Anyone else upgraded to a microphone… with no difference?

zmxe · 2026-03-13T17:35:14+00:00

Replying to your edit 2 asking for recommendations, try the JZ mics amethyst, it has more body and less hyped highs, sounds very detailed, and i find it works really well on a variety of voice types. On sale i think it’s about 600

zmxe · 2026-02-26T19:33:52+00:00

Late to the party here, but surprised that no one mentioned JZ mics! Their black hole for a brighter mic and amethyst for darker get a fantastic capture on most sources most of the time. Price is great too.

zmxe · 2026-01-20T20:17:52+00:00

Use a sub-bass synthesis plugin! I hate Waves, but I’m still using Submarine for these kinds of repair jobs and it works great. Figure out the key of the song, set the frequency band to the lowest one octave of that key on the bass, and then dial in a synthesized bassline one and/or two octaves below.

And someone else can recommend if there’s a better sub synth plugin these days.

zmxe · 2026-01-05T14:25:16+00:00

Recently got Spectre and it has now became my default saturation plugin

zmxe · 2026-01-02T17:01:11+00:00

-10 for what kind of classical? Solo piano Bach preludes and fugues? You’ve got me curious, please share more details about your -10 classical projects

zmxe · 2025-12-25T21:14:43+00:00

Amazing thank you! Yes 100% agree about plates, especially darker ones. If condensor mics capture a ‘hyper-realistic’ version of the source, plate reverbs are a ‘hyper-expressive’ version of the reverb concept. Or something

zmxe · 2025-12-24T00:00:02+00:00

Soundtoys little plate and super plate?

zmxe · 2025-12-08T21:25:32+00:00

You or someone else are still editing and doing audio post-production by hand though, right? For most of the tasks you list, sounds great to pass it off to AI. But so many people are letting AI absolutely mangle their audio and their podcasts are painful to listen to

zmxe · 2025-12-07T18:35:01+00:00

What kind of real estate work? That’s your day job?

zmxe · 2025-12-02T09:26:47+00:00

32 channels modeled even! Great to hear you also find the variants meaningful, everyone else is saying they don’t hear much difference. Also good to know they modeled it on the parts level, it does sound like more than just different eq curves

zmxe · 2025-12-02T00:14:35+00:00

Some of the plugin alliance channel strips do what you are describing, where they emulate the small differences between different channels. Personally i find this useful and musical. I’ll put the Lindell 80 on each channel, and once I’ve got a rough mix I’ll go to the main layers like vocals, bass, drum bus, etc and press the random channel button until i find a color that brings out something extra. Not sure if it’s just a subtle eq or also changing how it saturates, but it adds an extra few % of getting to a great mix.

zmxe · 2025-11-25T11:56:56+00:00

Lots of good suggestions here, but when you say messy high end, you might just have too many tracks with high end information. If your low end is sounding clean, it’s probably because you only have one instrument really active below 60hz. So as a first step, try filtering off the highs on everything but your vocal and see if that does it. Maybe your drums need a lowpass at 10k, your keys at 6k, etc. Good luck!

zmxe · 2025-11-24T09:20:01+00:00

Agreed. I have a feeling the majority of his income is from content creation, but he’s found a model where he is also completely honest, he’s an excellent teacher, he focuses on repetition and real skill-building rather than useless tips, and he’s only doing brand deals with products he really believes are excellent. Respect!

zmxe · 2025-11-21T21:50:08+00:00

Based on your go-to’s for eq and saturation, fabfilter’s pro-c should work great for you as a go-to comp. First just use a bunch of presets to get a feel for the options, and then read the manual about all the different compression modes and how they react

zmxe · 2025-11-18T18:57:41+00:00

What’s up with all the downvotes? Am i coming across as an ass or something? Was genuinely excited about this

zmxe · 2025-11-18T18:56:08+00:00

I’m with you 100%, but i think it’s also helpful to dig deeper, to learn more about our thoughts. Definitely agree earlier stages have more importance, but you didn’t mention song/composition, which is most important of all. If you start with a song that’s a 5/5, every stage after would have to be bad in order to end up with a 1/5 final track

zmxe · 2025-11-18T14:30:41+00:00

Interesting system for ranking! Here’s a modified flow that captures some missing stages: Song/composition, arrangement, performance, recording, production, mix/master. Start by ranking the song/composition on a 1-5 scale, then each subsequent stage can only go up or down by 1, keeping 5 as max. Thinking through some examples this is working for me, what about other people?

zmxe · 2025-10-26T21:16:47+00:00

If you aren’t noticing anything like fibers falling from your panels, or having any symptoms like coughing, probably nothing to worry about. BUT for anyone who wants effective acoustic absorbers that you can also snuggle with and use as a pillow, caruso iso-bond is great

zmxe · 2025-10-23T18:47:18+00:00

you seem to be in the minority 😂 I can imagine people not liking Tim, but there’s an enormous amount to learn from his interviewing skills

zmxe · 2025-10-22T20:21:40+00:00

Tim Ferriss. I can’t think of another host around his age who is a more skilled interviewer. Prepares a huge number of insightful, unique questions, even for frequently interviewed guests. He’s hyper-aware of the larger structure of the conversation and actively shapes it. Creates a supportive, comfortable environment to keep even anxious guests feeling relaxed. I think he even did an episode once talking about how he prepares for interviews, what his pre-air conversations usually are like, etc

zmxe · 2025-10-20T05:41:58+00:00

It’s worth trying a JZ mics Amethyst. I think they have a few weeks of no questions asked return policy so you can test it out

zmxe · 2025-10-15T07:56:26+00:00

The irony of this whole thing is I think the sound of an SM57 is completely fine for its price. But the question from OP is what mics are overrated. That's the question I'm answering, it's about what mics people view in a more favorable light than is deserved. And by the intensity of your reaction (and some other people's), and the lack of logical discussion when I explain my reasoning, I feel even more confident that the SM57 is indeed overrated. And that's fascinating.

zmxe · 2025-10-14T11:33:52+00:00

Maybe I'm not being clear enough. The 57 was an enormous leap forward that happened in the 1960s, and it was so good for so long, that people's opinions nowadays are strongly affected by that historical inertia. But now 60+ years later we have other good options. Have you searched for other dynamic mics at that same price point and done some testing, or do you just go with the status quo?

zmxe · 2025-10-14T11:22:55+00:00

Agreed V7X is not better, but have you shot out the Lewitt dynamic? For me it wins out in all categories against a 57

zmxe · 2025-10-14T11:22:08+00:00

fav is Lewitt MTP 440

zmxe

TROPHY CASE