M149 Mic Problems

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I'm getting too much distortion on peaks with certain singers....

The M149 is about a year old. I know the output gain on these are fairly high and can cause overload issues on the mic preamp... I've tried a DW Fearn, API and Neve preamps with levels set much lower than 0dBm analog and around -14dbbfs digital levels on the AD8000SE...

I suspect the mic or tube could have gone bad... Has anyone seen similar problems with this mic??

[doug_hti]

I had the same problem on a female and a m147. I know they are totally different mics, but it happened on two NEW 147s, one more than the other...and it was definately frequency selective...the upper mids had a tendancy to distort.
It may have been what a lot of people call a "WARM" sound with the proper harmonic distoritions, but it wasn't pleasant to me.

I was trying it with a avalon m5 (which doesn't have a output level), but I was assured that I wasn't distorting the input to get what output I had....I don't know, I was SO SO frusterated!

Did this mic not do this before??
If it didn't, then great..sounds exactly like the symptoms of a tube?! Is the mic path noisier?

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Yes, same situation... the distortion is more noticeable on upper mids of a female voice. The mic was about 12" from the singer, so I backed the mic to about 30" from the singer and the problem wasn't as bad, which made me think there's something getting over loaded on the mic's electronics...

btw, this mic sounds really great on acoustic gutiar, and most male singers that I've recorded...

I know the M149 typically isn't a first choice for female singers... But for this singer, the M149 sounded much better than the other mics I tried during set-up (U87, RCA77, AT4033, R121)...

[doug_hti]

yes exactly....me too, thought something was overloaded.
As far as the 149 not being a female mic, the biggest bragging right that Neumann uses on this is that Sarah McLaughlin uses it on nearly all her tracks?!?!

Trust me, I feel your pain.

I think the vintage C12s are the answer (haven't heard the VRs)

The female I was trying to use the 147 on has a lot of upper mid air and some pleasant overtones. And it was horrible...I thought something else was wrong. I switched out all cabling and what not...and was using it with a Avalon discrete pre that is not supposed to distort at all at the various levels I was driving it at, regardless of whatever "transient" peaks slip through.

I told these problems to the music store and they respected me to my face and were laughing behind my back...thinking I was nuts, because ooohhhh it's a Neumann. A Neumann tube would never do this.
And yes I'm sure it sounds fine on instruments and some male vocals!!
I could tell it had some really nice low mids (not what I needed for the female).

Any way, I got rid of my 147...

I hope you work something out...
I got a BLUE mic, haven't tried it yet, am going to try it with a vt737 today.

good luck, let me know what happens.

[Studio Dweller]

Just to add my experience to this... I have an M149 and I much prefer it for male vocals. On male vocals, it generally shines, but I haven't had too much success with it on female vocals. I think the TLM103 is better suited for female vocals.

Haven't had any distortion problems, but I have had to pad the output the 149 at times since the thing can nearly put out line level. I now have a Crane Song Flamingo preamp which has some very low-gain settings on it which work well the 149.

[doug_hti]

studio dweller, what is your take on the tlm103? I've heard some praises for it and some criticisms?!

Have you paired the tlm103 with a avalon 737?

It seems there is a shortage on selection of mics for airy and breathy females at this level ($700 on up) and beyond without spending $20k on a vintage c12 or 251....

The Rodes, ATs, AKG (C414), and m147 just haven't been the right match in my case...

[Jules]

yep, me too!

on just one singer, with M149

She has little or no mic technique & is LOUD!

Even resorting to having the peakiest of signals NEVER get near 0 vu on my DBX 160 VU compressor (I was catching peaks with that prior to a UA 1176) she was still able to produce slight 'fog horn' overload on the loudest of resonant mid frequency notes...

It's great on everyone else!

Bummer... [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

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Interesting feedback I got from Doug Fearn regarding the problem on M149 distortion. He thinks the input transformer is getting saturated by the M149's hot output, which makes sense, since the distortion is happening even without much gain going through the premap and decent levels on the VU's...

[doug_hti]

makes sense what fearn said.
But why would it be so frequency selective?
Is it because the lower freq distortion blends in a bit better?

It sounds like Neumann needs to quit bragging about their hot output levels and tame them down.

It sure has caused me a lot of hours and frusteration trying to track down what I did wrong!

So is there anyone that successfully uses new 147s or 149s? and what pre?

[Dong Son]

So is there anyone that successfully uses new 147s or 149s? and what pre?[/QB]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hi,
I got Avalon 2022, Brent Averill 1073, Amek 9098EQ and vintech 1272...the Vintech does the best job for my M149, both male and female. Avalon 2022 great on soft female vocal (but when mix, I don't have to use any EQ at all because the sound already stand out).
...and sadly, my Brent Averill 1073 seems does not like M149, it supported to be great but, I don't know why ... however, 1073 really shine on vintage C12.
Thanks
Sonny