Recording - July 2012 - 61

Subkick, and it was just OK. I actually find the M80 better as a kick mic as it captures the beater thwap in a much brighter, natural way. Back to the M81—after its kick drum use it came to live permanently in a 12" iso cabinet on electric guitar, and for good reason—it’s a killer guitar cab mic! While it does have “57-ish” tendencies in this application, it has a touch more tightness and girth.

In the studio
The last set of tests I did was to track a song using only dynamic mics, with each mic tracking every instrument side by side. I find this gives me a good broad handle on each mic’s overall characteristics as well as good benchmarks for future use. The mics were the M80, M81, SM57 and an Audix i5. Tracks were kick, snare, hi-hats, congas, two electric guitar passes (one take on axis and one off), and for vocals I used the M80, M81, SM58 and an SM7. Bass was added via DI just to complete the track. On guitars I was accurately able to match and test these mics using the reamping boxes reviewed elsewhere this issue. As to results—the M80 was quickly out as it was too bright on distorted guitar for my taste. Of course you can’t argue with an SM57 on guitar and it sounded great, but so did the M81 for reasons described above. The i5 also has its own cool, almost overblown “57 on steroids” sound that it is known for, and

tons more low end than the rest. Just for fun I threw in a Royer R-121 ribbon mic, and found the M81 off-axis, coupled with either the SM57 or the R-121 on-axis, to be killer combinations for rock guitars of all kinds. On kick, I found the i5 had the best lows, but again the M80 had the most natural beater sound. The SM57 and M81 sounded vintage at best, like an old ‘60s recording where the kick is there, but does not thump you in the chest. On snare, each mic had its strengths with the M81 being the tightest and most solid, and the M80 the crispest. In further tracking the M80 makes a great bottom snare mic, dialed in at about 30% to the M81 on top. It’s a very forward, full modern sound. On hi-hat the only mic of the bunch that I liked was the M81, which again gave presence, but cut the brightness nicely and had a ton of solid chuff. On percussion it was a tossup, for reasons similar to those mentioned for the snare and depending on how much air and highs are desired for a given track. On vocals, as mentioned above, I was surprised by how much the M81 and SM58 had similar top ends, again with the M81 holding a touch more weight. Ultimately neither would be my choice for voice in a mix, and the SM7 killed them for presence and smoothness, while the M80 killed them for clarity and air... two sides of the coin, both shiny!

I then mixed down all the instrument tracks for each mic to produce an entire mix tracked with the same mic on every instrument. I then paired up the vocal mics with the non-Telefunken instrument mixes—the SM58 with the i5 and the SM7 with the SM57 mix. My impressions, listening back to the results, were that the all-i5 mix sounded over the top and hyped, the all-SM57 mix sounded “familiar”, the M80 sounded crisp and modern, and the M81 sounded tight and vintage like an early ’70s record.

Conclusions
What Telefunken has done is create mics that nod towards time-tested classics, but manage to live nicely beside them while offering new sonic choices in a high-quality and rugged way. This has always been the case with the R-F-T condenser mics, and it holds very true with the M80 and M81 as well. Something familiar, yet something new... Decade after decade, dynamic mics prove again and again that they bring something important to the table, and these two Telefunken offerings have unique and useful voicings that stand out and inspire lots of creativity. How can you lose? Prices: $249 each More from: Telefunken Elektroakustik, www.t-funk.com

http://www.t-funk.com http://www.stedmancorp.com http://www.realtraps.com

Recording - July 2012

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