Original subtitles

all right guys again i'm josh with soul

studios and i am back with part two of

the ultimate u87 shootout and what we're

gonna do today is we're gonna take the

examples that were in part one and we're

gonna add two more examples i'm gonna do

an acoustic and vocal of a short clip of

a song called ghost of jackson square by

edwin mccain

and then acoustic and vocal of a song

called very good advice which is

actually from alice in wonderland uh but

i've i've always liked the lyrics to

that song there's a really talented

artist named tanner patrick they did a

super cool version of that it's like

completely reworked the original

and so after i heard his version uh

the version that i'm doing here is

definitely heavily influenced by him so

i did everything i could to

make sure that this is a fair shootout

because i don't want to

hurt a manufacturer

by

not giving a good representation of

their microphone you know that's i think

as

youtube reviewers we really need to be

careful not to do that so what i did was

for

hallelujah and for ghost of jackson

square

i set the mics up in sort of like a star

pattern to where i could sing in the

space between but i was hitting all the

capsules as evenly as i could but you

know that kind of shootout does have its

shortcomings

and the way that i like to do shootouts

personally when i'm tracking someone and

i'm deciding which mic to use on them

is to get them to sing through each mic

individually and the reason for doing

that is because i like to know how that

person feels when they sink through the

mic how they interact with the mic

if i have two mics set up one sounds a

little bit better in the control room

but the artist says hey i feel a lot

more comfortable singing through this

other mic

almost always go with the one that they

feel the most comfortable singing

through because

you can eq and compress and do things to

match the tone from one mic to another

fairly well but what you can't do is

insert some kind of emotion or feeling

that the artist wasn't able to emote

because the microphone didn't give them

the flexibility to do so

so i did both ways on here and i will

let you know right ahead of those

examples what's going on where

so that you know what you're hearing but

i thought by doing it that way we could

cover all the bases and maybe address

some of the shortcomings where other mic

shootouts may have fallen short in all

the shootouts there's no

high pass filter or pad engaged

the worm has it serrano the neumanns

have it but the bee's knees does not

have that option so i just left that out

of all of them and if there's any

high-pass filter

or anything going on it was done with

the plug-in after it was tracked and

where that's done i will let you know

one thing i did want to mention the kind

of glaring emission from this shootout

is the stam audio 87

and the only reason i excluded that one

is because i reached out to joshua

at the beginning of this and told him

what i was doing and he let me know that

he's working on a mark iv version of

that mic and so i didn't want to include

one that is going to soon be replaced

but what i'll do is stay in touch with

him

get that new mic when it comes out and

maybe try to do these same songs or

somehow incorporated into this shootout

at that point and see how it stacks up

but that's the only reason why the stam

wasn't included for all examples if i

used the antelope mp32 i used that on

all the rest of them if i use the shadow

hills on the iron setting i kept it on

the iron setting i will notate in the

examples what the chain was but just

know for the examples where i sing into

all mics at once

i use the same kind of cable the same

length of cable

the same preamp and the same converter

so i really did everything i could to

give every mic its best chance to be on

equal footing

so if you've somehow landed here before

you watched part one i'd really

encourage you to pause

and i'm gonna put the link up here

somewhere and say

go check out the blind version first

because i think it's really important to

put aside our biases of what a neumann

is or vintage or whatever other buzzword

you want to throw out there and i really

want you to judge these microphones on

their sonics alone

so if you haven't watched part one

please go do that really quickly and

then it's it's short anyway check that

one out then head back over here for the

reveal if you did watch part one i'm

excited to build on that first of all to

tell you which microphones were which

we're going to do the reveal here right

away so as i get into the examples

they're going to be in the same order

that they were in video one it's just in

parentheses i'm gonna tell what the mic

actually is

and not just mic a b etc

all right so let's hear all of these

audio examples we're gonna just roll

through them i will put

chapter markers so you can jump back and

forth and compare however you want to

and then i'll hop on again at the end

and have some closing thoughts all right

guys let's hear the rest of the shootout

hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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hallelujah

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ghosts on the streets today

it's always jackson square

ghost on the streets today

to always jackson square

he goes on the streets today

it's always jackson square

ghosts on the streets today

it's always jackson square

ghosts on the streets today

to always jackson square

i give myself very good advice

but i'm very sad when i'm following

that explains the trouble i'm always in

be patient

is very good advice but the way that

makes me curious

and i love the change should something

strange begin

give myself

[Music]

be patient is very good advice but the

way that makes me curious

and i love the change should something

strange begin

[Music]

i give myself very good advice

but our very same following

that explains

trouble i'm always saying

be patient

is very good advice but the way it makes

me curious

and i love the change with something

strange begin

give myself

[Music]

be patient

is very good advice but the weight makes

me curious

and i love the change should something

strange

[Music]

i give myself very good advice

but i'm very seldom following

that explains trouble my ways

be patience

is very good advice but the way that

makes me curious

[Music]

all right guys that is the end of the 87

shootout i hope you enjoyed the reveal i

hope you got most of them right and i

try not to influence you too much but i

i did want to say with this

nine times out of ten when i compare a

vintage piece of gear

to a clone i've gone with the vintage

piece i do want to get a little bit more

opinionated here than i normally do

and really my motivation is to try to

save you money and to try to help you

because

i've been really seriously recording

since 1994.

and i've gone through a ton of mics and

a ton of gear and i've gotten caught up

in the hype more times than i would like

to admit

and at this point i have to say after

doing going through this shootout

that i think the lust for a vintage 87

is probably something we should put

aside

no offense if you own one i'm not trying

to drive the price down although the

price along with nearly everything else

in the last year has gone through the

roof

but i just can't see paying

for 4 500 5 000

for a vintage 87

when

man serrano warm bee's knees are making

killer mics they're all different enough

to where i might actually end up with a

pair of all three of those and the 87 ai

is a good mic it you know

for what it is but again it

price range there's just no comparison i

mean you could literally buy

five or six of

the warm or the serrano for the price

that you're going to pay for an ai and

then

10 of them for what you're going to pay

for

a vintage 87.

so like i said most times i'd have gone

with vintage gear when i had to make the

choice

but

i got to tell you on this one i think

it's time to just put this aside i mean

if you come across a great price of the

87

have at it if you don't

get one of these more affordable options

and move on to another area that will be

more beneficial for your studio

so anyway if you disagree tell me in the

comments i want you to ultimately decide

what is best for you but i do feel

really strongly about going into debt

for recording especially in the day and

age that we live in

we're streaming services the the

royalties and all are so much

less than what they used to be i'd

really hate to see somebody

fork out five grand on a vintage 87

when they could take that money and

spread it around and get so much more

for it

so anyway i'll close out by saying man

warm audio

you were the biggest surprise for me i

think you've made a killer mic i never

heard the first version but what you've

done on the r2 here is is really a

fantastic mic

same thing for carlos at serrano audio

and for ben at bee's knees

i can tell you guys really really spend

a lot of time on making these mics

like i said before i've been recording

seriously for money since 1994.

and um

feel free to leave a comment about like

hey there's no way you don't look old

enough uh

but i have been

and yeah i i want you guys anybody

that's younger that's newer to recording

that's watching this i want you to

understand how much better of a

microphone

something like the warm wa87

or the serrano or the bee's knees

it is so much better than what i had

available to me for the same price when

i first got started i had a rode nt2

i had an akg

something 3000 i don't even remember the

model number

they were much

much more expensive than this at the

time and they were not great mics

at all

they were really bright

and i had eight tracks to record with on

my roland vs 880 well even before that

four tracks

on the tascam

uh four track you know you record on

both sides of the cassette so if you've

got a daw if you're if you're working in

logic or reaper or something

and you need one good mic and you've got

500 bucks you can throw out a worm or

you know 600 bucks at a bee's knees or

seven or eight hundred out of serrano

you have tools that are so far beyond

what many of us had when we were

starting out in the 90s or the 80s as

far as home

home studio

so i just want you to be able to move

forward with confidence

take advantage of some of these amazing

affordable new tools that we have

and where i think vintage is still the

ultimate

holy grail i will let you know

in times that i don't think that's the

case like now

and i should also say this is not the

only vintage 87 i've ever used it's the

second one that i've owned and both

times i was able to get a hold of ones

that were in good condition so i'm not

just saying oh i got this one mic and

whatever

but i really think in this case we can

put this one to bed having said that if

you listen to the examples and you

thought man that vintage really sounds

like how i want to hear things and you

have the

funds to do that and it's not going to

put you in a hole and put that pressure

of debt on you then by all means do it

but if you're building your recording

gear

i say pick one of these

newer clones that you like the most

and get a pair and and don't look back

you got your drum overheads you've got

your acoustic mic

you can put it on your guitar amp and

you can sing through it amongst many

other things

so anyway that's my two cents like i

said i don't usually get this

opinionated on a video but i i feel

pretty strongly about this one

especially when the financials are so

different between the clone and the

vintage

all right guys i've talked enough i

appreciate your time if you got value

out of this video if it was something

useful for you please check the

description below in the video there's a

link there to donate you can donate via

paypal or crypto which is actually

preferred these days

for me personally but i don't have

anything to sell you i've got these

files it's just a dropbox link you can

check out that it's free

you can join the mailing list but having

said that a lot of work and especially

in this video a lot of finances went

into making it

so if you feel compelled to feel free to

throw me a bone through the donate link

and it's much appreciated all right guys

until next time have a great one and

i'll see you again soon

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you