AEA R88 Review, History & Demo

[@LoveRaptor]

Absolutely LOVE my R88. I use it on almost every drum recording on overheads and have used it as a room mic for horns, drums, as my main piano mic and much more. It's truly excellent

[@meistudiony]

Thanks for watching! Got any fun, unconventional placements you recommend?

[@rnl9520]

Love the detailed mic reviews complete with history, technical specs and audio samples - Keep up the great work!

[@meistudiony]

Thank you for watching and helping grow the channel!! If you have any requests or questions just hit me up!

[@jupiternteardrop237]

The R88 really makes you think about the artists position in the room; I’m a new user and I was just so surprised, it’s a revelation compared to using mono mics for similar purposes! Love it! 😊

[@thomaselliottdolby]

Thanks for the great video! Just ordered an active R88 for upright piano recording, my stereo condensers were just not cutting it sadly, I’m confident this mic will do my piano justice capturing what my ears are hearing!

[@meistudiony]

Upright is an interesting one to record. Depending on the style of upright, you may want to remove the cover. Some times thats above the keys. Sometimes its below. For a darker sound you can mic the back sound board. We had a spinet style which was a little awkward. The panel was underneath the keys so the mic would be under the player essentially. Its a pretty cool sound though. Thanks for watching!

[@rnl9520]

Every time I hear this mic on drums my Ears and my Heart ❤️ melt. Would love to own one of those massive beasts!

[@meistudiony]

Best overhead mic(s) ive ever used. Its definitely worth the price of admission.

[@chizzulwinduh1941]

this is a great video, thank you. It would be good to have seen the front of the mic in each setup though.

[@meistudiony]

What were you hoping to see? If you're curious on how the setups are achieved (Blumlein vs MS), someone else had asked about this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4vWo5SvmqiXrsk There are little markings on the mic and all you need to do is turn the mic about 45 degrees to get one or the other. Thanks for checking it out! Appreciate it

[@chizzulwinduh1941]

@@meistudiony that's great, thank you!

[@lawrencegreenwood4002]

R88A is my go to on just about everything I want sounding natural, easy and with a convincing stereo reproduction. I think maybe I'm a bit spoiled as I have a concert hall at my disposal. I never really used the R88mkII my old (small) studio had. But now with all the air around, it's an asset. Piano soundboard rear is great for upright baroque stuff on a Klavins M189. One point to remember is to adhere strictly to a 90 degree angle of focus from the front - you can get a really blurry but not so awful sound as the rear lobe of the opposite ribbon starts to pick up the source that it's opposite is looking at. One solution I've found is mid-side. For smaller more modern pianos like felt/unacorda you can put it right up against the hammers, facing about 30 degrees down to the soundboard - this way your mid lobe 'looks' down the scale length without the weird issues you can get while violating the 90 degree law - it just works better. Where this mic really shines is in large spaces, I use it to pick up the hall when re-amping the hall as a reverb chamber with great results. One point of difference from your overheads - I tend to come over the drummer's left shoulder with the snare and batter head on a centre line. I've found a pretty great centre image using it this way. Sometimes I don't even use supplementary mics on most drum material with the exception of the kick - SSL G bus brings out all the detail I need when correctly fed with a well EQ'd R88A and kick combo. It leaves me with more mics to use on the room...omni's on the floor in a giant spaced pair. On kick I use a subkick/U87 on the outside kick and D12 (vintage) on the inside. Really this approach in combination with the R88A is something else and singlehandedly made me a better engineer by thinking simply. Probably the best conga mic I've ever heard. Very realistic. It's great on cello, violin, viola, horns and even the right singer. Absolute desert island material. The softness of the mic can be tweaked well by cutting the low end a little and running it pretty hot through a coloured preamp. One last thing: when you approach the R88 as a mono mic, facing the top lobe to source, I always capture the side information too. That way if you feel it needs a stereo image in the mix later, it's all there. THE BEST.

[@meistudiony]

It is a great mic. The video is a little hard to see as far as placement goes but the mic is kind of tilted to the side a bit on the overhead and i do keep the snare kick line as the center point. After doing some of these videos looking at the resulting footage, it sometimes looks really strange or even “off” from what its setup like. I notice it a lot on acoustic guitar. Sometimes the mics look like theyre right up on the guitar when theyre 2-3’ back or they look off center. Perspective is weird. We just got our D12 back from servicing. Was never a fan of it inside the kick, always felt it better outside, but we were using the 87 outside while the d12 was getting cleaned out. Was impressed with the sound. Sounds like fun using the hall as a reverb chamber. You should take some IRs and put em out w different positions and setups. Thanks for checking out the video!

[@aaronmarfizo7165]

We do all love a nice, full, bottom-end

[@meistudiony]

Mmmmhmmmm

[@TheNathanMChannel]

It's a great mic, but beware of that double ball joint. It let loose once and the mic bonked me in the head. The mic was fine but I had to get a skull transplant and now none of my old hats fit.

[@meistudiony]

Thanks for the new anxiety! Lol that ball joint connector has always been a bit of a pain. Been looking for some orbit connector to replace it as its getting s bit worn. Appreciate ya checking out the video!

[@LeoDeBock-of9qc]

Hi, I do know the difference between Blumlein and M/S, but, now that i bought this microphone I wonder about the difference: how to position the mic for Blumlein vs M/S?

[@meistudiony]

For this particular mic or in general?

[@meistudiony]

Duh, just saw that you bought the mic. So the little lines that are on the side you point to center for blumlein. The (+/-) and (-/+) are used for M/S.

[@LeoDeBock-of9qc]

@@meistudiony This mic in particular.

[@LeoDeBock-of9qc]

@@meistudiony Right!

[@meistudiony]

Hey. This hopefully will clarify kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4vWo5SvmqiXrsk

[@Itsdelaraw]

"and don't we all love a nice full bottom end.." lmao

[@meistudiony]

🤣

[@lotusjace]

I have the R88 and the reccomended RPQ2 pres to record my piano at home but sadly, all my attempts were futile as the mic picks up all the inteferences at home! Sounds terrible if you don't have a properly treated studio. The noise is ridiculous! Very disappointed as I had high hopes for it being this amazing mic setup and on top of that, it was quite expensive to buy.

[@meistudiony]

Yeah, its a pretty detailed mic. If it makes you feel any better, Ive had issues with recording piano with it as well. To do it right, you need to take the lid COMPLETELY off the piano, which, isn't an easy task for a single person. If you have the ability to hang up some packing blankets around the perimeter of the piano, it may help quite a bit with errant noise.

[@lotusjace]

@@meistudiony I have an upright and I did remove the cover. I tried recording with the mic gain at various increments to see if it made a difference but to no avail. I haven't tried the packing blankets approach yet, I'll definitely give that a shot....still ever hopeful that this mic will work out.

[@lotusjace]

@@meistudiony Hey by the way, do you think getting a power conditioner might help with the noise issue?

[@meistudiony]

@@lotusjace youre getting like a buzz w the mic?

[@lotusjace]

@@meistudiony nope no buzz or hum so definitely not a groundloop issue. Just an exaggerated noisefloor. I mic it really close to the upright piano board without the lid (as suggested on the AEA site) and have played around with the gain at various increments from low to loud while keeping the output at 0 and still noisy as hell. So it might be an RF issue that I'll have to look into. Just got a RF meter to check out it the levels are causing the noise problem here.

[@soundknight]

No finger picking???

[@meistudiony]

Unfortunately, my session guys are making up for lost time from Covid and are on the road A LOT lately, so I'm making due on my own for a lot of these videos.

[@hallyMUSICprojecT]

Great mic, terrible drummer

[@meistudiony]

Yeah, I dont pretend to know how to play drums. Lol. Unfortunately my session drummer is touring 8mo out of the year. Gotta find someone to fill in when hes away.

[@soundknight]

I hate that technique for mincing piano, sounds awful. The mic itself performed well though.

[@meistudiony]

I've tried this mic in about 20 different places with and without the lid. For this particular mic, its probably the best position i've found for it, unless you're using it for ambient miking then I usually put it elsewhere in the room or high above (and i've even miked it from below for some horror soundtrack thing). If you have a suggestion for placement, please share! Thanks for checking out the video!