So, I finally got the Karma Mics K-Micro K-SB7 Silver Bullet mics after 2 months of waiting. They are REALLY cheap omni-pattern SDC mics at $89 list price, $105 including tax and shipping.
We decided to test them out "in action" at the studio on both loud and quieter source, grand piano and drums. I forgot to take pictures of the piano micing, but I took some photos from the drum micing. I will add all the multimedia stuff (pics, samples and sound clips) to the next post when I get back to the dorms, but here is the text part of the review.
The purpose of the test was to test how the microphones sound "out of the box" without any extra processing compared to other workhorses on the field, so we kept the signal path simple; microphone - SSL Duality (we used only the preamp) - Digidesign 192 - Pro Tools. We aimed the recording level to the top of the green area in PT (I think it's -18dBFS on PT8) with some occasional hits on yellow, but without clipping at any point.
We started the test with drums. We had a basic four piece kit (kick, snare, 2 toms, hihat, crash and ride) and we "double" miced up the set; with the "normal" setup (sm57 on snare, b56 on toms, sm81 on ride and hi hat, km184 as overheads and _I think_ Studio Project C4's as room mics) and then the whole 7 piece Karma kit on snare, rack tom, floor tom, hi hat, ride and stereo overheads. We used the same kick mics for both setups (Crown PZM and Shure B52)
Some observations:
- They were SUPER easy to setup on the kit, because they are so lightweight and tiny. One is about half the size of your pinky. No weight drooping on the stands and they fit to pretty much everywhere. They literally were one of the easiest mics with a stand I have ever setup.
- When we listened to the mics we noticed was that the polar pattern is omni. If you are unfamiliar what this means, it means that it picks up A LOT of bleed. The rack tom mic pretty much picked everything as loud as everything else, thus they are really bad mics for gating or triggering. If you want to gate these, I would suggest using them with triggers or other mics. The overall sound was like you had room mics everywhere on the kit, which actually sounded pretty cool.
- One thing we noticed after we pressed record was that even though the Karma Mics website says it has 135dB max SPL, I think it's bullshit, because we hit the distortion on all the mics. When we watched the waveform, it was pretty square wavy on drum snare hits, even though recorded signal was around -18dBFS level, so we came to the conclusion it is distorting either on the diaphragm or the internal electronics. The good thing is that the distortion actually sounded really nice. Kinda like you had a really colored compressor on the mic. Similar effect can be heard on Sennheiser e901 and Shure Beta 91 (and EMG pickups), where part of the character from them comes from the internal clipping of the transducer.
On grand piano we tried a few spaced pair setups of Karma Silver Bullets and Neumann KM184's when we realized they omni pattern; Spaced pair by the hammers and "room mic setup" by the lid. They didn't distort and they sounded a bit darker and more open than the KM184's. There was three of us and preferred the Karma's over the Neumann's on the piano.
Summa summarum:
- The silver bullets have their applications, but you have to realized that they are just another tool in the in your disposal, another flavor to try if you want the tracks to sound a bit different. They are NOT desert island mics that works everywhere, the default "go to" mics, nor the thing if you want to record clean and natural sounding loud drums. I would definitely use it as an effect and for some really dirty sounding (hardcore) punk, and if you are looking for really dirty but at the same time pretty open sound, this could be your thing.
- Are they worth the price? Definitely. $105/7 pieces = $15 a piece, including shipping and tax. The coolest thing was that the guy who sent the package was called BRUCE LEE
We decided to test them out "in action" at the studio on both loud and quieter source, grand piano and drums. I forgot to take pictures of the piano micing, but I took some photos from the drum micing. I will add all the multimedia stuff (pics, samples and sound clips) to the next post when I get back to the dorms, but here is the text part of the review.
The purpose of the test was to test how the microphones sound "out of the box" without any extra processing compared to other workhorses on the field, so we kept the signal path simple; microphone - SSL Duality (we used only the preamp) - Digidesign 192 - Pro Tools. We aimed the recording level to the top of the green area in PT (I think it's -18dBFS on PT8) with some occasional hits on yellow, but without clipping at any point.
We started the test with drums. We had a basic four piece kit (kick, snare, 2 toms, hihat, crash and ride) and we "double" miced up the set; with the "normal" setup (sm57 on snare, b56 on toms, sm81 on ride and hi hat, km184 as overheads and _I think_ Studio Project C4's as room mics) and then the whole 7 piece Karma kit on snare, rack tom, floor tom, hi hat, ride and stereo overheads. We used the same kick mics for both setups (Crown PZM and Shure B52)
Some observations:
- They were SUPER easy to setup on the kit, because they are so lightweight and tiny. One is about half the size of your pinky. No weight drooping on the stands and they fit to pretty much everywhere. They literally were one of the easiest mics with a stand I have ever setup.
- When we listened to the mics we noticed was that the polar pattern is omni. If you are unfamiliar what this means, it means that it picks up A LOT of bleed. The rack tom mic pretty much picked everything as loud as everything else, thus they are really bad mics for gating or triggering. If you want to gate these, I would suggest using them with triggers or other mics. The overall sound was like you had room mics everywhere on the kit, which actually sounded pretty cool.
- One thing we noticed after we pressed record was that even though the Karma Mics website says it has 135dB max SPL, I think it's bullshit, because we hit the distortion on all the mics. When we watched the waveform, it was pretty square wavy on drum snare hits, even though recorded signal was around -18dBFS level, so we came to the conclusion it is distorting either on the diaphragm or the internal electronics. The good thing is that the distortion actually sounded really nice. Kinda like you had a really colored compressor on the mic. Similar effect can be heard on Sennheiser e901 and Shure Beta 91 (and EMG pickups), where part of the character from them comes from the internal clipping of the transducer.
On grand piano we tried a few spaced pair setups of Karma Silver Bullets and Neumann KM184's when we realized they omni pattern; Spaced pair by the hammers and "room mic setup" by the lid. They didn't distort and they sounded a bit darker and more open than the KM184's. There was three of us and preferred the Karma's over the Neumann's on the piano.
Summa summarum:
- The silver bullets have their applications, but you have to realized that they are just another tool in the in your disposal, another flavor to try if you want the tracks to sound a bit different. They are NOT desert island mics that works everywhere, the default "go to" mics, nor the thing if you want to record clean and natural sounding loud drums. I would definitely use it as an effect and for some really dirty sounding (hardcore) punk, and if you are looking for really dirty but at the same time pretty open sound, this could be your thing.
- Are they worth the price? Definitely. $105/7 pieces = $15 a piece, including shipping and tax. The coolest thing was that the guy who sent the package was called BRUCE LEE
