Mic Review: Studio Projects B3

general questions, comments and ideas about recording, audio, music, etc.
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philbo
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Mic Review: Studio Projects B3

Post by philbo » Sun Feb 15, 2004 9:11 am

This is a sweet sounding mic.

The Studio Project 'B' series is supposed to be a lower-end version of the 'C' series. The B3 has 3 pickup positions, omni, figure-8 and cardoid, controlled by a switch on the mic. Another switch allows you to pick a either low-cut filter or a 10 dB pad (but not both at once).

The mic comes with a mount, but the mount is not a shock mount. I spent an extra 40 bucks or so for a shock mount and a road case for it.

The omni position provides the flattest response. Although Studio Projects does not publish frequency response curves, I used my Tannoy near-field monitors to do some sine-sweep and pink-noise tests by setting the mic about 30" away from the monitor.

The curve for omni was flat within a couple dB for the range of my monitors (50-22KHz). The cardiod setting exhibited a classic 'dark' large-diaphragm mic sound, with the upper-end 'bump' (around 12 KHz) a little larger than some of my other condenser mics.

This tranlates into a brighter high-end than some people expect from a LD mic. However, the sound never gets grating or or overly 'airy,' it's better described as sweet and lilting.

I used the cardiod setting on an alto female vocal, and found it was the best mic I had for that singer. The sound was crisp and articulate, and the mids were very tight and controlled. I did not experiment much with proximity effect; I put the mic about 10" behind a pop filter, and didn't need to tweak the mic position at all to get a very flattering vocal sound.

The B3 was also used in a mid-side (M/S) configuration to record myself playing a classical guitar and singing. The B3, in figure-8 mode, was used to pick up the 'side', while an Audix C103 was used to pick up the 'mid'. These were set about 3 feet away, to allow the sound to combine a bit. I also used a couple of close cardiods, one for voice, and one 5" away pointing at the 10th fret, angled toward the body about 30 degrees.

On playback, I used a Wave S1 plug to convert the mid-side track to a standard left-right stereo track. The sound of the mid-side mics alone was phenomenal. The stereo image was extremely distinct and realistic.

Listening on headphones, the indirect sound pickup from room reflections was realistic enough to create the illusion of being in the room. I ended up using only very minimal amounts (about 8 to 12 dB below the M/S level) of the close mics to contribute just a bit of extra presence to the sound.

While this mic is not necessarily competitive with $2000 & up mics, it certainly is a most welcome addition to my mic cabinet. I've become very fond of the way it makes acoustic instruments sound. It is also very flattering to some types of voices.
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