Tube mics: educate me

[Evanmd]

Do you have any tube mics that you're looking at? Or a price range?

[grrrayson]

Just as with transformers, tubes are an electrical component that people get way too caught up in.

Forget completely about the components of a piece of equipment unless 1) you're an electrical designer or 2) you've been using all this stuff for decades and you feel you've then started to notice trends.

The only thing you should consider is:

1) What kind of sound do I want?
2) What equipment will give me that sound? (Regardless of components, etc.)

For example, the brightest microphone I have has a tube in it even though people often equate "tube" with "dark".

Do not choose equipment based on its electrical components. Close your eyes, fight the compulsion to be a consumerist automaton, and choose your audio tools based on how they sound only.

[Chrisc_o]

Originally Posted by grrrayson

Do not choose equipment based on its electrical components. Close your eyes, fight the compulsion to be a consumerist automaton, and choose your audio tools based on how they sound only.

This, plus the fact that you're using some pretty sweet gear as it is. If you're not diggin' the tone the problem may be the source or room.

[lakeshorephatty]

Agree with Grayson on this. Don't put the cart before the horse. Learn everything you can about the equipment used on your favourite sounding (not necessarily favourite to listen to) music. If you can find out some of what makes that music tonally the way it is, demo some of that gear. May still not be something that's right for you but you should be able to determine that when you try it out.

I would be wary of going in the direction of every studio must have these 5 types of mics these pieces of outboard etc. For all we know your favourite stuff was recorded on very inexpensive and easy to obtain equipment.

Russell

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

I generally don't care about a mic being tube or not. I find much more variation among types of mics... meaning ribbons, small diaphragm condensers, large diaphragm condensers, dynamics.... as my choices for micing duties. I have tube and non-tube SDs and LDs, my preference for the LDs are tube but for SDs the answer is 'it depends upon what i am recording'. I use a combo of tube (AKG C-28) and non-tube (Neumman KM 84i) mics mostly for capturing acoustic guitar, for example. My choices for vocals tend to be tube or ribbon, again depending. I might pick a dynamic, but that would be rare, except for VO work.

[danmv]

Its not that I am not getting a sound I want, because I am. The gear I use is fantastic, and I dont feel that I need to upgrade. Im just curious if their is something different that is worth the time and/or money to investigate, or whether the "tube mic sound" is something Im not really missing.

[prontold]

IME a good tube mic has a bit of its own compression going on. It's not obvious, but a slightly different sound that can seem bigger or richer than a solid state circuit.

[lakeshorephatty]

Originally Posted by danmv

Its not that I am not getting a sound I want, because I am. The gear I use is fantastic, and I dont feel that I need to upgrade. Im just curious if their is something different that is worth the time and/or money to investigate, or whether the "tube mic sound" is something Im not really missing.

I don't know if this helps you with this question, but I have several tube and many solid state mics. I have some really high quality tube mics. I personally love non linear behaviour and subtle compression effects anywhere I can get them. If tube mics were really changing things I believe I would be reaching for them more. I'm not based on the tube component making any specific decisions. If I reach for my tube sm69 its because I know its going to be the right sound for the job, but I the the fact that its tube is probably near the bottom of the list of reasons its the right choice. Its not right at the bottom because I'm not sure what impact that tube is having on for instance the tone of the midrange of the mic among other things. I'm certain its providing a bit of that special quality, but I'm not really giving any weight to that in my decision making. The best example I had was the Gefell UM70 vs the wunder CM7GT. Same capsule, one tube one not. The wunder was very subtly sweeter and more naturally compressed so I always preferred it, but they were closer than you would expect and I wouldn't sweat over using one or the other. I sold the UM70 in the end because I felt it was a luxury and I needed more utility tools.

Russell

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

Originally Posted by danmv

Im just curious if their is something different that is worth the time and/or money to investigate, or whether the "tube mic sound" is something Im not really missing.

Given the gear that you have I would expect you to be looking at a 'better' quality tube mic. If this is the case, I would suggest that you rent a couple and see what floats your boat.

I played around with some of the upper tier mic companies that emulate the classics. There weren't as many then as there are now. I bought a Korby Kat-4 which is a mic with multiple capsules. The four main were the U47, U67m, Elam 251, and C-12. He has since added the 800 and will as always make a custom capsule to the specs of the customer. I liked the mic so much that when one of his older Empyrean designs based on a U47 showed up used, I picked it up too. There are several companies that make these types of mics, and work hard to capture the authentic vibe. Others just toss the same letters and numbers on a mic design and call it a day, figuring that they will sell enough by association, and it seems that many of them do.

In the classic large diaphragm condenser mics the Neumann U-47 is probably the best known, and it is a warm rich sound. The U-67 that followed did not have as great a frequency response, it sounded kinda dark. Stephen Paul and others came up with a common modification on that mic which opened up the sound a bit. (Which is why the Korby U-67m capsule has that "m" designation, meaning modified. Tracy worked for Stephen Paul many years ago, and is quite familiar with the modification.) The Elam 251 always sounded clear and open to me, very clean. The C12 had a similar sound. The big difference between tube and solid state to my ears is a roundness of tone. I have been told that the difference is more a function of the transformers than the tubes, but whatever causes it, I like it.

Before I bought the Korby I had it with the 251 capsule and the 67 capsule in my studio along with a real 67 and 251, so I was able to compare them directly on my voice and on acoustic guitar. I was most interested in buying a mic for my voice, and I liked the 67 for that purpose. But the 251 capsule was also knocking my socks off. I played back the recordings multiple times, and we could not tell the difference between the originals and the Korby versions of those two mics. I ended up buying the Korby mic and both the 251 and U-67m capsules. Over time I've picked up the U-47 and C-12 as well.

I have a couple of tube small diaphragm condensers, but the only one that I can compare directly to a solid state mic would be the AKG C-28. This mic was the daddy to the AKG-451. You see it all over later Beatles work, such as on the rooftop concert, Paul singing Hey Jude, and other clips of that time period. I put the C-28 in a orchestra pit along with 451s, 460s, and 480s. We felt again that there was a roundness of tone in the C-28 that was not there with the newer mics. It was subtle, but clearly discernible.

So I suggest renting first. See if the difference is worth the cost to you. Then look at the options. TelefunkenUSA, Lawson, and Korby come to mind. I suggest a modern emulation for practical reasons. Maintaining a mic from the 40s or 50s will become increasingly more difficult as time goes on, plus you never know what has been done to it up until now. There are also some very fine modern mics that do not emulate the old designs, but I'm usually looking for a particular sound that was a part of the great recordings of the past, so i tend to pay more attention to the emulations and the actual vintage gear than more modern gear.

[Mark Richardson]

I would love to hear from cat's who have put the $10,000.00 valve mike back in the locker, grabbed the sm57/58 outta the leads bag and said ahhh, thats better... Haha, could that happen? When has cheaper been better?

[Doc Mixwell]

Originally Posted by Mark Richardson

I would love to hear from cat's who have put the $10,000.00 valve mike back in the locker, grabbed the sm57/58 outta the leads bag and said ahhh, thats better... Haha, could that happen? When has cheaper been better?

No microphone is right for everything, no matter what it costs.

I have put up very expensive microphones on singers and they sounded terrible. Not right for the source in front of it. No way shape or form would I continue using something that was not right.

Then throw up a more suitable microphone and you have yourself a party.

Cost has no bearing on it,

performance trumps everything

[Mark Richardson]

Im hearing ya Doc, hey rather than change mics do you add another one or two to the source and A/B in the mix?
I took a while to warm up rehearsing tonight and I would hate to see the mike take the blame! Singing that is.

[lakeshorephatty]

Originally Posted by Mark Richardson

I would love to hear from cat's who have put the $10,000.00 valve mike back in the locker, grabbed the sm57/58 outta the leads bag and said ahhh, thats better... Haha, could that happen? When has cheaper been better?

Do it all the time. Most times when multi-tracking I'm only using 1-2 mics at a time. Have 15 mics or so to choose from varying from $200-$8000 and there are lots of times I settle on both ends of the scale. Whatever does the job right.

As you get to know your tools more and more you're not going to find you do a lot of mic switching. You'll know what fits with the source after you put the first mic up... Knowing the first mic well, and what's lacking by doing a little bit of rough eq/dynamics ITB, you can then go back and get it right the 2nd time by picking your mic with the best freq response and natural compression for the job.

For one song on my bands album which being my own music I take extra care with, we used a receiver of an old rotary dial phone patched in for the main vocal. Its what captured the right feel and tone for the song. So I guess you can put $0 mics into the mix from time to time if they are what's right for the job.

Russell

[lakeshorephatty]

Originally Posted by Mark Richardson

When has cheaper been better?

I didn't really answer this I just realized. Its not about cost really. Some situations require a certain kind of presence/freq response/thickness/natural compression. All these things change with mic type.

This is more evident if you're partly through a recording process adding overdubs or looking at the ensemble as a whole. There are certainly mics that sound blatantly wrong on a certain source for a certain application, but this is far less an issue on isolated sources vs how they are fitting with others in the context of a final picture.

Take for instance the SM57 for example. If the voice in question works well with a 6k bump and natural low end roll off, as well as the "creamy" dynamic mic quality as well as the natural compression of the mic, then its going to sound amazing. I don't take EQ in isolation to make the decision and use the mic like an OTB equalizer on the source. That's too 2D of an approach. I weigh all the major factors of a mics response such as transient response, eq, tonal colour, distortion when pushed, etc, and use what's going to leave me with the least work later to get to the sound I want in the context of the final mix. It just so happens that some inexpensive transducer may result in almost the same final sound as taking the most expensive mic, and mangling its sound (routing it through a guitar amp, re-micing it, pushing a preamp, EQ'ing, adding ITB simulated channel strip colouration etc). So there's no reason to jump through those hoops if I can get there without.

Russell

[vintagelove]

Originally Posted by danmv

I have a U87ai,

Do yourself a favor and try out an Innertube audio tube 87 setup (with a good tube, very important in that mic). It is amazing..... Oh be sure to buy some new underwear for when you try it out, you will need them.