TLM 103

Just this past week I was mixing a song and I was thinking “Damn, I got these vocals smokin!! I don’t know what I did but it was soooo easy”. I found out a few days later the vocals were recorded on a Sony C800G. I was kinda hurt to learn that my mixing skills had very little to do with the vocals being so strong and solid. A few years earlier, I was mixing a song that included myself and 3 other people on vocals. One of the 3 (I didn’t know at the time) recorded on a C800G while the other two on a Neumann TLM 103 and myself….I happened to be testing my brother’s Warm Audio WA8000 (which is *supposed* to be a clone of the C800G. The guy who recorded on the real C800G had the easiest vocals BY FAR while I struggled like hell to get my own vocals up to that level. The TLM103 vocals weren’t as easy to deal with as the real Sony vocals but they were absolutely fine. The funny thing is the more processing you do on the higher quality mic, the more obvious it’s superiority - meaning it stands up to heavy destruction (via processing) without flinching. Cheaper mics? Hit them with heavy compression and the cheapness becomes very much apparent. While you don’t *need* a $17,000 mic (that’s what the Sony goes for brand new now), to get a great recording, the quality of the mic absolutely effects the ceiling you can reach. Especially in a crowded mix. What they sound like soloed in a vacuum means absolutely nothing (the same goes for many analog processors as well). It’s what happens when you start blending it with other elements that reveal what a makes a great mic great.

The 103 is a very polarizing microphone though, it only started getting less hate more recently because it became the Billy Eilish mic

That seems to be the general consensus, it's always been a pretty divisive mic. Seems like it only started going up in price when it became the Billy Eilish mic a few years back.

I recorded an entire album of vocals on the 103 into SSL SiX Pre, except for one track. I thought it was great, until I got to the mix and realized every single recording had to be de-essed or EQ’d to hell to get it to not be painfully harsh. That one last track, though, was an original U67 into a Neve desk. That was what made me really understand the difference - the U67 came out perfect, with pretty much nothing needed to make it sit right in the mix.

I see. Maybe I do need to poke around more, and maybe the presets in that Motiv aren’t doing me any favors. I used the SM7B in hotels, I could book animation and games, because they record at their studios anyway, but now I do mostly Source Connect work, so my auditions have to show I have broadcast quality audio. The engineers prefer to work with high end mics—but my home set up, iso booth isn’t perfect. I started with a RODE NTK, but I was doing more animation and games then so my sessions were at the studios. It was my audition mic. Now that I do more commercials from home, I just use my 103 for everything. It’s probably too sensitive for my environment, but the engineers are happy and that’s all that matters for my situation.

I would do the 414 over the 103 because a hypercardioid setting can be super useful in an untreated or partially treated room. You'll probably have to De-ess in post but recording with a bright condenser mic and de-essing in post has been standard practice in pro studios for like 50 years. But with that budget I'd also look into Sennhesier MD441. One of the nicest sounding dynamic mics ever made and incredibly tight pickup pattern/room rejection. Blows the SM7b out of the water IMO.