So How Do They Sound?

As noted above, I made a series of multitrack recordings of all the mics in parallel, using spoken voice and a variety of instruments, including acoustic guitar, ‘cello, trumpet/cornet and percussion, mostly recorded from about two feet in my fairly live room. This allowed me to play back and switch between mics for quite direct comparisons, with few and small variables. The downside, of course, is that none of the mic positions are optimized.

There is a danger in this sort of listening approach of tending to assume that the reference microphone is “correct” and that microphones under test should match that reference. So, I tried to keep the original direct acoustic sound clearly in mind as well, and to use IT as my reference, while using the reference mic as a neutral “ear cleaner” between comparisons of the various mics under test. I asked myself the questions, “How musical and natural does the recording sound?” and “How effectively and naturally do the cardioids attenuate the room sound?” There is a lot of gut feel to this. Due to deadline and money constraints, I didn’t conduct any formal controlled listening trials.

The 3525

There is a slight upper edge to the sound of the 3525, and the constrained bass is quite noticeable, compared to the omnis. The room sound was well controlled, and the timbre was quite natural. Percussion seemed quite realistic (no problems with transients were noted), and the trumpet had a wonderful crackling edge in the upper register. The mic worked well on my voice (three and a half thumbs?) and the guitar sounded fine. The ‘cello sounded just a little thin on the lower strings.

The 3527

The 3527 sounded very much like the B&K, with only that slight 10 kHz. peak to betray it. Low frequency response was natural and extended, and the sound was natural and smooth. Lots of room tone, of course. My voice felt a little dark to me. The trumpet sounded great, as did the guitar and ‘cello.

The 3528

The 3528 sounded, in comparison to the other mics, a little more edgy and pinched, . Before you run from the room screaming, however, note that it worked very well in terms of “pulling” instrumental definition out of the grunge, and that tracks recorded with this mic will probably mix comparatively easily and sound good in a mix context. The 3528 did quite a nice job on my voice, and was very brilliant sounding with the trumpet. The ‘cello sounded a tad strident, while the guitar sounded bright but natural.

Fun ‘n Profit Time

These are some very useful microphones. For much multitrack work, we need a bunch of different mics for use at the same time. If we had an unlimited budget, of course, we would just buy thirty or so Soundfield Mark IVs (at $6 grand a pop!) and be done with it. Mostly, however, we need to compromise, and these mics are an extremely good way to add depth to your mic closet.

For under $1500, you can get five extremely well-behaved omnis that will do a lot of different things for you (I’ve felt for years that omnis have a much important role in the studio than we normally give them); they should make wonderful drum mics for close work, including kick drum, snare and toms, in a piano, and you now have the basis for 5-channel surround recording with a matched set of omnis! For very reasonable bucks!! Not a bad deal at all.

The 3525 cardioid mic should be an excellent horn mic, guitar mic, or general purpose mic for a variety of tracking purposes. A set of three or four will permit you to do a bunch of very nice things. I suspect you will find yourself trotting these out far more often than you intended to, and that your clients will tend to really enjoy the way they sound. The bottom end limitations will tend to KEEP you out of trouble far more often than GETTING you into it, and mostly you’ll enjoy the clean defined tracks you get. Finally, these mics will do very nicely in stereo pairs (XY and ORTF arrays), expanding your range of production capability very nicely.

The 3528 is equally useful, if a little brighter/thinner in sound. For much work, you will find the edginess to be very useful, and when you need more mid and bottom end, it is in fact recoverable with EQ to a substantial extent.

For project and small commercial multitrack studio work, we usually have a couple of really primo mics, and then a bunch of low-cost and/or specialty stuff to fill out our collection. Often we have trouble coming up with pairs of mics good enough for stereo tracking, in addition to our primo pair or two of “really good” condensers. The Audio Technica Series 30 microphones give you that capability. For less than the price of a single “really good” mic, you can have a matched bunch of really nice sounding and flexible microphones, mics with acceptably low noise, good response, durability and high-level capability. They’re gonna make those overly-complicated tracking sessions go really well, for a change. You might also want to note that AT suggests that these mics will work very well in sound reinforcement applications. I agree. Nice mics. Great price!

Happy tracks!