Audix - OM7

Singing lessons / voice exercises to strengthen voice. If you are playing 1000cap and smaller venues Buy an audix om6 or om7 ( om7 IMO). Let sound guy know what it is and let them know it requires quite a bit more gain than a 58. ( expecialy the om7) Om7 os a very directional mic, so it pickups far less of the stage noise and makes it easy to get a relatively quiet vocal on top of a mix. Great in even the tinyest of toilet venue's. I used to use them for a well-known trip hop artist that whispers into the mic while wanting the stage volume to be bowel-loosening, monitor destroyingly loud.

I’ve toured using an Audix OM7 for years. Sounds great, and is very hard to make it feedback onstage.

I hate audix mics but the OM7 has a natural compression to it that could probably kill the shrill.

Everyone complaining about cupping the mic - yeah that shit's hard to deal with but whatever. Some days you have easy shows and some days you work for that money. Pull up a hypercardioid condenser mic - beta87A, e865, OM7, V7, etc pick your poison - to cut back on some of the proximity effect and know that you're gonna be getting more honk and less clarity so test the mic that way during soundcheck. Doubly important if your artist isn't showing up for soundcheck - a lot of times it's their "guy" showing up because "aura" or some shit like that. Maybe they're busy setting off the venue fire alarm by smoking in the green room under the "no smoking" sign and the chemical sensors so they send someone with limited live sound knowledge and working vocabulary - a DJ, a fader jockey, their studio guy, something like that. Not that I'm speaking from experience there or anything. Definitely didn't have to evacuate an entire casino for no fucking reason once, no sir. Have someone from your team cup that mic with both hands around the grill and scream into it like it owes them money. Ring it out in the wedges and the mains - there's only so much you can do because we're limited by physics at the very bleeding edge of processing and performance. If you're lucky enough to have plugin processing, this is where that can really shine - C6 type compressors were designed for this exact use case. The more work you do on it ahead of time the less work you have to do during the show.

Audix OM7 is your answer here.

Despite its great rejection IMO it's a terrible-sounding mic.

Wrong. Audix OM7. Try cupping that mic and see how it sounds. No change. It's one I wish more rap artists would use. Too bad audix isn't as well respected as it used to be. Even conventional artists notorious for mic cupping used it. REM frontman Michael Stipe is one of them. I did many shows with them and always an OM7.

If you're looking for a handheld mic specifically and you do a lot of gutterals that involve holding the mic real close to your mouth (and probably cupping) then the mic I usually go for in my studio is the Audix OM7. It's got the typical Audix pre-EQ'd sound to it so it's pretty bright and clear but the capsule has also been designed to reduce a bit of the boominess that comes from close proximity and mic cupping. I know a lot of singers like the Sennheiser stuff for live use since they're very hyped in the high frequencies which helps them cut through in small clubs with shitty PAs, but personally I don't really like the sound of them on recording. Too harsh and spiky sounding. Really your best bet is to go to your local music store, throw on a pair of headphones, and try out a bunch of different mics until you find one that works best for your voice.

You are not. They are mostly rubbish. 935/45 is getting more towards sounding good, but the capsules dull so ridiculously quickly from spit, etc, that I feel it makes them a silly choice. There's plenty of much better options out there. For me personally, I love the Audio Technica AE6100. Also had some good results with DPA stuff. Know loads of people who like their SE V7's (although I've not really used them in anger as anymore than a shout mic). If you are after LOADS of gain before feedback, Audix OM7's are pretty good. The point is that there are choices. Sennheiser made themselves very popular in the market years ago by giving their mics away to any engineer who would try them.

Couldn't agree more! The thing I loved about the Sennheiser mics is that they sounded different than all those house 58's I usually got stuck with. You know, 5 vocal 58's all sound a bit different? Some were probably 15 years old. When all the other bands used those Shures the band I mixed used Sennheiser mics. The 58 has a presence peak that is higher than the Sennheiser ones. So when I switched out the mics, tweaked the house graphs, real 31 bands, a bit, my band's vocals cut thru a bit more. Remember getting the house guys, This is the Perfect Curve, for my wedges eq? Perfected over years by the guy who just kept pulling faders down? Couldn't feed back because there were 20 frequencies pulled down 8 db? Basically just turning the volume down? Yeah, being the engineer for opening or direct support back in the day could get rough. Did you ever use Audix mics? I bought 4 Om5's and 2 Om7's and just freaking loved them. The 5's almost had the same tone as a 58 but the pattern was tighter. After I switched out whomever 's 58's with my mics I had more headroom with no feedback. The guys who never came across the audix mics at the time couldn't believe it. Cheers