Original subtitles

what's up guys it's josh from soul

studios and i'm really excited to share

with you part one of what i hope turns

out to be the ultimate u87 style

microphone shootout

and i try not to use words like epic and

whatever you know that you see in

youtube videos that work with the

algorithm

but i really hope that this is the best

87 shootout that's out there and i

didn't really plan on doing this i did

the bee's knees review i did the serrano

really happy with both of those mics i i

kept them you know still on them to this

day so i wasn't really thinking like oh

maybe i still need a vintage 87 but i

got to looking around at the shootouts

that were out there

and i

really don't mean this as a criticism

because anybody that does youtube videos

i have

respect for these are not easy to make

and anybody that does shootouts i have

respect for because you open yourself up

to

be easily criticized but there were a

couple things that bothered me about

what i saw out there and i did my best

to address those things in this review

so issue number one a lot of reviews do

not have a vintage u87 in the shootout

and it's kind of funny i mean it's a u87

shootout so if you don't have a u87 it's

kind of hard to call it a u87 shootout

the other thing is most of the modern

companies that are making u87 clones

claim

to be modeled after a u87i which is the

vintage model not the modern u87 ai

so i really wanted to make sure we got

it right there so

i took my time i found a good 1979

neumann u87 all original electronics

original capsule that's in good

condition

it hasn't been reskinned and hasn't been

modded the first mic that i found turned

out to have been modded so that didn't

work

so anyway

step one we got a good vintage u87

step two we have a neumann u87ai

and what's important about that is it

was bought brand new from uh authorized

dealer because there are a lot of

knock-off neumann u87 ais floating

around out there

and lastly the serrano the bee's knees

and the warm audio

were also purchased new from authorized

dealers or in the case of serrano and

bee's knees purchased directly from the

manufacturer themselves

if you're going to do a shootout and you

buy a used piece of gear it's kind of

hard to know if that gear has been taken

care of it has been modified

did somebody swap out some part and so

forth so

i said all that to say i didn't take the

easiest route i definitely took the most

expensive route

and i hope

that turns out to be something really

useful for all of us so what i want to

do here quickly in part one is i want to

start out by doing a blind shootout

that's another area where i think

and i'm guilty of this myself when i

watch the 87 shootouts that are out

there

and it says neumann on the screen i'm

conditioned to think oh this one's

probably going to be best

so

the first step here is going to be a

short review

it's a quick example of me playing and

singing hallelujah by jeff buckley

when it says mic a

microphone a was used for the vocal and

for the amp the clean electric amp track

in the case of the amp i swapped out the

mic for each take but it was a di

recording so it was a reamp so the

guitar performance is exactly the same

every time

the vocal performance is exactly the

same because i capsule aligned all the

mics

and sang into the sweet spot of all of

them the best i could at one time so

that is the same vocal tape that you

hear through all five examples so let's

start this off in the most fun way

possible and that is with a blind

shootout because i want us to put our

biases aside i want us to put name

recognition aside vintage aside all

those things that can influence what we

think that we're hearing by something

that we're reading or seeing with our

eyes

let's listen to mike a

b c d e and let's see if we can find a

clear winner so check out this example

here and we'll chat real quickly at the

end

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

hallelujah

[Music]

all right so thanks for checking out the

blind shootout part one of this ultimate

u87 mic shootout

what do you think let me know in the

comments i'm gonna try to hold off on

part two for about a week if i can wait

that long and as i'm finishing that up

let me know from this brief example

is there one particular one that stands

out to you that you like

and then in addition to that do you

think you know which one is the vintage

neumann if you do

leave me a comment and then a week from

now when i do the reveal you can either

brag about how you got it right or we

can all laugh at how wrong you got it

either way it'll be a lot of fun i

should also mention there's a link in

the description that will take you to

dropbox where you're welcome to download

all of these files in 96k 24 bit

and i've got them split out to where

it's like dry guitar

the guitar effects drop vocal and the

vocal effects so you can bring them all

into your doll and mix and match them as

you want uh all right thanks for taking

the time to watch this guys

i hope you found it informative if you

will go ahead and subscribe while you're

here and ring the bell so you'll know as

soon as i upload part two and reveal

which microphone is which all right

thanks guys i'll see you again soon with

part two