How to choose a microphone that suits you?

Everyone's voice is different, which builds the artistry and fun of singing. Each voice has its own unique sound wave characteristics, which makes your own voice different from others.

Many bands have similar instrumental arrangements and the same style, but their songs sound very different. This is one of the reasons-the difference in the lead singer distinguishes the two. From men to women, from roughness to smoothness, from darkness to brightness, the indicators for examining different voices are almost endless, and none of them are the same. So this also means that no microphone can fully capture these differences.

Each microphone also has its own unique frequency properties, and it is very important to realize this. This frequency attribute mainly refers to the frequency response, but fundamentally speaking, no matter how straight the frequency curve described in the microphone manual is, each microphone will still apply its own frequency attribute to the audio it picks up. . Therefore, without knowing the characteristics of the microphone, it is obviously a blind opinion to think that a certain microphone is good or bad, because you don’t know what factors make the sound change, whether it’s the frequency attribute of the microphone, or other?

The ultimate goal, we all try and hope to get a touching voice. We want the recorded sound to be the same as our real sound—or even better. And the secret of excellent recording: It's not to choose an excellent microphone, but to choose one that matches the sound very well. What is suitable is good.

For example, if you have a bright female lead singer. So many traditional condenser microphones may not be suitable for her (because these microphones often bring slightly excessive high-frequency tooth sounds). What we need is to cut high frequencies, so we should choose a tube microphone with a darker and warmer tone and a high-frequency roll-off function. Or, dynamic wheat and aluminum strip wheat are also feasible.

The opposite is also true: a full, warm and deep male voice, if there is no microphone with a certain brightness to open the scene, I am afraid it is difficult to give him too much "face care" during the mixing process. Therefore, a brighter microphone is a perfect match for this voice. In fact, all this is to choose the right microphone & vocal combination.

Simple dual microphone test

If we have most types of microphones and enough time, then we can find the best microphones for all kinds of sounds. But who has the time and money? So let's have a simplified experiment-a dual-microphone comparison test.

To complete this test, all you need are two microphones with different hearing senses. They can be of different types, such as condenser mics and dynamic mics. Or two microphones of the same type with different frequency responses. Regardless of whether it is a borrowed microphone or a purchased one, all we need are two microphones to complete this test.

Place the two microphones in a similar sound field and connect them to the two front-end ports of the audio interface, and the two front-ends should be exactly the same. Next, through the operation of the workstation, start to record two single tracks for them at the same time-just sing a short phrase by yourself. By comparison, you can know what kind of microphone you are more suitable for.