Modded Oktava 219 holds its own against expensive mics

[Brad McGowan]

This isn't a brand new product per se, but I think its something some of you might be interested in checking out. Based on some information I found here on Gearslutz, I recently had a pair of Oktava 219's modded by Michael Joly of Oktavamod.com. By chance I was able to score four mics from unsold Guitar Center inventory for a decent price. After sending off two of the mics for modifications I was able to do a pretty extensive set of comparisons of the modded and stock MK219's vs. a bunch of other mics I have at the studio...some cheap, some expensive. The clips I recorded were pretty revealing and really demonstrated how nice a mic the Oktava MK219 can be after performing the proper mods. I shared these clips with Michael and he has posted many of them on his website with his own comments.

The bottom line is that if you have an Oktava 219 sitting around, perhaps propping up the door or holding down your unpaid bills, then you owe it to yourself to check out Michael's work and experience the life that he breathes into these modest mics.

What follows is an excerpt from an email with my initial impressions I sent to Michael right after I spent some time with the mics:

Okay, so my friend, Ken, and I were able to spend a bit of time on Sunday listening to the mics and making some sound clips. Ken can chime in with his own thoughts if he'd like. Overall your mod made a huge improvement in the sound of the mic. It sounded like a veil had been lifted. The sound of the mic became bigger, deeper, more detailed, and more open sounding. It became much more 3D sounding as well with sounds really jumping out of the speakers.

The modded 219 held its own again all the mics we compared it to on all sources. It may not have been the absolute best sounding, but it never sounded bad. It just brought out different qualities in the sources. On drum room though it did sound nice because it was less hyped in the high end so it didn't make the cymbals sound as bright and trashy as my U99 did. The real stunning comparisons were against our recently modded MXL603s and Oktava MC012's on acoustic guitar. Both of those mics sounded really impressive.

These tests did a good job of reminding us how good some of the mics we have really are. Like the Soundelux U195. It sounded really amazing on both acoustic guitar and vocals. I hadn't used it on acoustic for a while so I had forgotten how nice it was. The low end of that mic is tight and strong and the midrange was really clear--you could really hear the individual strings during the strumming. At the end of the night Ken said "yeah I definitely need to get myself a U195--that mic is awesome!". The same went for the U99. It may not always sound amazing on a given source but it always sounds pretty darn good and has some magically quality to it. I'm not sure I like the modded Oktava on Ken's voice but I think it may work quite well on a breathy female vocalist who lacks some body. Unfortunately we didn't have one on hand. I can see the modded 219 being a good choice for a lot of acoustic stringed instruments because of it's strong midrange and unhyped top end. Nice work!

Brad

[garbarek]

Another round of kudos for Michael Joly and what he did for a pair of 219s I sent him. Terrific guy. Meticulous. And the mics sound glorious after his mods.