Love it. Ace stuff.

Also, going to bust out the 'phones as I'm on the lappie and listen to Animal Collective for the first time ever.

I am really quite fond of the KSM27 I've gotta say. I think it is my most favorite mic I have, and the M179 is working now. Dunno what the fuck was going on with that. I tend to use the KSM before the 179 unless I am going to use the variable pickup pattern biz. I have no idea what the spec sheets look like, but the 179 seems a little bit brighter to me/thin in the high end. Not a bad sound at all, but the KSM just sounds more realistic or whatever, IMO.

Yup, slamming the balls out of my PA-2 with the KSM, lowcut engaged, -20 decibel settings engaged. I love that thing, I really want to try some other tubes with it, as well.. With something nice, it could be even more schbadass.

I've looked at the spec sheets for both and I remember them both being flat-ish, but the response graph doesn't really give you the whole story on anything, y'know? '90s Mackie board pres spec out great and vintage APIs spec out like total garbage. Having used both...

I was really curious how those two compared, as they are in the same price range and are similarly praised for being punch-above-their-weight-class utility mics. The multi-pattern version of the Shure costs like a k new, so... That being said, re: other CAD stuff, Mr. Dan newholland has both the M179 and the e200 (round-badge American-made version; that's the one you want, apparently.) which are both multi-pattern neutral sorts and would be better equipped to explain the differences. And if you see an e350, ever, buy it. No, seriously. They are rare as all hell though; they weren't cheap new nor were they produced for a long time. Their rep might be due to their rarity, but the story goes they did a blind shootout with a vintage U47 at an AES con and they were indistinguishable, and people have claimed to prefer it over pricey clones of said. So it's that flavour- bigger than life, sounds like money- and it was not a cheap mic. Hard to find.

Have you gotten a chance to try the pre with guitars yet? Or kick and snare? Preamps that break up in a cool sounding way are fun!

Everything on here is going through the PA-2 except the kick and snare, so acoustic guitar yes, but not on any close mice (you've heard it powering ribbons as room mice) on electrics but that's on the list of tests to do. I was gonna do a vocal test with 4 or 5 mics out in front of me 2 feet and just do a sort of a capella deal and split them up. KSM, M179, MXL ribbon, RSM-5 and MXL 2001 probably. Those are all the LDC/ribbons.

Noted. What would you say the PA-2 sounds like compared to the interface pres when it's not breaking up?

I usually use my Focusrites for acoustic since they're so clean; I haven't tried the modded AMEK strips on acoustic yet- they break up nicely when pushed, but they have a nice open thing going on run clean. The channel of the ART with the Sylvania I might like for a larger-than-life shiny sound, but it's pretty noisy. I use it on vox though, so

'lectric fiddles, bass, kick and snare, if you can get some good grit from the thing, I'd think it would shine there. (Along with vocals, which we know it works on.) It's shocking, once you've learned to recognize the sound, just how much after-the-source distortion is on a lot of things, and how some things take it like a champ (kick and snare, I'm looking at you).

That makes me think about one of the fascinating things about making records: I've heard awesome sounding things in rooms just standing near the gear I have rarely if ever heard captured. Some of the coolest things about rock records are sounds from acoustic sources that don't actually sound like the sources at all. Some of the most "you are in the room" recordings I've ever heard are 50 years old. Some of the most violent sounding bands have the most natural production values. I've been lucky in that I've spent time with the conventional rock-and-roll studio gear and know what I like and can't be arsed with/don't bother to use. It still inspires gearlust in that I want the weird shit; I want the stuff the classical recordists use and I want the stuff that wrecks everything that passes through it.

Never taken the time to compare the two much, usually if I am hooking into the preamp it is to exploit that sweet, sweet tube clipping. With vocals it is noticeably more dirty even when run clean and from what my ears identify as a mid boost. It is not an incredibly hi-fi sound actually, kinda why I wanna try some other tubes.

Interesting. I get the mid boost thing with mine too; doesn't seem to matter what tubes are in there- though it's more prominent with the Mullards. 12AT/AY/AU7s will definitely clean the thing up a bit (listed in descending order of gain from the AX7s). The Sylvania 12AU7 I have in there is, oddly, the noisiest, despite being the lowest gain by a lot, but it wasn't hand-tested for audio I'm sure; I boosted it out of an old TV on the curb. It does sound really good, though; big, open and shiny.

Even with the lower gain tubes, I can still push it if I want to, and it still breaks up in a pleasing way. So if you like what it does, I'm sure you can only make it better. The stock tubes are almost certainly cheap Sovteks or Chinese 12AX7s, which really belong in a guitar amp and I think are sorta dubious for that purpose anyhow. That being said, I always did like the Sovtek 12AX7 Long Plate (Groove Tubes tests and rebrands as their 12AX7R2), which, while not at all a reliable tube in my experience (they tend to go microphonic from use, at least in a guitar rig) does sound good. Probably better suited to one of your amps though.

I will have to check out the Sovtek Long Plates. I read about particularly good things about Telefunken smooth plates in that tube thread you sent to me, I thought those sounded like something I'd be into when I was reading the descriptions of the higher end tube options.

They are pretty cheap, and they do, well, fail on occasion. But I always thought they sounded good. Only ever used them in guitar gear.

The Telefunkens, everyone praises to the skies. They are expensive. I can't think of anyone ever putting one in a guitar rig, but recording and tube hi-fi gear, yeah.

https://soundcloud.com/cameron-heck/unt ... lin-song-2

More uh dat ghetto mandolin action. KSM27s in GJ, D112 and PR40 on kick and snare respectively getting smashed through the PA-2. KSM on all mando shit, MXL R40 ribbon on the banjo bit. Still needs guitars, bass and vocals. Might need new drums too..

We may make a tracking engineer out of you yet ; this sounds quite good. How far back are you from the snare on the PR40? Anything happening to stuff in the mix or is that just how it went down? The low end on the toms is nice, gotta say. Without big distorted guitars, you can get proper Big Bottom without the close mics on the toms. Distorted guitars fucker toms and you wind up wanting the close mics. Probably the big sustained frequency thing.

That reminds me I need to speak to my violining friend. And, er, record bass takes that don't suck.

PR40 is about 9" off the snare. Besides compression, everything that's going on with the mix is what's up. Dirty kick and snare just dat dirty. And thank ya.

You got very lucky inheriting such nice cymbals in that drumdeal.

They seem an ideal thickness for recording with, and sound very pleasant in that locale, as well.

Yeah, I really love these cymbals and particularly how they were captured here. By the way, the crash on the left that I play most on this song is a cracked B8, funny how nice it sounds. Much quieter than the Sabian Vault crash, as well.

What size is the B8? A friend of mine has a nice B8 18" ride that is really more like a bigass crash, that i have used a few times for some surfrock stuff i did with him, where my stupid heavy cymbals would have just sounded idiotic.

Sometime i should run with that, using death metal cymbals for surfrock. I'll need some chinas for that though.

It's also an 18". I've a 20" B8 ride that I bought alongside the crash, though fucker is crazy thick unlike your homies 18". My nice ride is pretty much all wash, and the B8 is mostly bell/ping.

Yarr bell/ping is what my big-ass AAX Metal is. Aslo, i started out with a B8 that was thick and pingy like that too. I cracked the shit out of it using baseball bat sticks, and eventually used a grinder to cut the bell out, which, taken out of the cymbal, is the most painful and unusable bell that ever was. But that pingy B8 was the main reason that i went looking for the AAX Metal in the first place, all that bellsound.

Now of course i am wishing that i had spent all those hundreds of dollars on some thin cymbals, so that my brass would not be such a huge problem like it is now for the types of things i want to hear from them today, but whatever. Recoarding them is practically impossible though, they get way too much all up in every other microphone. Great live cymbals, shit for recording anything other than metal though, especially in reflecty basements.

Over the summer I was at a friend's jam/BBQ thing and the drummer from his band took off... it was either Bosphorous or Meinl and subbed a B8 for the ride, 'cause random d00ds (including myself) were behind the kit. The B8 sounded better, seriously. Which shocked the hell out of me, but they can be good sounding cymbals. My collaborator keeps a broke-ass B8 china on his kit for the sound, and I don't want to know what his brass cost. A couple K easy. (Not counting the K series ride which was a garage sale score for twenty dollars. Which isn't even his main ride.)

Rides are weird. They're more of a pain to record than hats, I think. Hard to capture in a rock mix unless you're just whaling the tar out of the bell anyhow. Said B8 I remember being pingy as fuck. For the hardrawks it works though, where the classier cymbal was all wash. The one thing with the thicker shitcymbals though is sometimes you might as well be hitting the damn stand, the way the bell sounds. There's sort of a middle ground one has to reach.

It's funny, I know a number of perfectly good, even very skilled guitarists who aren't gearheads at all and often have terrible sound but fine chops, but not a single drummer who's worth the paper they're printed on who isn't one. I am trying to think of one and I don't know, seriously, even if they don't have killer gear- most of the good drummers I know do, but not all; a much higher percentage than guitarists though- they know their shit. They know what's up. Drummers are their own species, I swear.

This.

Hey, if Charlie Watts has chinas on his kit...

Oh aslo, the 18" B8 that i have borrowed from that dood, is specifically a "Crash/Ride", a definitely different beast than the B8 ride that i turned into The Violence Bell, and which i suspect that bofe of you have met in your respective B8 Ride experiences.

The Crash/Ride sounds about as close to a properly vintage thin Zildjian old ride as i have heard from any... not-actually-vintage-Zildjian-oldride cymbal, at least in the sub-$200 range.

Aslo aslo, Hi-Hats are extremely simple to record, IMO. Too simple. The problem with them in fact, is needing to recoard less of them than is actually there. I think that my ponylist of a new set of cymbals would prolly include something for hihats in the 13" range, if not smaller. Because fuck hihats.

Aslo aslo aslo, Rides are not too bad. But i do find that if you are having trouble getting them to sound the way you think they should, nylon tipped sticks can be exactly what they are missing. Or wood ones, if the drummer already uses nylon. I also find that to properly get cymbal work recorded it is helpful to use smaller than normal sticks. Which is the opposite of what i feel sounds best for recording snare and toms, where i like to try to use the biggest fucking sticks that i can play the parts with.