What is the best microphone?

A mistake a lot of new aspiring engineers make is that they need the absolute best possible equipment to become the best engineer.

Of course it is good to strive for the best gear the audio industry has to offer but, I believe the best approach to take is to start with some not so great and learn with that so that when you can purchase that $3000 compressor you know what you’re doing with it and you truly hear the difference it will make in your mixes.

Now this doesn’t mean go out and get the worst gear you could possibly get! Research is key to finding awesome gear the industry has to offer. It’s generally really easy to find reviews on various pieces of equipment whether it’s on bigsoundsmallbudget.com or wherever else the Internet may take you! Sometimes you can even get away with buying something less expensive that may sound just as good if not better than an expensive piece of equipment. A perfect example of that would be the review we did on the sE 2200 II! The sE microphone is an affordable $400 and I found that it was very comparable if not better than a $3,600 U87! Under the ideal conditions for recording that microphone may very well be the microphone an engineer may choose to use.

I have a fellow audio technician who recently took on a project to build a microphone preamp. Once complete he told me he had spent approximately $300-$400 for a basic solid-state preamp. We then took it to the studio to give it an A B test next to the chandler tg2. To my surprise when he played back the tracks I had told him that I liked his preamp more than the $2000 Chandler.

With all that being said I had an instructor that once said something that has stuck with me for years. He said, “If you have a great song that was poorly recorded, you still have a great song at the end of the day. People will still listen to that song. If you have a poor song that was the best recording, all you have is a great recording that people wont listen to.” When you have that concept in your mind you start working and pushing what you have to the best you can possibly get it and really learn what your equipment can do for you. There is no such thing as the best microphone.