"Open/bright/crispy mic" vs. "Round/dark/mellow mic with high EQ boost"

[Joemamma]

Okay, the title kinda explains it.
But I'm only talking about vocals here...

What do you think (and have experienced) gives you the "best" quality sound on vocals?

Using an open/bright/crispy sounding mic or using a round/dark/mellow mic and then adding high shelf EQ?

I'm asking because I have heard of engineers who intentionally use a darker sounding mic and then add high shelf EQ afterwards, because they say that it gives them a more natural sound. They just make sure that they use a mic that takes EQ well.

The opposite approach would be to use a brighter sounding mic and then use a de-esser if it ocasionally gets too harsh or essy.

So, what are your thoughts?

[TyRip]

While I agree that you should find a mic that is simply just "right" for the source, I am interested to see what people with more experience than me have to say about this.

If you don't feel like answering the which is better or decide to answer "neither", then suppose the question has changed to IF you had to pick between the two, which would you pick most often...

Personally, I feel like a more natural sounding mic will do better with a little high shelf (if needed) than trying to tame a bright or harsh mic. However, my opinion doesn't matter much because my more expensive mics are more natural sounding and I haven't had a lot of experience working with great sounding bright mics.

[invinco]

Most likely it would depend on whose voice you're recording. Some singers are naturally sibilant, nasal, staccato, etc. and you might not want to emphasize that.

Occasionally you'll be faced with the daunting task of recording someone who can <b>sing</b> (no no I mean REALLY,) in which case you can hopefully find the perfect room and try to capture some of the acoustics. The open/natural sound would probably be ideal in this scenario.

In other cases you'll be dealing with someone whose pipes or technique aren't perfect, in which case the "dark" or "round" options would tend to make more sense. If a singer is relying on proximity effect to make up for a general lack of confidence, you want to make sure the high end doesn't come out sounding too nasty.

As far as the EQ option goes I'd be more inclined to stand by the traditional belief that a cut is better than a boost... so adding high end to a "smooth" mic would seem less intuitive than filtering the high end from a "bright" mic.

[jnorman]

i am absolutely in the camp of using mics that have a flat response curve, and eq-ing them later if needed. it is easy to add some high or low eq to a bland sounding track if needed, but it is nearly impossible to fix a screechy track by using eq.

[TonyBelmont]

Originally Posted by Joemamma

What do you think (and have experienced) gives you the "best" quality sound on vocals?

What do I think...?

Own more than one microphone and use whichever one sounds best to you on that particular artist.

A combo of the Peluso 251 and 47 LE is what I maintain at my studio as complimentary mics that will give totally different frequency responses.

There's no other way around it... You need to have a couple different mics on hand for the various artist's you work with.

[Joemamma]

Originally Posted by TonyBelmont

What do I think...?

Own more than one microphone and use whichever one sounds best to you on that particular artist.

Yes, I agree!

But...

If you had to chose and...

Originally Posted by TyRip

the question has changed to IF you had to pick between the two, which would you pick most often...

???

[Joemamma]

Any other thoughts?

[peeder]

Some ribbons will give you a gorgeous and amazingly realistic low-end, but they really don't have any high end to boost. A mic with a broad frequency range can be angled and placed to pick up certain frequencies more and less, so you can buy a mic for detail and balance and fiddle with placement and technique before resorting to EQ. Often you don't need so much high end on a voice in a mix as you might think. Intelligibility can be oversold.

I don't know if you can give advice so much on which is better in any of these matters of taste. You can take a song and make very different things out of it, some will work, some won't. The cumulative product of your own favorite choices, worked out in harmony, becomes your style.

[Dayo]

If it's helpful, I've found that Pultec style EQ is great for broad tone shaping.

[evangelista]

Do you want a small sports car or a utility van?

It always depends on many, many factors.

Don't buy whatever you're thinking about and use the money to buy 2 or 3 less expensive, different sounding mics.

Brightening a dull mic and mellowing a bright one with eq are far from the same thing. Different sources will react differently to different methods. Listen.

Aside from a gentle hpf, I rarely eq ld vox.

[mowmow]

It is hard to get rid of too much highs sometimes than adding highs to round sounding mic.
Plus you have more control to add how much highs.

[u b k]

Very old thread alert.


Gregory Scott - ubk

[joelpatterson]

Life would be so much easier if older posts, say like two or three years old, could look "faded" or have little scratches all over them or somehow exhibit the effects of aging... texts starting to sag? Write an "auto-sag" instruction into the software? Jules?

[lakeshorephatty]

Originally Posted by u b k

Very old thread alert.


Gregory Scott - ubk

Greg did you time your post?

Russell

[Tuberizer]

I think it is always easier and more natural to subtract something from a signal (by which I mean taking away with and EQ or Deesser or whatever), than adding something with an EQ that wasnt originally there.

[filipv]

well, since it's always better to cut than boost, then I guess bright mic is better?

[lakeshorephatty]

No I would say the flat mic is better. To me what most people say is "dark" is actually "flat" and because it isn't hyped, it doesn't have a finished sound right out of the box.

Personally, i think something recorded with a flat mic with the appropriate mud cut out of the signal (low mid cut in the right spot) will always sound plenty bright enough, and WAY more natural than a boosted signal.

Often i won't boost at all on what most people are calling a "dark" mic, i will just cut out the mud and there is the sound you are looking for with very natural sounding highs.

Russell

[lakeshorephatty]

another way to view this is often i find if you were to boost lows and highs with EQ the result would be much less "natural" (if that's what you're going for) vs just cutting in the mids.

Often i find brighter mics sound kind of like they are boosted, rather than having area's cut. They don't sound as natural to me straight off the bat. If you're doing that intense razor blade pop sound the hyped sounding mic could be just the ticket. If you're looking for something balanced and natural brighter mics often don't work in my experience.

Russell

[audiogeek]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

Life would be so much easier if older posts, say like two or three years old, could look "faded" or have little scratches all over them or somehow exhibit the effects of aging... texts starting to sag? Write an "auto-sag" instruction into the software? Jules?

Stretch marks? Liver spots?

Incidentally, I think the OP is an impossible question to answer, as a rule. I've had both good and bad luck using both approaches, it's really vocal-dependant. On some voices, it's nice to use a ribbon, then carve away at the lows till you have a nice natural vibe. Others, it's good to use a bright condenser, spaced a foot or two back, then just add body where you need it.

meh.

[u b k]

Originally Posted by lakeshorephatty

Greg did you time your post?

I'm nowhere near that clever!


Gregory Scott - ubk

[u b k]

Originally Posted by filipv

well, since it's always better to cut than boost, then I guess bright mic is better?

It's better to boost something on a sweet signal than cut something on a crappy one.


Gregory Scott - ubk

[mljung]

Originally Posted by u b k

It's better to boost something on a sweet signal than cut something on a crappy one.


Gregory Scott - ubk

That's a good way to put it!

My experience tells me that many mics with a presence peak that exaggerate sibilance, usually have a problem that's on a "deeper" level.
The resulting sibilance can be very difficult to get rid of, without affecting the overall sound in a bad way - as if it's bit's of transient distortion rather than just a tonal problem.

For this reason, I always reach for a flat or dark flavored vocal mic, unless I'm sure there's a good reason to do otherwise...


::
Mads

[frans]

The question might stem from the fact that condenser mic capsules are tuned "high" and can have resonances, sound sharp. Some of them do, okay?
So you either got a mic less prone to these ...or get a ribbon mic, because the ribbon element is tuned so its resonances are on the lower end of the fequency spectrum, the high end pretty resonance-free.

So if you got a bad condenser and turn up high end - it sounds ugly. If you take a decent ribbon mic, follow the preamp with classy eq (pultec clones don't hurt sitting in your studio...) you got a good combination.

This all even before you have the right/wrong mic for the source. See, there are many reasons to have too many microphones.

[filipv]

Originally Posted by u b k

It's better to boost something on a sweet signal than cut something on a crappy one.

You're absolutely right. But, in this hypothetical scenario I assumed that both micsare equally sweet/crappy: then I'd go for the brighter one.

[Aaron Miller]

I'd prefer to deal with cutting a little low end and low mids than having to soften a mic that is too simblant. I mean, it's usually just so much easier to do broad cuts in that range than to pick out simblant ranges and tone them down.