Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In A Microphone?

After 6 months of testing mics, here’s what I learned. All of the stars aligned to make this video possible. The link to CMA’s youtube channel (they will think I’m cool if you click it): 0:00 - How do you compare mics? 1:53 - What mics should I test? 3:04 - How do you make useful graphs? 4:55 - Mics vs 57 5:28 - But why do mics sound different? 6:50 - Tube vs Solid State 7:36 - Cool vs uncool tubes 8:05 - Transformer vs no transformer 8:33 - Why is volume matching important? 9:11 - EQ in the circuit 9:39 - When do mics distort? 11:54 - Something very exciting 12:48 - Happy learned how to putt 13:19 - Circuits vs capsules vs grilles 14:05 - Messing up a capsule 15:07 - Preston White, capsule maker 16:50 - Capsule tests 18:03 - Only one option left 18:28 - This is Station West 20:19 - The “DB“ Solid Tube 20:57 - But some questions were unanswered 21:18 - This is Ocean Way 22:07 - Every test I did 24:44 - The real reason I did all of this 25:25 - How do my mics compare? 26:43 - The Popcan 29:02 - Jam my site is @jimlill on instagram Preston White’s site is All music in this video was played by me, with love. ___ This was the biggest I’ve ever dreamed for a video, and somehow all of the dreams came true. I’m doing tests and comparisons because I love listening to music that sounds good, and I want to be prepared in all situations to make music that sounds good. Microphones were a blind spot for me. I didn’t know how big the gap was between the tone of the mics that were used on my favorite records and the tone of the mics I use every day, and I was hoping to find a way to shorten that gap. I’m very, very happy with where I ended up. Hopefully you will be, too. -Jim, 10/2/2023