sE Electronics sE Titan

Making Music: I have been playing trombone since 1963 and guitar and bass since 1968 with a B.A. Degree in Music with technical hours in Radio and TV. I played with a Metropolitan Status Symphony Orchestra for 10 years as well as playing for Ice Shows, Circuses, Al Martino, Jerry Vale, Carol Lawrence, Gunther Schuler, George Shearing, Jazz Festivals and so on as an AF of M member.
Recording Experience: Performance wise, I have done NY scale recording to 2 inch tape, Digital Recording as early as the 1980's', and Orchestral Recordings that were played on Public Radio.
I currently have a slowly growing home studio currently based around a Yamaha AW16G 16 track Work Station listening through Alesis Monitors. Other equipment includes Focusrite, Lexicon, ART, CAD, sE Electronics, Carvin, Fender, Crate/JBL, Yamaha, Line 6, Ensoniq, Bach Stradivarius and so on.

This commentary is for an sE Electronics TITAN, a Titanium diaphragmed transformerless Class-A 3-pattern center-terminated LDC "streeting" at $1249.

I have had it for about 3 weeks and received it as a prize (of all things!) To be honest, this would not have been my next choice of mic had someone given me $1250 to spend on microphones. (I would have most likely done an sE Z5600A tube mic and perhaps a BLUE Bluebird or Studio Projects T3)However,I am the winner never the less and I will not look this gift-horse in the mouth.

The sE Product Summary shares: "For universal use as an Announcer's Mic for broadcasting/voice-over, Ideal for close micing instruments with high SPL's, spot micing for wind instruments especially trumpet and sax, strings, piano, kick-drum and guitar amplifier".

After spending my first half hour with the TITAN (running it through my Focusrite TrakMaster Pro using the straight pre) on my (Baritone)voice,(solid state)JBL equipped bass guitar amp and (solid state) guitar amp using acoustic guitar (Carvin Cobalt 750), my initial impression of it was "Studio Mic on Steroids". Essentially, what you put in it comes right back out and in your face, primarily due to it's high transient response.

As a microphone to record guitar amps, it is outstanding. In fact, on bass amp I was truly surprised. On the guitar amp it was as though I just plugged the acoustic guitar directly into a crystal clean pre-amp. It was WOW! On bass amp I had to back the mic out about 15 inches but I did not need to PAD the mic and it sounded great. A crystal clear representation of what was coming out of the speaker and maybe even better!

On the down side, I mic'd the acoustic guitar straight-on without the pad and the sound was overly bright for my taste, almost ringy. I apologize here for not having tried the TITAN on Acoustic Guitar with the pad on.

Since the sE Product Summary stated that this was a good mic for wind instruments, primarily trumpet and saxophone, I though I would try the TITAN on my Symphony Bore Bach Stardivarius 42BLTG Trombone. There are a lot of T-Bone players out there who swear by ribbon mics for that perfect t-bone sound, and unfortunately, as I have never tried a ribbon mic on my horn, I can't comment. However, after blowing some cobwebs and dust out the beast :), I can say that the sound via the TITAN is quite remarkable, incredible, in fact.

No artifacts, just straight-on clear-as-a-bell right in your face trombone sound. With -10dB pad I can get in real close for pure t-bone pick-up, however, with the pad off and back about 12-18 inches it picks up a little bit of "room" ambience however, the horn sound becomes much more present and much more "real". Another WOW for me.

Vocals came out nice and tight and focused. Interestingly enough, I found that in the figure 8 pattern, the rear diaphragm provides this real nice bass accentuated "ballsy" kind of thing (over and above what it does already in close proximity) that might work out really well in an announcing type of gig.

I spent some time running the TITAN through my ART MPA Gold Tube Pre.
This microphone definitely allowed me to hear quite clearly the differences in variation between mimimal tube coloration through high tube saturation as well as low voltage plate and high voltage plate sounds. In the long run it has made me think harder about replacing the stock tubes in the GOLD MPA as many have suggested.

Overall? "This is not your Father's Buick" and "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore". This is a microphone to be reckoned with and from my home recording capacity and experience, it appears to me to have many uses. Of course, the user must take into account the high transient response and use it accordingly. Needless to say, I am a happy owner of an awesome microphone.

I hope to spend some more time soon with this mic listening to percussion, over-driven guitar amp and my upright piano, but for now, this is all that I can comment on ;-)
Thanks for allowing me to share!