Best Mics and Mic pres for bass/baritone male voic

[mharwood]

If money were no object, what would be the best mic and mic pre for recording a bass/baritone male voice???

[superdood]

I'll throw a little nugget from my experience. First of all, I don't claim to know anything so keep in mind, this advice is coming from a UPS driver/guitar player/songwriter/semi-noob home recordist.
My vocals fit into the "low male voice" category and I am very happy with my set up: Lawson Lmp47 mic into a Vintech X73 pre. Also, a lot of people flame all over the Rode stuff, but I have an NTK mic which I think also sounds quite good on my voice. It does have a bit of a hi freq boost, but for my voice, it's not too much.
Something else to consider...my Rode NTK into an ART Pro MPA tube pre sounds pretty good also. That's a mic and pre for under a grand whereas the other set up goes a little under 3 grand. The Vintech has a very nice eq, but in terms of just sound quality/tone etc, the expensive set up really doesn't sound THAT much better. It is better, but looking back, I'm not sure the cost is justified unless you're loaded.

cheers,
Steve

[PTUser NYC]

Obviously, everything depends on the singer and the song, and trying things at the moment, but with that in mind, here are some good places to start:

Money No Object Mics for Bass/Baritone:

Neumann M49 (not 149)
Neumann U47 tube, (not 147)
Neumann U87ai
Neumann U67
EV RE-20
Sennheiser 421MD
RCA 77 or 44 Ribbon Mic

Money No Object Preamps for Bass/Baritone:

Neve 1073
Groove Tubes Vipre
Helios (type 69, the one with the Passive EQs)
UA 2108
Telefunken V72 or V76

Money No Object Compressors for Bass/Baritone:

UA LA2a (or LA3)
UA 1176LN
Fairchild 670
Empirical Labs Distressor


By no means an exhaustive list, but I only wanted to put things I have personal experience with.

Basically, I'm thinking, warm but not mushy, and some presence or marbles in the mids help the lower notes read. Remeber that crash test dummies song "Mmm, mmm"? thats the kind of "trombone splatty", in your face, "Elenor Rigby cello" kind of sound I'm talking about here. Kind of like a Tom Pety or John Lennon vocal, although the same sound (with maybe a little less compression) would work very well for classical singers too - obviously the mic distance would be greater too, and likely remove some of the "pop-piness" of it.

Helpful?

[mharwood]

Yes, very helpful. I seem to be getting consistent advice that you do not want to mate a tube mic to a tube mic pre for fear of creating a "mushy" sound. What is your take on that. I am getting strong reviews on the tube Soundelux mics,,,any experience with those. If I went with an FET mic,,, I hear the Manley VoxBox is a strong tube mic pre to mate it with. I have heard rave reviews on the Neumann U47s,, one of your choices, but they are very hard to find and they can be highly modified,,, any idea where a good one could be located? I have heard very good things about the Martech MSS-10 non tube mic pre which could be mated with a good tube amp. I have a BlUE "Blueberry" mic now and an Avallon 737 tube mic pre and a Telefunken V72 (one of your choices), 2 channel job that was set up by Marquette Labs. I have sold off some guitars and amps to raise some money to upgrade and if I upgrade I want to go for something I will be very happy with for the long haul. I have a pretty robust ProTools setup with lots of plugins too. Thanks for your input,,, again,,, very helpful!!!!

[Rusty G.]

I've also heard great things about the Soundelux mics. I've just purchased a Great River mic pre and it works pretty well. The store I purchased from suggested I try a Soundelux U195. It's a large diaphragm FET condenser mic. Supposed to be real cool for a male voice, but I can't say for sure, because I didn't buy it. But, I did buy the Great River mic pre and I think it works great for male voices.

Good luck!

[audiaudio]

Go here.

[captain54]

I'm the classic bass/baritone and (don't laugh), I've used an SM 58 a lot and have gotten some surprisingly good results...

I read recently that Silvia Massy Shivy, during one of the Smashing Pumpkins sessions, set up the 58 thru a UA175 with some high end mics for a blindfold test and the winners where the U47 and the SM 58...

[mharwood]

An update. I bought a U47,,, got lucky and found one. I also bought the Martech MSS-10. I still have a good chunk of money left so the next thing I need advice on is what EQ and/or compressor would you mate with what I have bought for a world class result. Everyone seems to tell me that the top analog EQs and Compressors are superior to any plugins,,, do you agree with that??? thanks in advance for you thoughts.

[superdood]

the only high-end eq I have are the eqs on my Vintech x73 preamps. I must say that they sound excellent. Even with extreme eqing, the signal never gets harsh. My Waves eqs on the other hand are not terrible, but I wouldn't say that I'm really excited about using them on anything. I bought the Sony Oxford eq, which is said to be excellent, but so far, I've yet to be able to get it working with my damn ilok, so I can't tell you good or bad on that.
If you got lots to spend, you probably can't make a bad choice. If you're in the $2,500 and up category, the eq's will probably all sound a bit different, but I doubt there will be a crappy one in the bunch

have fun,

steve

[tlester]

Hmm.... I'm rarely in the situation where I'm stuck with one Mic/pre and I usually compare several things, but I'd have to say my first "go to" mic would be an M49 followed, by a U47, then C12. For pre's, I'd say 1073 (or like) -> LA-2A.

-Tom