I haven’t used it. There’s a review at Sound on sound. I assume it’s a reasonably good mic for its low price point.
If it’s worth buying depends on your needs. If sound quality is no priority then it could probably do a decent job. Maybe it’s good that it’s cheap if you are leaving it unattended at the installation? On the other hand, getting a mic you could find useful in the future too is also worth thinking about. Maybe renting/borrowing is an option?
Where would the mic feed into? Is it for recording or live playblack?
I’m sure that mic is fine as a inexpensive large diaphragm condenser. The important question for me is, does it’s type suit your use case? The pick up pattern is cardioid, so it will mainly pick up what’s in front of it. If this is then being amplified (also processed) and then fed back into the room, are you at risk of feedback issues? If so, a dynamic cardioid pattern mic like a Shure SM57 or SM58 might be better.
Then the question of will you get additional use from it later?
It’s intended market is for entry level studio use. If I were in your position, I’d see if there was any way you could try out a few options on site and see what works best. There are inexpensive options for various dynamic and condenser mics with different combos of pick up patterns.
The plan is live playback, so I’m thinking maybe it’s not the best option based on other comments. Cheers
Completely agree with @soysos points. A dynamic cardioid mic is probably the better choice given potential feedback issues and the Shure SM57 is the most popular mic in the world for a reason. It sounds great and will work in many applications. Hard to beat for $99.
Ok that sounds good. Thanks again everyone for all your help!
placement in the room will be pretty important, perhaps even more so than the specific mic or mic type. if you can take the time to play with placement and direction you might find a sweet spot where things sound pretty good—not too muddy or boomy.
According to the manual it is a high-Z input, thus not expecting low impedance signal from microphone. But there’s no harm to do this.
Has anyone laid hands on a Myburgh M1? I am pretty blown away by the sound samples; very organic and articulate. Would love to hear anyone’s primary experience though, as it’s awfully expensive.
I love the way that it kind of “clamps down” on vocals. Hard to explain what I mean. Is that a tube mic thing?
I had quite a microphone year, with some experiences I wanted to share here.
-Not surprising, but a big thing for me working almost always with cardioids, I really appreciated the LOM Usis. The sound of a quiet Omni is just so natural and soothing. I did lots of field recordings and tried to use them in instrument setups in the studio-they always work without flaw, providing a natural sound.
-The Ribbon 8 principle. I had a cheap ribbon laying around for years, that I wasn’t using. Manny Nieto moded it for me for a clearer more defined sound. Incredible what different components can do for the better. Manny and I agreed that, according to my before after recording, this cheapo and his Mod now sound like a vintage RCA in full glory. Its got that vintage Mojo, you’d pay 1000s for today. I used this on heavy distorted guitar and it sounds great, I’ve not used it on Vocals yet, but am sure this will sound incredible as well. Such a warm coloured sound!
-the Neumann TLM193 surprised me. A very fast microphone, handling very high SPLs. Great on broadcast voices. Extremely neutral and clear. Possibly great for modern singing voices-think Rosalia.
-Behaviour of Mic patterns and how you can tweak your settings.
1.Omnis! Wow, I was back to finding sweet spots for acoustic guitar and Cello. With the Usi’s just a matter of decision to move them closer to the object for less room or the inverse. The natural sound is always there, what was I doing the last 30 years with cardioids?
2.Figure 8 and getting really close voice recordings: As we record with an Aston Halo since we scrapped our booth, it was a little painful to get very close/clean voiceovers in my Studio. This is mainly true because you’ll always need a little room for handheld transcripts for the voice talents. The Halo and cardioid works perfekt, when you sing straight into it. But this is obscuring the view for a picture on my screen or a lyrics sheet=(
So i was thinking a hypercardioid pattern would do the trick, but this was not really the case. I found out when I switched to figure 8. With the back of the 8 muffled by the Halo, this gave me a perfect close front, even when a couple of inches away from it. I was baffled by this. Then I remembered my recording of the guitar amp and how nothing leaked into it from the back. This of course was because I got full level on the front and the back seemed to disappear completely.
I will stay away as much as I can from cardioids in 2023=)
The Aston Element is currently down to $80 on Amazon. It’s a fantastic mic, and for that price… wow!
I purchased a stereo pair of Sonorous Objects SO.1’s this year (same Primo EM272 capsules and specs as the LOM Usis) and they have been lovely for field recordings. I am excited to try them out in the studio. I will have to be careful with mono compatibility though since I am forced to rely solely on “difference in time of arrival” for a stereo image with spaced omnis (as opposed to the more phase-friendly “level differences” available with other polar patterns/mic-orientations).
As for ribbons, they are my favorite mic type of 2022. Specifically, I cannot recommend the Samar AL95 enough. It is one of my most affordable studio microphones (available right now some places for $340 new) but also honestly one of my favorites. It’s hand-made in the USA and has such a smooth and natural sound. I also have the AEA R92, which is also fantastic, especially for close mic’ing and vocals, but honestly I find the AL95 a bit more versatile overall, as long as you have a decent pre-amp and can work with the proximity effect.
Fun fact:
This may be obvious to some, but cardioid, hyper-cardioid, wide cardioid, etc… are all just different blends of omni and figure-8 patterns combined, with figure-8 being the most directional with the most proximity effect and omni the least directional with the least proximity effect. Every other pattern is just a compromise between those two.
I just wish it wasn’t so “unique looking” 
20 Chars for your fun fact. It took my a while to remember this. Recording with microphones should be experimenting with placement and patterns to get different sounds. I record mostly voices in Broadcasting, so there is no experimenting ever. I did an effort to go beyond the comfort zone.
It’s actually down to $69 at the moment - bonkers!
Likely cos they got bought out by Behringer
At this point, I am very pleased with my mic locker, although, I haven’t had many chances to use my mics recently.
I have spent the past year or so building an addition on my very small cottage in the woods (doing most of the work myself whilst also living in it). It has been a rather extreme undertaking, and I am quite exhausted. The upside is, I am able to do things I otherwise would never be able to do – like running network audio to/from every room of the house. I am also gaining a modestly-sizable studio space, and I would like to add more mic preamps to record more channels of audio. I have some projects on the horizon that would greatly benefit from more channels.
Here comes the classic question – should I go with 8 of the same preamp, or 4 stereo pairs of different preamps? I think I have made up my mind, but I would love to hear what others think, just for the fun of it.
It sounds way more fun getting four different stereo pairs of preamps—a couple Neve style, API, Helios, or some nice combination, than getting eight identical pre’s. If you’re thinking of identical pre’s, maybe it would be better getting a small desk? But a 500 series chassis? Definitely mix it up.
How many channels do you already have, and how closely matched are they?
My gut says get either 1 or 2 pairs of very transparent matched pres, and 4 “wild” channels, maybe even 4 different colors. I find it rare that I want all 8 channels to sound exactly the same, maybe if I’m doing a large scale classical recording. But even on a maximally miked drum kit, having some colorful options is good. Maybe 4 Millenia or 2 Millenia and 2 Grace, and then mix and match - A designs, crane song, neve, chandler, burl, shadow hills… definitely at least one with an excellent DI for direct bass. Of course I can’t afford any of this but that’s how I would approach it.
Awesome! Thank you for the feedback. I have been leaning toward preamp variety as well. It is also a bit easier on the wallet to get a couple of high quality preamps at a time than to buy something like an AMS Neve 1073OPX.
I would eventually like to get a small or medium desk to make mixing more tactile, but this is more of a “nice to have” than a priority. I have considered a mixer as a method of adding more preamps but I would have to spend a great deal of money to match the quality found in rack or 500-series preamp designs. Not to mention that many of the mixers I gravitate towards would require significant and/or regular maintenance.
My current pre-amp setup is pretty humble. I have four matched pres on my Audient iD44 and two on my Cranborne Camden EC2. I have been lucky enough to do paid work with this setup on several occasions and honestly I am proud of the results. It also works just fine for my own music but I do not need much for myself alone. My major limitations is that I can only use four concurrent inputs at a time. My main goal it so increase the number of channels I can simultaneously record. My secondary goal is to gain a bit more variety and color. My plan is to add more A/D conversion, then add a stereo pair in the Neve family, and then a stereo pair in the API family. If y’all are curious, I can post updates in The 500 Series Thread, since that is where this is all eventually headed anyway.