buying an SM7.
Oops.
You just can go wrong buying an SM7.
That should say, you just *can't go wrong buying an SM7.
Oops.
It happens Brian, but I think we all got it without the correction.
B
bilco
Guest
Have a bunch of re20 and re27's around here, but since we've started using the Heil PRo40 I would not use any other for my studio guys. I put a RE20 and a Heil PRO 40 side by side and let my toughest critic morning show guy compare them and he couldn't tell the difference. All of our mics are put through 528's but these two were set up identically.
Bilco
Bilco
B
Bob1370
Guest
Worked with a lot of mikes in my time, from the RCA DX-77 to the ElectroVoice 666 (which you could use as a blackjack in self-defense if you needed to), to Neumann condenser mikes, to Sennheiser 421s and EV RE20s. Used to think the RE20 worked best, but we recently switched station-wide to Shure SM7Bs--substantially an updated version of the same mike installed when I started my first fulltime gig 38 years ago.
The Shures are my new favorite. I notice WFAN in New York recently switched over to them as well.
The Shures are my new favorite. I notice WFAN in New York recently switched over to them as well.
Nostalgia said:
There is a lot of truth to that, but if your mic has qualities that make it sound better, it's still easier to process that mic vs another. The differences can surely be smoothed out to some degree, but the edge will usually still go to the better mic.
For the record, we used good mic processing at every station I've been at since the early '80s. I rather liked the Allison Research (later Valley Int'l) Gain Brain and Maxi-q, but at the time we did the blind comparison we were using Symetrix 528s because the Valley stuff wasn't available anymore....
If I were going to choose a mic today, I would still do the blind test including some of the new contenders along with the old. The whole point was that it's far, far better to evaluate the mic by listening to it in as the listener would instead of in your headphones while you're talking.
Talking about mic's and preamps about 8 months ago we came across three shure 55s mic's (The Elvis Fat Boy's) these three mic's were made in the late 1950's. Since we needed a couple more mic's in the studio I said what the heck lets try them. I was surprised how good and clean and rich the mic's sounded. We tried them both thru our mixers (which is how they would be used) and straight to the boards with really good results both ways. We now have the mic's in use and are very happy with them.
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