Studio Condenser Mics for Under £500 - Warm Audio WA-14, Sontronics Orpheus & sE Electronics SE4400a

Brad and Meg return to take a look at some of the best studio microphones in the £300 to £500 price bracket!
Click on one of these links to find out more…
Sontronics Orpheus - goo.gl/vAEVQM
sE Electronics sE4400a - goo.gl/JDxJG5
Warm Audio WA-14 - goo.gl/WKA9g7
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[@SontronicsUK]

Brilliant vid as usual, and Meg's voice is so lovely through the Orpheus, which was designed with female vocals in mind. But wait until you hear it on acoustic guitar!!!

[@tobiasputmanphotography5]

I actually jumped forward in my seat when i heard the SE4400a. For me it's the absolute winner.

[@Adonce]

Great show, and great voice Meg! Consider having meg sing the same exact melodies on each mic just for fairness sake and better comparison.

[@oleteigen7931]

Wow! I love that song, and a lot of Chris Isaaks misic. But this hit me. It moved me to tears. Really strange and powerful. I was just looking for a review of orpheus and suddenly tears are running from my eyes. Powerful performance

[@whatintheworld6501]

Her voice 👏

[@skylisszthecolossus]

They all sounded great on her voice, They are warm and I liked the airy warm of the Orpheus, but the 4400A had a great cut off like the WA14. What was great was how each didn't have lots of harsh 's' sounds like a lot of mics I hear when it is mixed to stream.

[@Alexandra-Rex]

Came to check out the Orpheus. Not disappointed! Megatron has a great voice too!

[@ArthurStone]

Be good to hear each mic's recording in a mix too. All sounded good. Nice demo and great vocal :D

[@AndertonsMusicTechDept]

Arthur Stone Cheers for watching! Be sure to subscribe and hopefully we'll get some full tracks recorded - Brad

[@richardmcarthur40]

Love your shootouts, really useful. Just a preference for me, but I’d like to see all three mics positioned with capsules as close as possible on the same take, with the same section of the song repeated for each mic. I know the danger is that the mics will then be a bit off axis, but it can be done with careful positioning. Also realise it makes for a slightly more boring video, so can understand why you don’t, but it would make the shootout a bit more fair. I think the Orpheus got lumbered with the most boring part of the song there and didn’t get the same chance to shine as the others. Would be cool to hear each in a mix too. That said, great vocal from Meg and still a good chance to spot any glaring differences between the mics.

[@chinmeysway]

Too many variables to test mics, even if you own the three and are at home tearing for 3 days straight. You’d have to re-amp vocals from a loop and mic that playback source to assure performance variation was not interfering. Never seen this w vocals via mic comparison. Lost cause doing / watching mic shoot outs on here therefore (beyond entertainment) and the differences are so nuanced really and subtle; 3000 vs 330 spent is last on list of why music does something for you or doesn’t!

[@richardmcarthur40]

@@chinmeysway 3 mics perhaps but you can put 2 close together and record the same performance.

[@gelatosamurai]

Such great comparison clips! Wonderful work guys

[@larsthomasdenstad9082]

I would recommend singing the same part on the same microphones and also not have horrible microphone audio in the editorial parts.

[@Yossus]

Love the channel, but the sound of the lapel mics is really harsh - not what I would have expected from a tech channel ;)

[@AndertonsMusicTechDept]

I'll fire the sound guys! ;-) Cheers for the feedback. Thanks for watching and be sure to subscribe - Brad

[@JozsefHorvathBarcza]

For me the the SE has more “close” intime feel, sound’s more “expensive” for me than the others!

[@LukeBass1000]

Lol you guys, that Family Guy reference :D Very cool, I think it'd be an idea to mention or annotate the signal chain you use going forward, Mic pres, plugins etc.

[@AndertonsMusicTechDept]

LukeBass1000 Good shout! We'll be sure to do that when we next record. As always, thanks for watching! - Brad

[@JanneOksanen]

Could you please do a shootout of the Sm7b against condenser mics in the same price class?

[@AndertonsMusicTechDept]

That's the plan! It'll be a few weeks away but we'll get there. Thanks for watching - Brad

[@umbriamusic]

would've loved to see the comparison with the same songs/lines!

[@mkme2358]

You guys only compare british mics? I do like the sound of sontronics on all your videos.

[@chisler6192]

Thanks for a nice review!

[@JanneOksanen]

I couldn't hear any difference between the first two. The SE sounded the best to me, probably because it was the brightest.

[@highpeakrecordings]

Great stuff. SE for me, just...but there was very little in it

[@AndertonsMusicTechDept]

Absolutely right! I might have to do something using these bad boys on guitars to see how they fair. Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe - Brad

[@esloquehay1341]

4:50 WA 5:10 sE

[@dogsiva6995]

Orpheus 4:19 WA14 4:49 SE4400a 5:09

[@jeffreyduncan989]

4400a just sounds the most mix ready… throw some verb on it and call it a day 👍

[@lion-face9804]

Would have liked to see an Aston spirit in this comparison

[@MrDark-tp5rt]

That mic sounds like ass when you immediately compare it to other condenser mics in the same price bracket. Extremely overrated crap mic.

[@lefterhsk1]

listened on sony mdr 7506... i think se4400a was the best , the other two mics was little bit harsh at the top end

[@papolosonoro]

WA-14

[@WillJukedTheBox]

the reflection filter ruins the sound

[@westonthefoster]

WA-14 for me. Low mids on the SE not nice.

[@joeh1184]

What is up with your audio at 0:40 :/

[@EpicWinz]

Spiderman called, he wants his shockmount back.....

[@HarvinderSingh-yy8th]

Se 4400 doesn't mix well in the post.

[@ZaryaMain]

"I don't like music." I can't tell you how many times I say that when I don't know who someone is talking about lol

[@Adonce]

Hahaa Megatron! Nice one!

[@yobhsiFehT]

Ironically TERRIBLE audio quality for this mic review. Great demo segment with those vocals, tho. It's a shame that part wasn't more in-depth. Seeing as that's the important part anyway... ;) :P

[@jaegervand2112]

Such a strong statement. What, exactly, is so terrible about the audio quality?

[@rolmckeen6048]

3 years has passed, and yet the sound of the clips was pretty good compare to now

[@7171jay]

Wow! I wasn't going to bother to mention but if you can't hear the problems in the audio you are either listening to your phone speaker or you really need to learn to listen harder and better. Meg's audio at the very beginning while they are talking pops out like we are listening to a far room mic for just a bit and her partner's audio has a ton of low end that is triggering either a compressor or maybe a gate in a very bad way through the whole video. Really annoying especially on headphones. While I'm going I'll also say that this is a pretty terrible mic comparison. As someone already mentioned Meg isn't singing the same part of the song on each mic which is really important for any sort of decent comparison. Also the mic capsules aren't set up as close as they could be to each other and we are never told what micpreamp they are used with or what processing if any was used on the vocal.

[@AnAmericanGuitarist]

Some Rainbow era Dio-esque melodies there. Nice! All 3 mics sounded nice. I am leaning towards the sE also. The Orpheus sounded great too though. Ronnie sings> kzbin.info/www/bejne/qoXWe3udr72SZtE

[@SimplicityForGood]

But you sang totally different on the Se vs the sontronics! 😾... if you add both air, depth on one mic and not the other of course any mic where you use your natural resonance sounds better! why the discrimination against Sontronics!? seriously...

[@Jake_Sachs]

Homeboy's beard keeps brushing up against his lapel mic!! I love you guys but come on.

[@AndertonsMusicTechDept]

Jake Sachs well I'm not shaving it off!! Haha. Thanks for watching - Brad

[@Jake_Sachs]

Andertons Music Tech Dept. Fine, but please put your lapel mic on a different part of your shirt! >_>

[@AndertonsMusicTechDept]

Jake Sachs Fine... I'll put it in a different place! 😅

[@majormoody]

Only the SE sounds good.

[@soundknight]

SUCH BS. "on another song probably a bit more soul full... That's the one that would have won." It's Chris Izaak, it doesn't get anymore soulful, you need to stop playing it safe and get the singer to sing up and down range. This is not a valid test, any engineer worth their salt would say this is pointless with only one middle ranged source being tested 'safely' ... Where's the brass? Woodwinds? Male vocals? Male Yelling? An actual singer (opera trained voices please), Guitar Cabs? Bass cab? String quartet? We're not all bedroom recording losers with pointless tattoos sitting around sweating in our underwear on computer gaming chairs, yelling at our mothers to bring another toasted sandwich down to the 'Lair'.