No doubt you've noticed the difference between a vocal performance you hear on a CD recorded in a pro studio and what you hear every Sunday from your stage at church. The studio recordings have much more detail and you can hear all the nuance of the singer's delivery. Why the difference? A good portion has to do with the type of microphones used in the studio verses the ones used on stage. The trick to get the stage vocals to sound as good as the studio vocals is to use the same mic technology studio pros have used for years.
Studio microphones for vocals have two basic differences from the type of microphones normally used by singers on stage. First, studio mics usually use condenser technology to pick up the sound and convert it to the audio signal. Condenser mics are typically more articulate and natural sounding than the heavy duty dynamic mics used in sound reinforcement. Second, they use "large diaphragm" elements. That's the physical surface that picks up the singers voice. Typical dynamic-style handheld mic used on stage use "small diaphragm" elements. If you're feeling a little geeked out by this you can read our article called
The Basic Basics of Microphone Basics to bone up on different types of mics.
The larger diaphragm condenser studio mics have wider bandwidth and better transient response. Bottom line? They can better reproduce all the subtle inflections and timbres of the human voice. Condenser microphones have been available for stage use for years, but they tend to be more expensive, more fragile and more susceptible to feedback than dynamic mics. That is until now.We have been testing a new microphone from Audio-Technica called the
AT-2010 and frankly we're impressed. It uses the same 16 mm "large diaphragm" as one of the recent best selling larger-diaphragm mics in the US, the
AT-2020 used in studios around the country. Now you can have the best of both worlds! Singers have the full range of nuance and emotion for their sound on stage, but in a microphone designed to be very rugged, provide very low handling noise and reject feedback. We found the
AT-2010 has great detail combined with desirable vocal warmth. And the real kicker is that it does all of this for the same price as most popular dynamic microphones - only $99.99.
We strongly recommend the
AT-2010 as a great choice for your worship leaders and worship team singers. But we realize you may not want to just take our word for it, so we have included the
AT-2010 in our Try B-4-U Buy program. Give us a call, and we'll arrange to send you the mic to try in your facility, with your singers, your sound system and your songs - before you buy.