No - fixed the labelling, and forgot to mention it. My apologies.

https://youtu.be/XMp23AuadyU

Fir what it's worth, I've now done quite a bit of spoken word recording and I've come to think that it's great for my purposes (the 2kHz dip does a good job on sibilants and allows me to get closer to the mic without mids harshness than I can with the CM1 Black.

It's crisp but not harsh.

I haven't sung with it or played anything into it yet.

Gavin

@ gmatkin -- Man, you certainly have a "read the phone book and it would still sound good" kind of voice. I hope you're busy in the VO world! All three of these clips sound great.

I'm a little bit blown away by the teal CM1. The clarity is beautiful but the sibilance is totally under control, and the specific bit you're reading is perfect for exposing sibilance. The black CM1 sounds really nice too but the teal is really, really enticing to me now.

I'm a little surprised at how woolly the AT sounds, in comparison, but my hunch says the pop filter has something to do with that. Even so, for the CM mics to be trouncing a very good mic more than twice their price is remarkable.

In fairness to the AT mics in general, they have a reputation of being flat&full and generally need EQ to color to taste. The CM1 mics are pre-flavored, Black vintage Neumann-ish and Teal vintage AKG-ish. The Teal SE version tested here may be more "tamed" than the non-SE version - I have one and am awaiting the release of the Black SE to complete my "set". The manufacturer told me the Black SE was coming out this month but with Covid who knows? I do know that he's presently "out-of-town" according to eBay so hopefully visiting his factory in China to "bless" the first batch LOL.

I agree about the AT, and that's a very good point. And to be clear, I'm actually a huge AT 40xx fan! Before 3U, they were always my top recommendation for a "first good mic" for all my musician friends getting into recording. And I still love the hell out of my 4033! I don't own a 4040 but I've always enjoyed using them in the past and I've always been surprised how good they are for the money. But 3U and Lewitt are giving AT a run for their money these days in terms of affordable and totally professional.

Careful now, that's the kind of observation that led me to have eight 3U Audio mics here...






...and several other things I bought from the mic sales windfall when I sold off more expensive mics that sounded <= the 3U stuff.

It may. The AT4040 has a 5dB hump between 6-7kHz that suits some voices more than others, and for me foam tames it (different foams by different amounts) - but what I was reminded by the recording is that I mustn't get too close to this mic, even with the HPF. I was the same distance from the CM1s.

I'm slightly surprised but can't deny I'm pleased at what you say! I'm not doing v/os professionally in that way - I write and edit training material about healthcare for a living, and do some v/os for that. As an amateur musician I have developed a bit of an interest in cheap mics - you might call it 'microphilia', and so I use them in my work because it's more craftsmanlike than using the mic in my laptop...

I've attached a couple of Audacity 'extreme quality' MP3s made with the Teal, one of a spoken word sample, and one of some singing (this gas a little reverb). Both had a touch of compression and limiter, and no eq except the built-in HPF.

I had expected to prefer the CM1 Black for singing (in a genre that may be a bit unusual to many folks), but there's something about the Teal that I really like.

Just for singing comparisons (again they're the same eccentric genre):

AT4040, HPF, touch of compression and limiter: https://youtu.be/Y6X-4lw1QfI

Procaster (with a few dB of 10kHz boost), with a touch of compression and limiter: https://youtu.be/XiVJ0eRMlOk

Gavin

What happened to the gz800?

I've been experimenting with a new mic position for recording my very English style fiddle playing; I start here with the CM-1 Teal, followed by a few others.

For myself, I think this represents a big step forward in my ability to get convincing sounding fiddle recordings, and I hope other people will try this method...

https://youtu.be/LAOqoRgVB9c

Gavin

I've been experimenting with a new mic position for recording my very English style fiddle playing; I start here with the CM-1 Teal, followed by a few others.

For myself, I think this represents a big step forward in my ability to get convincing sounding fiddle recordings, and I hope other people will try this method...

https://youtu.be/LAOqoRgVB9c

Gavin

Is the Teal the brightest of the bunch? The Warbler was too dark for my baritone voice (have one for sale if interested).

I was pretty surprised how non-bright my Warbler MKID turned out to be! It actually took me a little while to get used to, but now that I'm accustomed to it I love it. (It's also quite easy to brighten up with EQ if necessary.) I haven't tried the Teal, but I bet it's brighter than any of the Warblers with the possible exception of the MKVI, which seems intentionally quite bright from the description. That one might be worth a try.

The MKVID is supposed to be kind of like a brighter version of the original Warbler. There is a demo of it part way down the first page of the thread if you want to check it out.

I posted this in the mammoth 3U thread, but I thought I'd do it here as well for good measure. I recently got a Neumann u87ai, which (despite the bashing it tends to receive here on GS) is my very favorite microphone. I still love my Warbler, though, and since the Warbler MKID is modeled after the vintage pre-ai u87, these two mics have very different flavors. I did a shootout of the two on my saxophone over an arrangement I made of one of my favorite John Coltrane tunes. Here's the link:

https://soundcloud.com/brian-donohoe...ai-vs-3u-audio

The same take was recorded with both mics simultaneously, with the capsules as close together as possible. The Neumann is a fair bit hotter than the 3U so I gain-compensated to a degree, but the Neumann is still a little louder in the mix. It also has more clarity and detail than the Warbler, while the Warbler sounds a bit more "vintage" with less top-end and a little more saturation. Overall, for my taste, the Neumann wins, but not by that much, and it's almost ten times the price. The Warbler is a beautiful-quality mic with a distinct flavor of its own, and I'll be hanging onto it forever! It honestly sounds a bit "tubey" to me in contrast with the u87, and I find that very interesting.

Thanks for posting! I think this simultaneously shows how good the warbler is for the money and how fantastic the u87AI sounds. I never hesitated to put the MK1D on a rhythm instrument or something in the back of the sound stage, but that U87AI shines here. Thanks again for the great post.

I've been looking through this thread searching for demos of the 3U sdc but, unless I missed something, I couldn't find any.
I'd like first to understand what the sound difference will be between the transformerless version (CM100) and transformer ( 127).

Interested in omnis for recording mostly piano and chamber music, so I'd like to figure out how cm100 omnis ( there is a flat FR version) could stand against another great budget option like Line Audio om-1. Should they be the same quality they could have the advantage of being 4 db more sensitive and having 3 db less noise floor. As a plus an extra cardioid capsules could be ordered thus having more options like Rode nt55 ( another choice to compare with).
Don't have exact idea about the price but think they should be in the same ballpark.
Does any of you has experienced these models?

Thanks all

Ragan did a few examples with those mics and the clips are on his SoundCloud

Listened to the clips....very good indeed. Just wondering how the sdc ( cardioid and omnis) could compare to something as Line Audio, being the latter even cheaper. I own CM4 and like them a lot; as soon as I'll get back into recording something I'll search for a couple of omnis.