First call tenor sax mic?

My friend Mark Rubel loved the RCA 77 on tenor.

drsax uses his REDD tube mic I believe. It's good enough to keep him in the #1 slot on the Billboard charts for a fair part of the year. Every year. LOL. But then again, I'm 100% confident he'd sound good on pretty much anything. Maybe he will chime in on his options..... drsax ?

It really depends on what the sax is doing in the tune and how you want it presented. You don’t need a new mic, either of those you mentioned will offer a great and familiar recorded sound. But they’ll be a different type of presentation from each other and you have to pick which you want. If I had your two choices I’d instinctively grab the 67 first. Then again, I just had a tenor track sent to me the other day, he went to a real room to do it and they tracked him with both an M149 and an AEA KU5. On first listen I preferred the Neumann but in this particular contemporary bossa nova thing I heavily preferred the AEA and used just that track. They both sounded like the player!

your BN 67 should be fine. A 67 is a great mic on sax. As is any 414 from the 80’s and earlier. As mentioned by others, I love the Chandler REDD, but it is very revealing so it all depends on the sax player. As a general rule, any mic that sounds good on a bright-ish singer will sound good on sax. For super bright players or for old school jazz stuff, ribbons can be real nice

And for those that have them, the c12 or the 251 are aces on sax. This is why the Chandler REDD is so good on sax… revealing open sweet high end with those nice fat lows/low mids

Thanks, folks. Admittedly I’m not mixing this one - it’s just an overdub for a friend of a friend, so I don’t wanna tie anyone’s hands. I do hah a pair of 414BULS and a few different 47 clones (Stam and Lawson) so maybe I’ll just toss a bunch up and see

HMM!! Great suggestion. I can see a 201 being stellar on sax also!

Love to know what microphone was used on the sax solo on Baker Street, and what was used on the Breakfast in America album by supertramp as well.

Also, you gotta remember that the heyday of saxophones on recordings were 1980’s and earlier. In the early 90’s till now, there’s WAY less sax in modern commercial music, although we are finally seeing a comeback. That meant that most of the recordings you like with sax were done to tape. Tape was a beautiful thing for sax which is by nature a bright source. A 251 or 414 to tape automatically took care of the high frequency range in a flattering way. For modern recordings, most mics will need to be tamed and highs pulled back. There are some mics though like the u47, u67, most ribbon mics, TLM170 etc., that sound great on sax these days without much tweaking to because they don’t over accentuate the highs.

While we're on it, what do you folks think about mic placement on sax? I don't like the sound of a mic at the bell. I usually mic the side of the instrument near where the bell and body meet on the player's right side.

Havent tried it, but I’m guessing it would yield a pretty favorable result.

Easy... C414EB with brass capsule or Soyuz Bomblet. U67 is also good, but C414/Bomblet pointed towards the middle of the instrument is DONE. DW Fearn pre amp is also super saxxxxy for this application.

Just avoid a U87AI whatever you do. HONK HONK HONK

I believe Bob Mintzer used to spec a 441 for his performances.