Quote:
Originally Posted by larry zip
brad, i know you sell both, is the brauner vm-1 better than the soundelux?
Impossible to answer, just as it is impossible to answer if an E250 is better than a E47. Depends on the application and the room and the singer. Brauners are very different (in sound) from Soundelux mics so the same issues are in play: it depends.
What I can say is this:
Brauner builds a mic line that shares a particular character and has smaller differences between models, all unique compared to other mics, new or old. The Phantom AE sounds like "a Brauner", as does a Valvet Voice or a VM1. Bandwidth is different, tone and clarity is different, basic rolloff are different but they share a common theme. The VMA offers a new sound for Brauner and the VM1KHE is also a new or "different" sound for Brauner, so those are the exceptions. They are unique and different from the rest of the line (and also the most expensive). Brauners work for folks BECAUSE they are different from all others.
In Soundelux, there is no family sound, no "sounds like a soundelux". Each mic is completely different. David Bock wants his range of mics to live together in one studio at the same time and all used on one record. The idea is a complete "set" of sounds to work with, not do a good better best thing. Great studios have a range of mics, their mic locker, to cover the different needs of different engineers and different artists. Soundelux has targeted this idea as its main objective. In great rooms these mics sound a lot like the models they are named for. They work in the same situations. They are different from each other like a well equipped mic locker would be.
When you wrestle with the desire to assign values to mics that are truly portable -meaning what you describe is the same sound the other person hears-you fail. Mics do not sound the same everywhere. Since mics are acoustic devices like speakers, the acoustic setting (the room) is the invisible partner to the sound. In one room an ELUX might rock your world on a singer. That same singer in another room on an ELUX into the same preamp and heard over the same monitors might be way wrong. Only the room changed but the sound was way different.
For those of us in the mic business, as much as we would like to say "the XYZ mic is THE mic for big male vocals", we can all think of about 10 examples from clients off the top of our heads that defy that recommendation. A studio who tried an E250 liked it better than an U47 on this one client; a studio that tried a U99 liked it better than a old 67 he had (that was probably not working right); a studio that tried an E49 liked the original M49 he had more because it was darker, etc. A good example is Brauner VM1's on Orchestra and Scoring and Choirs, all distant applications: they almost always win over whatever the client tries. Very few E LAM251's in omni in orchestra anymore. Yet, one time I sent both a Brauner VM1 and ELUX to Mormon Tabernacle Choir, they picked 5 ELUX's in omni over the Brauner. So there you go. Its all about the room.
Questions about applications in forums are tough, for people DO want to know about this. You will see the more experienced of the posters tell you what they use and where. What's important to gain from that is not so much that "a 47 is the mic for male vocals" but that a proper 47 is different from a proper vintage 251 in the following ways: a, b, c, etc. Those "comparison" values are more portable and have some meaning. Be suspicious of "absolutes" (I tried a old tube 47 and it sucked compared to my new XYZ) you see thrown around sometimes.
Brad