Topic: Cardioid Move... from the CA-14's to...

[Massive Dynamic]

and the 930s just about are universally loved in the beyer camp.  There is no mic that captures a better cymbal sound IMHO.

Just my ears, but I ran the original Audix 1290c and found them too harsh in the HF, and I found the Beyer mc930 to be too dull on cymbals. Be sure you listen to a lot of recordings before dropping >$1000 on anything.

[WiFiJeff]

..I have been using them for almost three years, sometimes alone but usually re-inforced by bass from a pair of 4063s low passed to try to compensate the roll off on the low end of the 4081s..

I don't have any small or active directionals, there's all full bodied P48 SDC'S & LDC's.  Like myself, I know you record a lot of acoustic music which benefits from full bass sensitivity.  Is your decision on when to run those alone made by the type of music and recording situation or some other factor?  I ask because many 'low profile' tapes of loud amplified PA type music seem to be generally bass heavy and mid or treble light to begin with simply due to the lower, often less than ideal mic location, where a 'contured' response with less sensitivity at the bottom might not be such a terrible thing.  I'd prefer a flat response and making targeted EQ corrections later, but I'm just thinking it might not be a bad fit for many around here if the mic's aspects make it attractive otherwise.  But I'll also admit that the primary reason I haven't looked into these further is their rolled off bottom end.  Just trying to get a feel for how significant it is.

I have some pretty good rules of thumb for cards or cards + omnis versus omnis alone: depends on type of music and hall (where I want to pull in voices or cut some reverberation in a very reverberent hall, I go cards or cards + omnis).  I have found (but no systematic results yet) that sometimes it is hard to tell the difference with the DPA 4099s alone or with the bass added in from the 4063s (assuming I don't go too heavy on the bass add-in).  It is slightly more cumbersome to do 4-track, so once in a while I get lazy and just run 4099s, but other times I just archive the omni tracks and go with the 4099s alone, not enough times to get a pattern yet.

Jeff

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and the 930s just about are universally loved in the beyer camp.  There is no mic that captures a better cymbal sound IMHO.

Just my ears, but I ran the original Audix 1290c and found them too harsh in the HF, and I found the Beyer mc930 to be too dull on cymbals. Be sure you listen to a lot of recordings before dropping >$1000 on anything.

one man's trash is another man's treasure (as always I guess). For back of the room, I agree that they don't do much for cymbal sparkle, you have to get into the impact zone or use them in a fairly small room to really hear it bloom. I've had ck930 recordings that I made that were audix bright because of the HF peak, and conversely, mine have also been the darkest of the bunch on occasion. A lot of things go into a recording. As someone else mention recently, there are no perfect mics, just perfect mics for select jobs. 

Anyway, for reference; two samples that I think articulate the 930 cymbal sound I chase: (1) (2).

[yousef]

but used optimally?  I'd argue they are.  If it was possible to quantify such things.  And I'm not hating on CA-14s. It's just that the premium mics are, well.. the premium mics.  It doesn't mean that user skill doesn't come heavily into play.

I think I reconciled myself to being the most significant limiting factor in my recordings' quality some time ago... 

I think you're absolutely right though. One thing that goes through my mind however is that the OP is someone who upgraded to DPA4061s a little while ago and I wanted to be clear that the very immediate improvement in quality and usability he will have experienced in making that move would likely not be mirrored in the much greater cost of upgrading his cards.

Then again - good gear seems very cheap at the moment - if I had the bug I think I'd feel confident spending the money now and knowing I could offload later at minimal loss if things didn't work out.

[adrianf74]

I think I reconciled myself to being the most significant limiting factor in my recordings' quality some time ago... 

I think you're absolutely right though. One thing that goes through my mind however is that the OP is someone who upgraded to DPA4061s a little while ago and I wanted to be clear that the very immediate improvement in quality and usability he will have experienced in making that move would likely not be mirrored in the much greater cost of upgrading his cards.

Then again - good gear seems very cheap at the moment - if I had the bug I think I'd feel confident spending the money now and knowing I could offload later at minimal loss if things didn't work out.

Thanks Yousef.  I've also dealt with AKG 480's with CK61's and CK63's in the past (a good friend owns them) but they're far from ideal in a less-than-open environment.   I'd like something better but it definitely looks like I'm gonna be in the ballpark of $1500-$2000 to get something that would be a TRUE improvement and even then, in a less-than-open environment, how much greater of an improvement would I get?  I think that's the key factor for me.

I think I'll just keep my eyes open in the Yard and see what comes along.

[F.O.Bean]

I think everyone forgets about the Busman BSC2 Active setup because its still relatively new but they are a VERY FINE mic and custom built and sound damn good imo

[LikeASong]

It seems like I indeed made a very right choice when I bought my CA14's... I knew they were good, but I didn't know they were good enough to be praised and even compared with +1000 bucks mics 

I'm also interested on what do the taper gurus have to say about the OP... Of course I'm not thinking of upgrading my gear, but it's always nice to see how other people have evolved and improved their recordings!

[stevetoney]

I agonised over this (well, substitute AT-853 for CA-14) for years before going for 4022s because I didn't really rate anything in the "inbetween" price bracket.

What I would say is that unless you're deeply unhappy with your CA-14 recordings, will be doing a lot of open taping or just have lots of cash to get rid of, it may be more sensible to stick with the Church mics.

Certainly the 4022s sound better than my old mics but they don't sound $1600 better, they're a damn sight bigger and they need  48v.

I love them but if I was being completely sensible and reasonable I think I would have a hard time justifying the expense.

But "sensible and reasonable" isn't what it's about 

I think this is such an important point for people that have the upgrade bug to realize ahead of time.  If you don't, the chances are REALLY high that you're gonna be disappointed because some of this gear costs so much more money and you spend so much time wishing for it that when you finally get your hands on it, it can be a real buzz kill when you get several recordings and begin to realize that you spent ten times as much for your gear and only got some marginal amount of sound improvement which (subjectvely speaking) doesn't come remotely close to sounding ten times better than your low priced entry level rig.

Just be realistic in your upgrade expectation and you'll be fine.  Paying 10X as much as you paid for your CA-14 does not get you sound that's 10X better...whatever that means.

[F.O.Bean]

I agonised over this (well, substitute AT-853 for CA-14) for years before going for 4022s because I didn't really rate anything in the "inbetween" price bracket.

What I would say is that unless you're deeply unhappy with your CA-14 recordings, will be doing a lot of open taping or just have lots of cash to get rid of, it may be more sensible to stick with the Church mics.

Certainly the 4022s sound better than my old mics but they don't sound $1600 better, they're a damn sight bigger and they need  48v.

I love them but if I was being completely sensible and reasonable I think I would have a hard time justifying the expense.

But "sensible and reasonable" isn't what it's about 

I think this is such an important point for people that have the upgrade bug to realize ahead of time.  If you don't, the chances are REALLY high that you're gonna be disappointed because some of this gear costs so much more money and you spend so much time wishing for it that when you finally get your hands on it, it can be a real buzz kill when you get several recordings and begin to realize that you spent ten times as much for your gear and only got some marginal amount of sound improvement which (subjectvely speaking) doesn't come remotely close to sounding ten times better than your low priced entry level rig.

Just be realistic in your upgrade expectation and you'll be fine.  Paying 10X as much as you paid for your CA-14 does not get you sound that's 10X better...whatever that means.

100% Agreed!

[fandelive]

So, I know there are mics like the Sennheiser MKE40's (aka MM-HSLC-1) that are worth looking at; I'm just wondering what they're like compared to the CA-14's.

I started a thread a while back asking if someone ever did a CA-14/MM-HLSC-1 matrix but got no replies.
As far as I can remember, nobody ever did a comparison of those mics recording both the same source from the same spot.

The MM-HLSC-1 are my actual mics. I recorded a bunch of shows using them and the only time I've not been happy with the results was when the sound source was bad from my spot.
I can post samples and venue/spot information on request

Important notice : If you want to record loud shows with the MM-HLSC-1, you'll have to mod them (4.7k mod, Chris Church can do that for you).

[Belexes]

I started a thread a while back asking if someone ever did a CA-14/MM-HLSC-1 matrix but got no replies.
As far as I can remember, nobody ever did a comparison of those mics recording both the same source from the same spot.

I now have both mics and plan on doing a comp sometime this year in an open taping environment.  I know the CA-14's have a deeper bass response in comparison, but the MM-HLSC-1's provide a little more detail to my ears. 

[illconditioned]

The HLSC are cardioids, right?

Those are very nice mics in my opinion.  I think they are the best miniature (10mm diameter) cardioid out there.

  Richard

[Javier Cinakowski]

The hlsc(mke40) are very nice, but unfortunatly discontinued. Microphone madness still has them on their website, but they are "not orderable" when you go to check out.  After emailing them they confirmed that sennheiser no longer sources the mke40...

[yousef]

That's a shame. They do tend to turn up on the Yardsale for decent prices reasonably often though.

[Church-Audio]

I've been hoping Chris Church might make something that would be an improvement over the CA-14's. *fingers crossed*

I promise by the end of the year I will have a new mic that will be better than the ca-14 but it will be bigger. And not stealth. Well seeing what some people stealth with I guess I should not say you cant stealth with them. They are going to be like a ca-14 on steroids.