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Post by Shadowk on Apr 13, 2024 8:19:10 GMT -6
What a mic.. Tons of detail, smooth as silk, workable proximity effect and it doesn't require a super fancy amp to get it sounding right. It's also great as a vocal handheld and has decent off axis rejection. Everything I've tried it on thus far has produced great results..
I'm becoming quite the fan of Beyer products in general and would happily create an album with their mic's alone.
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Post by copperx on Apr 13, 2024 8:25:33 GMT -6
I've always wanted to try this mic. How do vocals sound? Natural? Dark?
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Post by Shadowk on Apr 13, 2024 8:40:23 GMT -6
I've always wanted to try this mic. How do vocals sound? Natural? Dark? Usually when I see the words vintage and ribbon I go in the opposite direction because with my voice obfuscation works against me. The M160 is very natural and clear, not dark at all and has just enough mojo not to make it sterile or overly reactive to the point it brings out too much unwanted sounds. I like singing through sensitive neutral SDC's but they can be a lot of work. |
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Post by smashlord on Apr 13, 2024 8:44:13 GMT -6
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Post by copperx on Apr 13, 2024 10:56:35 GMT -6
That's fantastic! Any details on the amp/cab?
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Post by drumsound on Apr 13, 2024 11:04:34 GMT -6
That's fantastic! Any details on the amp/cab?
Placement info too, please. |
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Post by smashlord on Apr 13, 2024 11:29:40 GMT -6
That's fantastic! Any details on the amp/cab?
Placement info too, please. Glad you dig! Chain was: LP Custom w/Seth Lovers>Boss SD-1>Klon>Xotic EP Booster- '69 Marshall 1987T (Tremolo model)> Hiwatt cab loaded with Celestion Blackbacks from the 70s. The Marshall is internally jumped and I was blending in a little of the normal channel it looks like. M160 was placed in the center of the cone up close... the usual, nothing fancy. From there, VP28 PT>550A. |
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Beyer M160
Apr 13, 2024 11:32:34 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by nick8801 on Apr 13, 2024 11:32:34 GMT -6
Love mine. Great on guitar cabs…dig it for old school vocals too.
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Post by copperx on Apr 13, 2024 15:08:31 GMT -6
dig it for old school vocals too.
How does it compare to a tube mic, regarding 'old school' aesthetic?
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Post by nick8801 on Apr 13, 2024 16:16:49 GMT -6
dig it for old school vocals too.
How does it compare to a tube mic, regarding 'old school' aesthetic?
It’s different. Much more bandwidth limited sounding. Kinda pushes the midrange forward with a rolled off top. Very creamy sounding. |
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Post by bikescene on Apr 13, 2024 20:41:09 GMT -6
I bought a second M160 once I saw online chatter about a V2 version replacing the old one. I’ve been enjoying using it as spaced pair drum overheads. I had been using 1 as a mono overhead.
I think it’s good on electric guitar too. I need to space it 3-8” away from a cab to control the low end. It sounds punchy and almost cleans up distorted guitar a little. Every Beyerdynamic mic I’ve used has worked well on guitar cab: M201, M69, M88, and the M160.
It’s an interesting sound on acoustic guitar too.
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Post by Shadowk on Apr 13, 2024 22:08:00 GMT -6
dig it for old school vocals too.
How does it compare to a tube mic, regarding 'old school' aesthetic?
In terms of reactivity I agree with Beyer here, it has a lot of transient detail and a high fidelity impulse response. It's more along the vibe of an original Blue Bottle or U47 though, that being said I don't really get the "old timey" thing. I know Neumann discontinued the U47 Fet for a while due to and I loosely quote "people wanting more stringent records" but with these type of mic's you can just EQ the crap out of them and to be fair there's tons of great sounding modern recordings that use U47 style mic's, you don't have to worry about LPF's either  . IME it's always harder to dig unwanted stuff out then it is to simply boost a couple of frequencies, although that also depends on distortion characteristics.
Compared to a lot of moving coil dynamic's I don't have to crank the amp to get said reactivity with the M160 and that's a great thing because you end up getting a worse SNR plus a lot of ambient noise. Dynamics can end up causing more issues than an LDC and sure the 7B has been used on countless records, sometimes to good effect and I have more experience with that mic than any other. However, like every mic it really does depend on the singer.. Personally I have two modes, relatively quiet or deafening.
When I sing live it's not an issue because there's plenty of ambient noise anyway, I'm right up on that mic and "going for it" so a 58 or 7B does just fine. In a studio setting I'd be reflecting off every surface and your room could be 30 X 25 with blankets etc. all over and I'll still probably make mince meat of it, when taking the "quiet" approach there's just not enough nuance without running into the first issue. Hence the reason why I generally stick to LDC's or if I'm the mood for metal vox I'll switch between dynamic's and LDC's.
The point of this is, I don't feel like I'm losing anything by not using an LDC with the Beyer and that's rare. So in terms of that old time aesthetic it can be whatever you want it to be really as there's nothing getting obviously obfuscated, the mic begins to roll off about 10Khz but as a tenor if I wanted more air or modern presentation from it I'd boost the 12Khz wide Q quite a bit. Even with the SM7B I've done some wild EQ'ing on occasion, it works so I'm not sure what the issue is.
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Post by nick8801 on Apr 13, 2024 22:11:44 GMT -6
That’s one of my favorite characteristics of ribbons. They take eq like champs.
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Post by gwlee7 on Apr 14, 2024 8:03:08 GMT -6
Beyer is cool. I have M88, 201, and 160. Btw them and Geffell, I really don’t need any other mics. Of course, I have other mics.  |
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Post by Quint on Apr 14, 2024 8:04:59 GMT -6
I believe I read somewhere that the changes to the M160 are basically just cosmetic? IOW, none of the changes affect the sound, correct?
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Post by ironinthepath on Apr 14, 2024 11:57:26 GMT -6
Over the past 6 months or so I found a really good deal on the M88 and the M160 (as did others on RGO) - both come with some plots of measurements done by the factory. I noticed that the curves of my particular mics are much less smooth than the "typical" examples on the Beyer website, with sort of jagged jumps in the high mid/highs. To my ears the mics are somewhat "phasey" sounding, if that makes sense compared to what I "pictured" them sounding like based on recordings of the older mics. I am open to the possibility that it's just psycho-acoustic / bias / not an issue in a double blind test sort of thing. Overall, they do sound nice overall. In any case, in a mix I doubt I'd notice but when trying solo vocals I liked the overall tone but couldn't ignore the peaky/phasey thing. Phil Collins voice at Live Aid 1985 on "Against All Odds" has a really nice quality (of course this has most to do with it being Phil Collins) but it sounds very natural to me too (don't notice phasiness). I am wondering if my Beyers are sort of (a) "barely passing" specimens or (b) just fine and it's in my head and the typical curve is really the smoothed/averaged of many many such microphone curves (not just a single nice "smooth" one) meaning most/all of these models have similar jagged peaks in the response.. Example: recordinghacks.com/microphones/beyerdynamic/M-160Or download the spec. sheet here:https://north-america.beyerdynamic.com/m-160.html These look "smooth as silk" to me compared to mine. EDIT: I added this comparison in a post below (see link) --> ibb.co/RhBG0xS |
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Post by Shadowk on Apr 14, 2024 12:17:13 GMT -6
Over the past 6 months or so I found a really good deal on the M88 and the M160 (as did others on RGO) - both come with some plots of measurements done by the factory. I noticed that the curves of my particular mics are much less smooth than the "typical" examples on the Beyer website, with sort of jagged jumps in the high mid/highs. To my ears the mics are somewhat "phasey" sounding, if that makes sense compared to what I "pictured" them sounding like based on recordings of the older mics. I am open to the possibility that it's just psycho-acoustic / bias / not an issue in a double blind test sort of thing. Overall, they do sound nice overall. I'm not getting any of that but I know what you mean, I had a FET LDC that was quite dark and phasey sounding but the person who recommended had the same mic with no issues. The MK1 ISK 2B was similar, it sounded great in a specific context sometimes but in a mix it would just get swallowed up. They fixed it in later versions.. |
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Post by smashlord on Apr 14, 2024 13:58:40 GMT -6
To my ears the mics are somewhat "phasey" sounding, if that makes sense compared to what I "pictured" them sounding like based on recordings of the older mics. I am open to the possibility that it's just psycho-acoustic / bias / not an issue in a double blind test sort of thing. I've noticed this as well about the M160... it definitely has a slightly phasey thing to it in solo, but is usually fine in the mix. |
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Post by Dan on Apr 15, 2024 7:57:07 GMT -6
Over the past 6 months or so I found a really good deal on the M88 and the M160 (as did others on RGO) - both come with some plots of measurements done by the factory. I noticed that the curves of my particular mics are much less smooth than the "typical" examples on the Beyer website, with sort of jagged jumps in the high mid/highs. To my ears the mics are somewhat "phasey" sounding, if that makes sense compared to what I "pictured" them sounding like based on recordings of the older mics. I am open to the possibility that it's just psycho-acoustic / bias / not an issue in a double blind test sort of thing. Overall, they do sound nice overall. In any case, in a mix I doubt I'd notice but when trying solo vocals I liked the overall tone but couldn't ignore the peaky/phasey thing. Phil Collins voice at Live Aid 1985 on "Against All Odds" has a really nice quality (of course this has most to do with it being Phil Collins) but it sounds very natural to me too (don't notice phasiness). I am wondering if my Beyers are sort of (a) "barely passing" specimens or (b) just fine and it's in my head and the typical curve is really the smoothed/averaged of many many such microphone curves (not just a single nice "smooth" one) meaning most/all of these models have similar jagged peaks in the response.. Example: recordinghacks.com/microphones/beyerdynamic/M-160Or download the spec. sheet here:https://north-america.beyerdynamic.com/m-160.html These look "smooth as silk" to me compared to mine. Beyer quality control and long time reliability sucks. M160 are cool because they have built in overshoot. It always sounds distorted because it is physically distorting which makes it one of the coolest stunt mics around. |
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Post by dok on Apr 15, 2024 10:21:51 GMT -6
My favorite application for these (aside from guitar amp) is in stereo on my upright piano through an AEA RPQ2. Absolutely perfect combo.
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Post by frans on Apr 15, 2024 10:48:42 GMT -6
The ribbon in the M160 is corrugated unlike the RCA ribbons - in the middle the folds go along the length, on the ends at a right angle to it. The idea behind it was it takes more level without damage like that..while a RCA ribbon close to its limits would break, a Beyer ribbon in the same situation would reach a point where it sounds less than 100% and take even more level ... before it breaks.
I heard M160s that have a phasey, uneven tone. That's not how it should be. I can't remember hearing a M160 that sounded like you describe without being damaged.
Beyer quality control is pretty good with their flagship mics, as they are still 100% handbuilt by people who are trained a looong time.
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Post by ironinthepath on Apr 15, 2024 11:39:01 GMT -6
I put together an image comparing my specific M160's freq. response plot with the general one provided in the M160 spec sheet (but could not attach it directly). Here is a link to the image: ibb.co/RhBG0xS
My M160's plot looks a bit rough to me...and I already mentioned my opinion that it sounds a bit "rough" too. The fact that they even provide a specific unique frequency response measurement for each mic made me think they had really good quality control, but perhaps not. Any thoughts? -Chris |
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Post by Ward on Apr 15, 2024 12:03:24 GMT -6
Well Shadowk, not only is the Beyer M160 one of the all-time enduring greats in the overall general purpose utility ribbon mics category, The M88 is likely the best Small diaphragm dynamic ever made, Try out the Beyer cardioid 834 or multi pattern MC740, which is by far the best natural sounding LDC I've used. No hype, incredibly perfect no-noise no-harshness, most honest and accurate Large Diaphragm solid state microphone. Ever. |
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Post by Shadowk on Apr 15, 2024 12:08:27 GMT -6
Well Shadowk , not only is the Beyer M160 one of the all-time enduring greats in the overall general purpose utility ribbon mics category, The M88 is likely the best Small diaphragm dynamic ever made, Try out the Beyer cardioid 740 or multi pattern 834, which is by far the best natural sounding LDC I've used. No hype, incredibly perfect no-noise no-harshness, most honest and accurate Large Diaphragm solid state microphone. Ever. Sweet, I was wondering if there's a Beyer LDC I can try.. Thanks Ward. |
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,953 
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Post by ericn on Apr 15, 2024 13:19:23 GMT -6
Well Shadowk, not only is the Beyer M160 one of the all-time enduring greats in the overall general purpose utility ribbon mics category, The M88 is likely the best Small diaphragm dynamic ever made, Try out the Beyer cardioid 740 or multi pattern 834, which is by far the best natural sounding LDC I've used. No hype, incredibly perfect no-noise no-harshness, most honest and accurate Large Diaphragm solid state microphone. Ever. They are more like mid sized but yeah except for the gate like effect you can hear on long decays of featured acoustic instruments. A very very over looked mic. If we are talking beyer ribbons don’t forget the M260. While the dual diaphragm of the 160 gives you more output the single diaphragm of the 260 means your not at the mercy of the summing of the 2 diaphragms so it can bring out a tad more detail. |
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. IME it's always harder to dig unwanted stuff out then it is to simply boost a couple of frequencies, although that also depends on distortion characteristics.
