What a difference a great mic makes- acoustic

[Al.C]

A couple years ago I wanted a decent small condenser mic for recording acoustic guitars. I did a little research and bought a Shure sm 81. It sounded better than my dynamic mics on the acoustic but I never really was blown away by it. It seemed to have quite a presence effect, too much bass. Fortunately it had a built in bass roll off adjustment that helped. Still just not right. My playing always sounded choppy, seemed to pick up the transients well but then dropped off too quick. Tried using compression after but still didn't care for it. Therefore I just never used it. Lately I have been working on fingerstyle acoustic work and have been really feeling like I need to start recording some pieces so I can be more analyical of my progress or lack there of. So after lookin around I decided to just bite the bullet and buy a Neumann 184 small condenser mike. It just came yesterday. Did a quick test recording and I cannot believe the difference.
no eq just straight record (very slight compression and touch of reverb). Wow
Ignore the slight flub near the end was just a quick one take piece. Now I have to work on recording some fingerstyle pieces.
http://soundcloud.com/al-az/mic1

[Scott_F]

Nice stuff. Wow, did a search on that mic. 850 bucks? That's serious stuff. I hope you record a bunch of stuff with it. Nothing like great gear to bring out the motivation to play more, record more. What guitar were you using?

[Al.C]

Nice stuff. Wow, did a search on that mic. 850 bucks? That's serious stuff. I hope you record a bunch of stuff with it. Nothing like great gear to bring out the motivation to play more, record more. What guitar were you using?

Was playing my PRS Angelus. A beautiful, great playng guitar. Now time to really work on my fingerstyle stuff. Maybe some posts to come

[Scott_F]

How bout some Angelus photos? Love to see it. I gotta break bread with you in AZ one day and maybe play some of those PRSi. I don't get out there any more for work, but maybe one day.

[ImmortalSix]

I did some recording with a KM 140 and HOLY COW, that mic makes everything sound great.

The 140 is a part of their interchangeable capsule series, and I believe the 184 was developed to give the 140 sound but without the swappable head capability. The KM 140 and the KM 184 use the same capsule.

You will be able to love that microphone forever - I know it's what I would get if I wanted a small diaphragm condenser!

[ratherdashing]

Yep. The mic itself is easily the most important piece of gear in the recording process. If your mic sucks, your recording sucks ... period.

[ImmortalSix]

Yes --- I remember when I recorded with a large diaphragm condenser the first time, tracking vocals (I was on the recording side, not the performing side), I was like