my first mic shoot out

[tgrokz]

at my school, five towns, were having a mic shoot out this wednsday. im really excited, because this will be my first shoot out of anything, and im looking to get a few mics, which my school has. any tips on what to ask and what to look out for? i think i have a pretty good understanding on what i want to know, but any advice would be cool.

[tgrokz]

depressing.....haha
bump

[tubedude]

Fun stuff.
Make sure for the shootout that positioning is the same, recording levels are the same, and after recording each take, make sure its in phase with the last one. Nudge it around some. That way you can listen to them all alone, or in combinations with other mics. You'll be quite surprised how different they all are. If you can get a Royer 122v in the mix of things, try it. That thing sounded great. Try to use the same exact source and take every time (like a reamped D.I. track) so there are no performance discrepancies.

[tgrokz]

yea i dont know how its gunna be set up, but i hope I get to get some hands on time. i have a feeling its going to be the guys who are running it who will be doing all the testing, and my ears doing the listening. still, very pumped. as far as i know, we have a few royer mics. dont know which ones though. i really havent gotten a chance to check out our studio fully. its quite beautiful, though.

[seaneldon]

We'll be doing a shootout of a ton of mics/pres/compressors/speakers/etc at Deepwave very soon for the New York Gearsluz Chapter, and we'll also be demoing our Tonelux rig.

New York chapter of Gearslutz!

[uncle duncan]

I think mic shootouts need context. A mic that sounds great solo'd might sound horrible when it's trying to cut through a mix. Not very many records come out these days featuring nothing but a vocal.

[tubedude]

We used dirty guitar and just compared the differences in mics. You can tell by the fullness of something or if it enahnces the nasty stuff like a 57.
Amazing the differences between all the mics.

Try the GT convertible out and see how it fares.

[numrologst]

you should hire a robot to play all the tracks, that would be rad

[tgrokz]

bullshit. that was so unprofessional and messy and terrible. they had no perception of placement or any of that. they spent more time fumbeling over the ssl than actually getting something done. so dissapointing.

[Stitch333]

thats 5 towns for ya!

[Tim L]

... I always thought "5 Clowns" was a better name for the place...

They still have that sign for the Piano in the live room that says "Don't place anything on the Piano"... sitting on the Piano?!

[tgrokz]

the reason the mic shoot out was a bust was because it was the first meeting of the audio club and was kinda rushed. i mean, it could have been better organized by far, but it was excusable. i like the school, but i also don't. half the staff seems very knowledgeable, but the other half seem to be a bunch of failed musicians/businessmen.