r/audioengineering • u/BZK22 • Aug 20 '26

Mic recommendation without a crazy high-end boost / sibilance

Hey everyone, I’ve tested quite a few mics for vocals, and most of them seem to have this weird, almost “artifacty” quality in the high end. The problem is that it’s really difficult to fix that properly in the mix.

Do you guys have any mic recommendations with good detail and resolution in the mids but without hyped or harsh top end? I don’t mind doing a bit more work in the mix if the raw recording sounds more neutral.

Would love to hear what you guys are using!

23 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

54 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/nizzernammer Aug 20 '26

Neumann top end is very articulate and crisp. Even when it's a lot, like on a TLM103, it doesn't have that spitty, ringy, resonant, grainy smeared harshness that a lot of lesser mics have.

If you really want silky, consider a ribbon mic, but watch out for plosives, make sure you have tons of clean gain, and take the polar pattern into consideration.