Inexpensive Ribbon Mic Shoot-out

So you want the warm tone of a ribbon for horns but can't afford a thousand-dollar Coles or Royer? These three each come in at under $200.
They are:
the Sterling ST170,
The Cascade Fathead BE,
and the Golden Age R2.

I made this mic shootout video because although there appear to be a great many such videos testing mics for vocals, voiceovers, guitars, drums, etc., I couldn't find very many suitable shootouts that specifically deal with woodwinds and brass instruments. There are even plenty of mics that can make a saxophone sound good, but brass instruments like trumpets and trombones are notoriously hard to get the appropriate amount of warmth and still preserve the nice crisp high end. Mic placement is tricky, too; the sound coming out of those instruments is very directional, just throwing a mic in front of the bell isn't going to accurately pick up the way the instrument sounds in the room. I'm a saxophone player mainly, so I'm testing these mics with my own instrument. Future videos might include a brass test with a trumpet and trombone for comparison.

When I was putting together my studio, I tried to find a balance of good quality microphones that wouldn't completely use up my budget. In my opinion, as good as the Coles 4038 is, $1200 is a lot of money; although there's no substitute for an actual Coles if you can afford it; that $1200 can buy at least six times as many microphones that will get close enough to work for most purposes.

Note: this test is COMPLETELY subjective. There are lots of factors to selecting the right mic, not the least of which are the size and shape of the room, the particular tone each player gets out of the instrument, and so much more. That's another frustration I've found with some of these other "mic shootout" videos; they're usually shot in an acoustically dead space like an isolation booth or a small room with foam walls. Being in an iso booth is typical and normal for vocalists, but as a horn player most of the session work I've done takes place out in the big studio room with the rest of the band; those spaces are definitely not acoustically the same as an iso booth.

My big room, where the video and audio was recorded, has been designed and treated to have a nice natural acoustic warmth. The wood-panel ceilings reflect just enough of the right kind of ambience, while the corner traps dampen the wrong kind. It's a good sounding room, and a realistic representation of what one might find when recording in an actual large studio room instead of an iso booth.

So, since I'll be using these mics primarily for brass instruments, and since brass instruments are primarily recorded in the big room with the whole horn section all at once, I wanted to create a "mic shootout" video which incorporates these conditions in a way that's more "real world" realistic than just a dry iso booth might offer.

RESULTS: again, totally subjective. I like the Golden Age R2 best. It has a nice, crisp, present high end, but still maintains that ribbon warmth. It also sounded the best of all of them during the off-axis test. The Sterling ST170 surprisingly came in second in the off-axis test but I didn't like the rear polar pattern as much, and the full frontal test sounded more like a cheap condenser. The Fathead sounded very similar to the R2 in full frontal placement, but the off-axis test was my least favorite, and the rear polar pattern didn't sound great IMHO either. That's a clue that the Fathead was designed to be much more directional than the other two, which may not necessarily be a bad thing. I think the Fathead has its practical applications, but my saxophone isn't one of them. Of the three, though, the R2 is definitely the winner of this particular test!

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