Advice On The Rode Nt1 A Condenser Microphone

Dearest tenorelirico. Thank you for the compliments. Let's get to your question. Rode microphones are very good microphones. The NT1 is part of Rode's lower range. There are a ton of microphones for vocals, obviously depending on the budget type. The top of the vocal category are Neumann, particularly the U87 because it is also a very versatile microphone. Whatever you put in front of it, it captures, and it captures it well. The price is quite high, we are around 1500 euros. Another standard for vocals and more is the AKG C414 XLII; here we are around 750 euros. If we then want to go towards specifics for the voice, we move towards tube condenser microphones. However, the choice of a tube microphone also depends on the type of voice, because tubes tend to color the timbre, so someone who already has a very colored timbre might record a voice that is too colored, and that isn't good. In the Neumann series, there are all the vintage tubes, but I won't even start discussing them because those are microphones that easily reach 10,000 euros, yes, you heard that right... Blue makes good tube microphones, but always consider that tube models are always a little more expensive than their non-tube siblings. In any case, with Blue you can opt for the Blue Cactus, which is excellent but the price is around 2800 euros; otherwise, staying with Rode we have the K2 which is around 600 euros, or the NTK at 500. Moving to AKG, we find the Perception 820 again. If instead you want to save, you have to go down a tier and stay in the Rode NT1 range. There are also excellent microphones in this range. One of these is the Blue Spark which I used to make the demo. You can find the proof at THIS LINK. The Spark is around 250/300 euros. Going lower, we always go to AKG with the Perception 420, around 250 euros, or the Rode NT1 that you mentioned above. Going even lower, we find MXL; some are good, but not those that cost less than 150 euros. Last in the ranking are the Behringer B1 at 90 euros and B2 at 140 euros... Obviously there are many other excellent brands like Sennheiser, Brauner, Mojave, Studio Projects, Electronics Gemini, Sontronics. For example, from Sontronics there is the Helios, which is an excellent tube mic and doesn't even cost an exorbitant amount, we are around 500 euros... If you have other questions, I am here... Greetings and excuse any errors, but I am replying to you with an iPad.

Thank you Simone for the overview of microphones and their respective costs, I even printed out the page. 🙂

Eheheh even? Anyway, as a rule of thumb, don't rely too much on the cost, the quality of the microphone and things like that. It's true there are standards like the ones I mentioned, see the Neumann U87 which is the most used microphone in the professional field or the AKG 414, but for choosing a microphone you just have to try different ones and see which one you feel best with. I have 9 condenser microphones of various brands and prices (from 100 to 900 euros) with phantom power and one very expensive tube condenser, yet my voice comes out better than all of them in recording with the 300 euro Spark...

You have to try them, because everything is relative to your timbre, to the emission of your voice. So don't fixate on the price, fixate on the performance in relation to your vocal timbre... Often microphones that cost a lot have that cost because they are standards, meaning their frequency response adapts to more uses.

I recommend, let it be clear that we are talking about studio microphones, not live ones!! For live, condensers are not good at all, there is signal feedback with a subsequent loop, you need dynamics!