Changing Microphones Probably Won't Change Your Life

First of all, I want to point out that this article is geared toward struggling home recording engineers who are not happy with the recordings they are cranking out of their basements or garages. I realize the quality that a $2,500 mic will have over a $250 microphone in certain circumstances, but for those struggling at home, this article illustrate why expensive microphones are probably not the first place to look to improve recording quality.

Simply put, microphones don't make THAT big of difference in the quality of your recordings. While there are certainly some microphones that should NOT be used in certain situations, for the most part the price of the microphone has very little do to with the actual quality of your recordings. Let me explain further.

You see, people are convinced that expensive microphones have higher fidelity than others. They think that if they put a $3,000 mic on a guitar cabinet, it's going to sound magically bigger and better than using a $100 mic. Some people take it a step further. They think that a SM 57 is like a 24kps mp3 and a $3,000 condensor is like a DVD-Audio or something.

In the case of a 24kps mp3 and a DVD-Audio file,  there is a clear and objective disctinction in "quality". The 24kps will never win any shootout. Well, microphones are much different. A $3,000 mic doesn't have "more quality or fidelity" in it necessarily.  People WILL argue as to which mic sounds better on a given source.

While at the Micheal Wagener Recording Workshop we lined up 16 microphones and  recorded sample vocals through each one. It was NOT clear which microphone sounded best. I had been recording 5 years and I had no clue which microphone sounded "best". They were all pretty close.

Wagener had to really teach me what to listen for. I mean we had an SM 58, SM 7, and a AT4050 (all mics that I own). These were no better or worse than U47s and Korby versions of the 251 and C12. I have a feeling that trained engineers would probably pick mics in the same ball park, but your typical home recording guys would be content with just about all of them. In fact, I bet most home recording guys would hate the U47 because it sounds really woofy and midrangy (not at all hifi like people tend to assume). The same thing goes with ribbon microphones. Ribbon mics are so lo-fi that most people are disgusted when they first hear them for the first time.

Although U47s and Royer R121s as some of the most used microphones in professional recording studios,  these "lo-fi" mics put instruments in a certain place that helps fill out a mix. This suggests that audio engineering is not nearly as simple as putting up a fancy, hi-fi sounding microphone and hitting record. Engineering is a complex art/science of understanding the layers of various frequencies and how they react with each other. I can speak from experience, a fancy mic will not boost your quality level to the point that artists are willing to pay more for your recording services.


Here is just brief summary off the top of my head that determines audio quality.

1. The song

2. The musician

3. The instrument

4. The room

5. The performance

6. The microphones

7. Microphone placement

8. The preamp

9. Mixing

10. Mastering

Assuming that you have $3,000 to throw in whatever category you want here, do you think that tossing all that money into microphone will make a mega difference? That depends. It can make a nice difference. However, a lot of that depends on how badly the other 8 factors are screwing everything else up. I like to think of these factors as having a multiplier effect. For example, if you have 100% in everything , but the song is absolutely terrible, the song will multply everything by 0 and you end up with nothing. Let's take a look at everything here.