Vocal Mic for Trip-Hop/Downbeat

[AustinJeep10]

Hi,
I'm looking for any advice on a vocal mic for trip-hop/down-beat/ambient vocals
such as Massive Attack/Leftfield/FSOL, etc. think silky & lush without
breaking the bank. I'm using a Mackie d8b V5.1 console. I'm hopefully planning
to just go mic directly into the d8b mic pre, I don't have an Avalon 737 or similar.

how about the Audio-Technica mics like the AT4040 ? any good for this purpose ?

thanks very much
cheers

[u b k]

if you want smooth and silky, your preamp is the bottleneck. ime, you'll be much better off with a good dynamic like the shure sm7 or even a 57 feeding a really sweet pre like a daking or great river nv.

a decent mic into an amazing pre tends to sound way better than an amazing mic into a decent pre.


gregoire
del ubik

[matucha]

and still it won't sound as big as good condenser (on some voices at least), SM7 needs lots of gain...

A friend swears to the expensive ADK mic he bought and his vocal productions are very nice. Don't know if it is A48 or CE. Skip that if you can buy U47 ;-). There are also other choices, what's your budget?

And of course you need better pre for sure.

[klan]

AKG C414 B-XLII bei eBay.de: Studio-Mikrofone (endet 13.12.09 17:55:31 MEZ)

[Vum]

Keep in mind that this genre tends to have blended male and female voices. A mic/pre that flatters one may mask the other. I'd go with something versatile on the mic front with a nice pre like the Daking that was mentioned. I've also gotten male and female voices to blend using a Trident S20 and a GT 67 or a U87 and a Brick - which sort of contradicts what I just suggested. Ribbons are good for this as well.