info_outline
From Studio Sets to Road Tests: Austrian Audio Unboxed
03/27/2024
From Studio Sets to Road Tests: Austrian Audio Unboxed
This week's Pro Audio Suite episode is a deep dive into Austrian Audio's treasure chest, featuring the OC707, OC818 studio set, CC8, and OC7. Discover the groundbreaking features of these mics and why they might just revolutionize your audio work. Robbo, AP, and Robert share their firsthand experiences, from studio recording and on-the-road versatility to voiceover excellence. It's an unboxing and testing session filled with expert analysis, fun, and a whole lot of audio geekery. Don't miss out on this sonic adventure. A big shout out to our sponsors Austrian Audio and Tri Booth. Both these companies are providers of QUALITY Audio Gear (we wouldn't partner with them unless they were), so please, if you're in the market for some new kit, do us a solid and check out their products, and be sure to tell em "Robbo, George, Robert, and AP sent you"... As a part of their generous support of our show, Tri Booth is offering $200 off a brand-new booth when you use the code TRIPAP200. So get onto their website now and secure your new booth... And if you're in the market for a new Mic or killer pair of headphones, check out Austrian Audio. They've got a great range of top-shelf gear.. We have launched a Patreon page in the hopes of being able to pay someone to help us get the show to more people and in turn help them with the same info we're sharing with you. If you aren't familiar with Patreon, it’s an easy way for those interested in our show to get exclusive content and updates before anyone else, along with a whole bunch of other "perks" just by contributing as little as $1 per month. Find out more here.. George has created a page strictly for Pro Audio Suite listeners, so check it out for the latest discounts and offers for TPAS listeners. If you haven't filled out our survey on what you'd like to hear on the show, you can do it here: Join our Facebook page here: And the FB Group here: For everything else (including joining our mailing list for exclusive previews and other goodies), check out our website “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” Hunter S Thompson [00:00:00] And welcome to another Pro Audio Suite thanks to Tribooth. You can see it in the background. Don't forget the code TRIPAP to get 200 off your purchase. Uh, Today we're going to do an unboxing right after this. So, George, you've got yourself a new microphone from Austrian audio Of course, one of our sponsors. Yes, it's Christmas early, extremely early in this case, [00:01:00] because I asked for this microphone a while ago and I wasn't sure if they'd send it to me because it is absolutely not. In the category of podcasting or voiceover. So I didn't think they were going to send it to me, but, they did because maybe they see what I see. And this is what I've got today to show you. And that's the You OC, not yet. OC 707. So this microphone has a lot in common with other mics. You guys are going to see from our unboxings. But this one kind of, to me, is like, I feel like, we should have done this last in a way, because I feel like it's the best of all the others, but all of us are going to tell us why their mic is the best, I think, right? So, OC707 is a small capsule condenser microphone. much like the pencil mic that we're going to see and the mic that, Robert's using. But it's just in the way that it's packaged. It's packaged as a handheld, right? So, why a handheld [00:02:00] vocal mic for voiceover or podcasting? Well, here's my, here was my thought. So, wouldn't it be nice to have a mic with a good internal pop filter? One. it's always there and it's always with you. Two, That's the unboxing part. Two, wouldn't it be nice if the mic had a decent amount of shock mounting internally, so the capsule wouldn't pick up rumble and stuff from wherever it's mounted? Yeah, sounds good, right? Well, that's the whole idea of a high quality handheld studio. Well, it's not studio. It's a live. It's just a handheld yeah. Mm-Hmm. mic, right? This is the whole idea of a mic like this. You're getting the quality of the capsule from their smaller diaphragm mics, but housed in a handheld form factor. So it can handle some handholding, meaning it will not pick up vibration. So if you mounted this to a mic arm or stuck it on a table or clamped it to a bed post or whatever it is you [00:03:00] need to put the mic, you're not going to get much rumble or low frequency noise, right? Another cool thing about the design of this mic, look at that crazy head basket. It actually it's like suspended it's it's sort of similar to my mic here where they have the capsule there, But the back of it accessible. I think that's part of their, um, a name for that tech. Yeah, they do have a name for that design, that design aspect, which I can't recall, But the idea is they're trying to make sure that there's no coloration that occurs because of the capsule being enclosed in any way at the rear. So that's the, the idea that this should give you the best off axis response, it should give you the smoothest off axis response. So before I go further and plug it in. Um, the only feature it has, really, if you call it that, is a switch. It does, uh, technology, Open Acoustics Technology. yeah, and does have a switch. The switch does engage a 120 hertz roll [00:04:00] off at the bottom end. What the slope is, I don't know. It's, I'm guessing it's probably as gentle, like a 6 dB per octave slope. But that is what you get on this mic. So without further ado, I'm going to plug it in, and it made a nice pop. I don't know if you guys heard the pop, did you? Even with the gain all the way down? So I'm going to go ahead and pot this up and let's see if you guys are catching it on your end. One, two, three. Yes, it's definitely coming up. yeah, And we'll pot down our other one. The OC 18. So now I'm on the OC 707. And, uh, tonally, it's very smooth, with what sounds to me like a little bit of a mid range, like, mid range, like, eh, eh, somewhere in the, hank, honk. there's like a little bit of a bump in the honk frequency. And that's, they did say that's by design, they actually said it has a little bit of a fuzz. forwardness at the two to three K range because they feel it [00:05:00] does help bring a vocal, um, out of the, you know, out of the mud, especially for live. guitars going on underneath you, that's gonna help. Yep. Absolutely. So, so if I was going to use this as a stand in for, uh, any of our other mics, my tendency would probably be to smooth that frequency out just to my ears and kind of put a little dip to smooth out that little bit of bump. But other than that, You're probably talking about like what 2 DB DB or so. And that's, what's crazy. You don't think two DB is that big a deal, but it's amazing when you hear, we are so tuned to hear our own voice or really human voice through a microphone. Right. And it's just, we've heard it so much. So there's any anomaly in, you know, in the frequencies, you pick it out really quick, right? But if it was a bass guitar and you added two DB of a certain frequency, it wouldn't be so dreadfully obvious. So, That's always interesting with mics. But anyway, that's the O. C. and whole. have the two mics set up so you can pot between the two, like go from the [00:06:00] 818 to the OC 707? I can do that. It'd be interesting to get like an equal distance and just kind of play around with that. Before you do that, how does it handle off axis stuff? Like if you're a bit off axis, does it get a bit lost? Yeah, we can try that. So, so I'm I'm gripping it, like, kind of like death grip singer grip and you're not hearing any. OK, if I really squeeze it, there's a little, if I move my thumb around, go. Yeah. the amount of handholding you get. But. If you hold it the proper way, as Steve Jobs would say, the correct way to hold the phone, um, by the, by the fingers like this, you get very, very minimal, um, I'm not using any high pass filters. This is right off the mic. So, so in terms of off axis, if I start speaking mic across the microphone now, and now I'm speaking at it at about, now I'm about 90 degrees. Yeah. right? One. And Definitely loses the low end and yeah, and there's the [00:07:00] rear rejection Notice the rear rejection is The rear rejection. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, in your face, because we 2. Yeah, it has an amazing rear rejection. A bit for it to sort of sound off axis. yeah, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. 1, 2, 1, then all of a sudden the low end really plummeted and it kind of retained some of the high end for a bit as it so very smooth off axis. And what does that mean to you as a voiceover actor or whatever, podcaster? It means that you can move around the microphone quite a bit. If it's mounted on a stand, for example, and you want to voice act. And you can move around the microphone a fair deal. And the only thing that's going to vary much at all is the volume, right? So as you get further closer, Yeah. it doesn't sound funky as you go off axis. So, All, all in all, I got to say, I'm extremely impressed. doesn't seem huge. Am I wrong about that? You know, if I get in deep, you know, those are, that's where you can really get that proximity effect [00:08:00] Mm And then back out to about, Yeah. Okay. So, so It is there. It is about this far away. 1, 2, 3, 4. So yeah. Excellent sounding handheld mic. Now the sound, the, the, um, the self noise on the mic on paper is not all that impressive at 19, I think it's 19. db um, self noise. I can't hear it But in, in reality, it's like you, yeah. if you have a heater on, if you have anything running in your environment, a fan, a ventilator, Anything you are not going to notice that it would take an absolutely extremely quiet studio. And for reference, the Sennheiser 416 is 16. So it's only 3 DB, theoretically 3 DB noisier and it's just not noticeable in any normal environment. So There you go. sometimes it's about just the sound of the noise. because if the sound of the noise is smooth, even if it's louder, Yes. than like some actual like kind Or, well, I mean, yeah, the tone of the noise, of whatever the white noise [00:09:00] tone is, and it's not very clean. So, there you go. back on the OC818 now, but that's, um, that's the OC707. do like, just kind of put them in the same place and do a quick, like Sure. B. Sure, I will do that. So, we're on the OC818, and they're very much close in alignment right now, and then we will cross crossfade over to the OC707, so you can hear there's a difference in the mid range. end and definitely more high end Right. sure. forward, less warm, less low end, crossfade back to the Seven. uh, the, uh, now we're on the OC818. yes. So yeah, round. of like, absolute purity of tone, the OC818 wins hands down. But if you want to travel and have something super robust for road use that you don't have to worry so much about, and if you want to throw in a nightclub gig while you're out on the road, Bit of karaoke. this is, this is a good choice. All right. [00:10:00] Yeah. That's a very cool mic very It is a nice mic. I do. I think it's basically the same as this bike, And you're going to explain to us why Uh, because it's the same capsule and the head basket looks very similar, but not, I have a feeling this head basket's a little bit bigger probably this one has a little bit more, tighter polar pattern if anything, possibly, but that's hard to know. Um, to show the mic clip. capsule. Sorry. I forgot to show my, my clip. too, which they give you the proper thumbscrew to set the position and lock it so it doesn't move on you. yeah, Anyway, sorry. sorry. Robert. Um, but yeah, I I think it's similar head basket, same, capsule, probably very similar electronics that like it's whatever the headbasket does and whatever else they do to voice it slightly differently. I don't think it's even in the voicing as much as it is in the polar pattern. Cause this is a little bit more of an instrument mic. So I'd expect it to [00:11:00] have maybe a higher degree of, um, You know, like a tighter polar pattern, maybe if Mm hmm. it for drums and things on stage. Um, but really convenient. I mean, I, I sent you guys the unboxing video. So we needed to see that, but it is really convenient in the sense that, um, kind of works in this similar way that a, in an SM seven or other mics work on a boom arm, so it's kind of not in the way in the same way that other mics are on the boom, It kind of nicely, gets in the right spot and doesn't cloud your view of other things. And it has this little pivot to it, which is pretty convenient, the full range of motion is from straight ahead yeah, almost full range. It, when, when you try to go. like, it That's the limit. back up. uh, so it's, Right. that'll limit some positionings, Yeah. but it is like front and back. [00:12:00] Okay. I did honestly wish it wouldn't have, um, just ran into Collided to the body of the mic, Yeah. Yeah. But besides that, I mean, It's It sounds great. I, I, I like the voicing of it. whole line. Yeah, I, I, mm hmm. the, the dynamic version and George, I don't, I think I seen those files, but so here's a dynamic one, which really just looking at it, the only The main thing you notice a difference is just. The darker color. It's kind of an interesting dynamic mic because it gives you these, um, filters and pads, it's active. So a dynamic mic that needs phantom power, and it seems to, um, maybe make it easier on the mic preamp. Um, it hmm. I would say in there with other kind of uh, Hotter Dynamic mics in like the kind of 421 type range where they kind of border a little bit more on kind of sounding condenser ish. Here's your two samples. It's only 11. It's a short sample. Here we [00:13:00] go. Guess which is which. So the second one sounds like the dynamic. Mm hmm. Yeah. And, and, and, yeah, what are the switches on there again? Give me a, rundown of the controls. Yeah. and then a, Um, high pass, a 3 position high pass filter. Three position. Oh, cool. Yeah, off being one of them, but here, let me, let me get you the, hmm. I would say that it'd be 60 and 120 It's probably going to be the same as yours, Yeah. so, I was curious. a 60 or is it 80? 80 and 120 on the Oh, mm hmm. And then the uh, the pad is like I said, 10 DB, if it's a gradual slope, I had a, [00:14:00] at, um, at, um, cutters. We had my labs that had a 400 high pass filter, you 87 I think of 300 or something like that. They're very high. Yeah, but there it's a They're a long slope. super, super gradual. Yeah. it's gradual. Now, that's interesting. So, yeah, I'm wondering if the slopes are set differently on the, on that instrument mic versus the, the pencil mic, you know, it's, they're all using the same basic guts, just in different configurations, They're all in know, same capsule. you know, color pattern a little bit by the acoustics around it, maybe, electronics, that might change the noise. Mm the noise hmm. So, you know, Andrew's mic, I would say, it to also Probably because that basket is so open probably have a more wider, polar pattern, Maybe And little bit more open sound, I would think for what Andrew has, just because it doesn't have the pop filter I mean he does have that, He's a little foam ball on there, but on [00:15:00] it much, yeah. andrew, what's, what, what are your impressions of the, uh, of the, is it CC eight, right? yeah, the CC8, which you also have. I do. I have two. I, like them. you, uh I put this through its paces. Okay, that, that is one of the problems. I'll go to the, Let me He popped it on purpose. of the problems. Is He, no, he was making a point. Yeah, exactly. I was Wizard is never late. He always arrives when he means to, right? Yeah, that's right. That's right. I, I've put this through a lot of tests. I've compared it with the 41. 6. I put it up against the NTG5. Um, I've done It in the Tri booth. I've done it in the Porter booth. I've done it in my booth, used it everywhere. Um, I think Robert, actually, I sent a file to Robert, uh, last week and Robert's response was listening to the NTG5, the 41. 6 and the. CC8, that, the CC8 moves a bit closer to the 41. 6 than the NTG5, thought so. [00:16:00] I think it's, that's what I'm hearing as well. It didn't quite have that, has a little bit more truth in the mid range. It doesn't have that, like kind of. yeah, 416, like thing. that I know it's, like what people like, but it's also technically what makes it so real. exactly. But this one, if you look at the frequency response, it's actually, is, very flat. Yes. and it's got a couple of tiny bumps in the top end to give it a little bit of cut, but it's a very flat mic. I know from other people who have played around with this mic, it takes EQ beautifully. You can really thrash it and it won't let go. So that that's a really good thing and just shows the quality of the microphone. On the downside of the mic, As we've already heard, it does tend to pop, unfortunately, So you've got to be very, very, careful when you're using this thing that you don't sort of pop continually. Um, I wanted to try this because I just [00:17:00] like the form factor of it when you're traveling, that it could be a really good, mic to chuck in a bag use when you're on the road because it is. Small, it's pretty Speaking of road, who makes that shock mount you're using with the mic? Wow. Road, road. So it does, it does not come with any kind of shock mounting of its own. it No, it just comes with a normal mic clip, Right. Same, same, same one is probably, maybe, I think it's probably the same mic clip that I have. Right. probably, let Yeah. in my And so that's the, that's the trade off. Right. So mic clips are interesting because when you first get them and you're trying to put that mic in there, you're like, man, I don't want to snap this mic clip, But the plastic is really strong and it feels like you're putting a lot of pressure in, but not the easiest, like, those things are exactly smaller than the mics and you gotta like, well, the Sennheiser my clip was the same way. I remember the four 16 people. I would just think like, is this going to fit? But that's what, [00:18:00] that's why it doesn't fall out. Yeah. so really. that's what you get is the clip Yeah. and then the foaming that that's all that comes with So do you think if you were to travel with it, you would actually bother to bring along the bigger shock mount for it? Or would you just use the clip? I'll just use the clip? Yeah, because I'm not touching anything, nothing, True. fine. The only other downside was because of having one of these, because I'm trying to make the road case as small as possible, and Right. really attractive. Like if I get a, you know, the old NTG5, You can plug it straight in. in. World's most badass USB mic. Uh That's what you end up with. But this one is too big. it doesn't Okay. The chassis is too thick. Yeah, it's too uh huh. What you might be able to get is a, uh, what would you need? a, um, female to female or male to female, uh, adapter. Like a little Barrel. yeah. It's an extender. They call it a [00:19:00] barrel extender? Yeah, And I bet you that would get you plugged straight in there without a Yeah. would. yeah, Which is essentially the world's shortest mic cable. Off to Yes. what it is. Peters or you could just get your Dremel tool and start filing off and thinning out the back of that OC eight. worth it. Oh, so worth it. Yeah, that'll work. Making it a perm, a permanent attachment to the mic port pro and just like the, well, these work. together. That's the, I guess you could try to widen that channel in the mic port pro, which, which, which is going to be Andrew. I don't think he's going to machine the tail end of his mic. go neither. Yeah. Is you agreed. just pull it apart. Just solder it in, you know, Yeah, there you go. Like, there you go yeah, yeah. But anyway, I, I, I, I really like...
/episode/index/show/voradioshow/id/30562768