My Original Rode Classic..sometimes...

[Sparky2]

..it sounds wicked and smooth, sometimes there sooooo much 2kHz and the highs are not piercing but really hot, sometimes it has a whole shwack of 10kHz....

...A lot of mid-highs in my male voice...Can anyone suggest a mic that is suited for me that give me a smoother response in that area with out making the low's muddy..

-Curt

 

[ByronSanto]

NOS Tubes

Have you tried changing tubes?

I put a Telefunken LongPlate in my Rode K2 and a Amperex BugleBoy in my second K2. I now have two differnt sounding mics and I think they sound better now then with the original tube

 

[Joey123]

Byron I also bought a K2 , and I'm stunned at the good sound (compared to every other mic I've owned).

Could you recommend a place in the States where I could get some upgrade tubes?

I've owned a Mesa Boogie MKIII guitar amp, and while over the years EVERY set of tubes sounded different, I'm at a loss to explain why I never stopped to think about trying different tubes in the K2. It scould be because I was already pretty happy with the sound, but ah, why not break barriers? Damn this is exciting!

Would you be so kind as to share what the difference Telefunken LongPlate and the Amperex BugleBoy made?

Excited here man

 

[Spiritworks]

I own two NTKs, in which I upgraded the tubes to Mullards. Made a good mic better. Got them here: http://store.tubedepot.com/index.html

 

[ByronSanto]

Byron I also bought a K2 , and I'm stunned at the good sound (compared to every other mic I've owned).

Could you recommend a place in the States where I could get some upgrade tubes?

I've owned a Mesa Boogie MKIII guitar amp, and while over the years EVERY set of tubes sounded different, I'm at a loss to explain why I never stopped to think about trying different tubes in the K2. It scould be because I was already pretty happy with the sound, but ah, why not break barriers? Damn this is exciting!

Would you be so kind as to share what the difference Telefunken LongPlate and the Amperex BugleBoy made?

Excited here man

I've purchased from this site with great results. Their tubes cost a little more but I can say the quality is 100%
http://www.audiotubes.com/

The Telefunken LongPlate in the K2 gave me a Neumann air quality with slight bump in the low end. The Amperex BugleBoy has a big, phat low end with a slight bit of a more compressed sound then the Tele. It has a nice warm high end. Not quite the air as the Tele. I record with both K2's and mix as needed.

I've also tried Mullards, GE's, RCA's NOS tubes and a few differnt newer tubes but I keep coming back to my Tele & Amperex in my K2's.

http://www.rode.com.au/?pagename=Artist ... on%20Santo[/url]

 

[Joey123]

Byron, Spiritworks, you're my heroes. In addition I got my old wholesale account restored at New Sensor (I did other things for a while) which can save a lot of jing. Great Day Today - it's time for beer and neighbors now

Sparky2, changing guitar amp tubes never failed to put a big fat smile on my face. In your situation you answered your own question \"sometimes there sooooo much 2kHz ... sometimes\". Saying \"sometimes\" twice shows your tube is schwacked.

Tubes vs solid state are like women: they'll both do in a pinch but with tubes it's like you get to change women every now and then

Married guys: I appologise for that, but not enough to delete it

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

...A lot of mid-highs in my male voice...Can anyone suggest a mic that is suited for me that give me a smoother response in that area with out making the low's muddy..

It's a tough question because this is generally the range I want a mic to emphasize on male vocals. For this reason, I would normally recommend an SM7 for male vocals but perhaps an RE20 might be a better choice for you?

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

Byron, Spiritworks, you're my heroes. In addition I got my old wholesale account restored at New Sensor (I did other things for a while) which can save a lot of jing. Great Day Today - it's time for beer and neighbors now

New Sensor has those NOS Mullard 12AT7's. That's the one we put into the MXL V69M & it makes that mic sound fantastic. There are also some good NOS GE 6072's floating around (not at New Sensor) which ought to pretty much turn an NTK into a Classic.

 

[Akis]

...A lot of mid-highs in my male voice...Can anyone suggest a mic that is suited for me that give me a smoother response in that area with out making the low's muddy..

It's a tough question because this is generally the range I want a mic to emphasize on male vocals. For this reason, I would normally recommend an SM7 for male vocals but perhaps an RE20 might be a better choice for you?

Beyer MC740 - exceptionally smooth around 2-3K - actually saved my recording session yesterday, as the singer I was recording had those frequencies quite pronounced. Lovely on female vocals, too; I use it all the time with my singer.

Perhaps I can record a quick shoot-out between U87, MC740, Sontronics Helios (valve) and AKG 414 later this week; can't promise, but tell me if you're interested. It'll be on female vocals.

 

[cAPSLOCK]

Another good source:
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/cgi-bi ... d=9sy8K4Vt

 

[Sparky2]

Thanx for the replies guys!

Byron: Thought about the tubes...might look into this option if it isn't too costly...

Eric: I actually bought the RE20 on your recommendation, and it really is very good for my voice...adding some highs with a good eq works well because the original recording is very flat..it almost compresses itself...but for more intimate stuff like ballads, I seem to lose a lot of character...I'll keep experimenting with it...

I guess most of the time, I have to be reeeeeally careful with mic placement with this thing...if I get to close, then there is just a whole shwack of everything and the vocal lacks depth and air. I'll also take the Beyer recommendation to heart as well since this is not the first time I have had that suggest...

-Curt

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

Isn't the problem that there're too much mid-highs? When you say that, are you meaning there is too much in the middle high-end range (10K, I suppose?) or that there are too much mids & too much highs together?

The funny thing is a lot of the cheaper Chinese mics tend to have the characteristic of tamed down mids with exaggerated, almost piercing high-end. It's normally a quality that I dislike but it would definitely have the effect of taming down your vocal range while emphasizing air. The Rode NT2 exhibits this quality more than any mic I've used, so much so that it's actually kind of cool.

 

[Joey123]

Uhm, guys, I can't fully express my appreciation for the links and good advice. While not mentioning anything pros nor cons I live near one of those links, and they convinced me, by virtue of their knowledge of cons, why I should take a chance with them.

You know, over the years (and I've still got my Mesa Boogie MK3 head ) so many people tell me their uncle or grandfather has a box of tubes in the attic - initially you revolt - if you own a Boogie you don't care about shose Old Wives Tales you know; you don't want some 6L6 or EL 34 made in 1957 because it's probably made for a TV ... (well that's the mentality so don't go mental on me, in other words go mental on my mentallity)

But the tube applicable for the Rode... uhm.. I might be hitting more garage sales for the Rode-applicable tubes just in case As i said initially:

Uhm, guys, I can't fully express my appreciation for the links and good advice.

 

[Sparky2]

Eric: My problem (and I have quite a few :wink: , but that is another topic ), is that I can push out a strong surge in the 2-4k area...I really need to focus on my vocal technique, I know...so the problem is when I screw around fixing the 2-4k area, my 150-250 area gets kind of smeared.

I have played around with using a couple bands of mulit-band compression with some promising results..The RE20 tames that 2-4k area quite well on tracking so adding eq to that area doesn't screw things up so bad.

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

Do you generally keep a lot going on at 150-250? I usually taper this range off, sometimes even hard filtering out 150-200.

 

[Sparky2]

Do you generally keep a lot going on at 150-250? I usually taper this range off, sometimes even hard filtering out 150-200.

I usually taper this range off as well...depends on the song, of course...Mic placement is really crucial with this darn mic...it really isn't very forgiving...a couple of inches closer and things get a lot bassier fast...it seems to get a good even vocal on tracking, I need to be at least 10-12 inches from the mic - any closer and the proximity effect can get hairy fast..

 

[Sparky2]

Eric: When you're tracking vox with the RE20, do you basically just let the vocalist's sing right close up and just belt it?? I am finding that you still need a little bit of air when recording anything other than a quiet song..in that case, I would chose a different mic..

-Curt