AKG 451B

I've been making musing for more than 15 years. I have recorded 2 commercial albums and have had recording experience in both big commercial and small studio facilities, although I am more of a musician than an engineer. The heart of my home studio is a Mackie Onyx uint with AKG k240s headphones.

A small-diaphragm condenser cardioid mic. The mic has attenuation pads (-10, -20dB), filter at 70 and 160 Hz, but a single fixed cardioid polar pattern. I used it extensively to record acoustic guitar with various placements.

My impressions are that this mic is superb for two exact applications: percussion (such as cymbals) and one-string guitar solos, such as found on albums by Al Di Meola, John Mc Laughlin, etc. For these specific two applications, the mic's very pleasant high end nicely accentuates the percussive elements of the sound in a non-harsh way that is pleasant to the ear. Guitar solos in particular acquire a percussive, strumming element that is heard on countless acoustic guiar recordings.

However, a special word of caution is due. The mic I purchased had an approximately 7 dB rise between 7 and 19kHz, which makes it far from neutral. In particular, what comes as a blessing in recording solos, becomes a curse when recording music with lots of chords, such as background guitar accompaniment. In this situation the "ringing" in the high end turned out to accentuate elements of the sound that I really did not like: string squeal, and, in particular, the strumming of the rasgueados (a special technique in flamenco guitar in which strings are stricken very fast with successive fingers of the right hand). The result that this mic gave me on this latter figure were very disappointing, no matter how I changed the positioning. Invariably what would come out would accentuate the noise from the finger's stroke on the string and not the sound that came out of it, which disrupted the flow of the rhythmic figure - the individual strokes are supposed to blend together. An AT2021 I used for comparison avoided this problem entirely, but was somewhat deficient in midrange. To my suprise, it also had quite strong proximity effect, contrary to what people usually experince. If recording from less than 12', I'd invariably get a muddy bass even at 160Hz filter setting. In and of itself, this can be fixed by increasing the distance, BUT this mic being tailored for drums, it has deliberately low sensitivity: -41dBV, so when you put it in a distance you have to use very high gain.

So, overall, this is a very excellent mic for two things: drums, percussion and guitar solos. If you waht to use it on other applications, however, be VERY cautious. This is decidedly a charecter mic, taylored for very very specific applications at which it excels. Because of that, it has low sensitivity, which is useful for loud drums, but for quiet instruments this is not a good thing. It is not intended for an all-around studio mic, but rather one that is targeted for a specific applications. If you use it for the right applications, you will get a classical sound with perfect characteristics.

Im a public music teacher, performer and recording engineer on the side. If been recording for over 10 years and currently use pro tools m-powered but have used the roland vs series in the past. I use event speakers to monitor.

I have a stereo matched set I bought on ebay for half the price of them new($1200), previously I used either my drummers earth works sr-77's or my 2 akg 535eb vocal/instrument mics for overheads, both were adequate but just didnt have the "sound". My first session with these mics instantly brought me that overhead drum sound youve heard on records for the last 30 years w/ no e.q. required! I love the sound of these mics, It has a quick attach and pleasant clear rise in the high end. the earthworks were great but just to flat for me, and the 535eb's sound great as the high hat mic but were not clear enough for the overheards, Overall this mic is great!