Reddit reviews Behringer ECM8000 Ultra-Linear Measurement Condenser Studio Microphone,Silver

In the book "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio" a good rule of thumb is to invest as much to your treatment as you will be investing to your monitors. You can have the best monitors in the world but you can't use them if your room is untreated. But this you already know since you made this thread.

Besides reddit, I would like to recommend gearslutz forum for this one if you really want to study hard. There are many experts (I mean literally experts of the field) who are happy to help you out with your questions. But since I have done some research and I feel fairly confident, I can provide some things I found important.

1. Know your room. I'm guessing your room is cubicle shaped, with around 2-4m dimensions? These types of rooms have ALWAYS have some sort of room modes. Room modes are basically the frequencies that your room resonates with. This one is super easy to try out. Measure your room dimensions and add them here. This site will calculate the theoretical room sounds AND plays them for you. Try to play some room modes and see if you can see the difference in the volume. Going deeper, you can invest in a measurement mic. Place the measurement mic to your listening position and run a spectrum sweep with REW. You will end up with a waterfall diagram (This was my room), that will show you the ringing modes as large spikes AND will tell you the decay time of these frequencies. Neat, right?
   
   
2. Treat your problem areas. Where are these areas? 99% of the time they are in your low end. And this is the area that is the hardest to treat, since low end has a lot of energy and that energy is not easy to tame. I may be wrong here, but basically you have two options: tuned bass traps or absorption. Tuned bass traps are made for specific frequency and they will only affect this area. Absorption is whole spectrum wide, and usually the "road more traveled" when it comes to bedroom producers. There are many good commercial options but these will usually cost you. I went the DIY route, and was able to tame some of that low end with just basic insulation wool. 4 huge bass traps, 6 medium sized bass traps and 6 more top end absorption panels ended up costing me around 300 euros. EASILY worth the money.
   
3. Enjoy. You did the best you can. Treating your room is not for perfectionist. Even with unlimited resources it can still be really hard to get your room to sound "correct".
   
   Here is picture of the panels I made if someone is curious. I'm more than happy to help if someone is considering going DIY route. Here is the theoretical absorbtion coefficcient curve of my biggest traps.
   

What are you trying to accomplish? If you're just podcasting, one USB mic is plenty. If you're doing project recording, layering in instruments, etc., then I would use a standard mic.

I really like the AT2020 USB. Great for podcasts, but can really take the dB's for instrument recording, even if you're playing trumpet or something.

Samson c01u may work just as well, at a bit lower price. c03u is a pricier alternative, but higher quality from what I've read.

If you want a 'standard jack mic' (XLR), then I have more suggestions. Of course, unless you really have the soundcard for it, you'd probably need an adapter to use one. You will get more for your money in terms of mic quality though.

I don't think you can beat a Behringer ECM8000 for value, and I prefer the sound over the industry-standard Shure. I also like MXL for value, and the V67G is a great one, and may be more appropriate for podcasting.

CAD GXL3000 is a good one if you want a multi-pattern.

If you really want to get spendy, get the APEX 460. This is a favorite because you can mod it to sound like a very expensive mic. (EDIT: sounds fantastic right out of the box, too)

If you want to try a ribbon mic, as suggested below, MXL has some real bang-for-the-buck products. Also the Nady RSM-4 and -5. Ribbon mics are a bit different and I think they accentuate highs too much, but I don't fault anyone who prefers 'em.

A very common mic is the minidsp brand UMIK-1 (which doesnt need the phantom power adapter - its straight to USB, and comes with a calibration mic file) https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1 $75

i opted for this variation and got them off amazon.

MXL-MICMATEXLR To USB Preamp for Condenser Microphones
$42 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VZ8WC2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00
There are other variants of this, one is called the icicle i believe. i just based my choice on prime shipping and reviews.

and combines with BEHRINGER ECM8000 @ $60

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HT4RSA?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00

plug and play and worked amazing with room eq wizard which is free and awesome.

If you are at that point in treating your room you should buy a measurement mic and use some software to analyze it and try it in both positions. It's not that expensive for the mic and there is free analyzing software for Windows.

Seriously, it's not that difficult to do some research on your own and take your own basic measurements, or do some basic calculations.

At the very, very least, learn your room modes. Low end is probably the most troublesome area of every mix environment. Here's a helpful calculator and visualiser to show you how sound pressure is being distributed throughout your room at different frequencies.

http://www.hunecke.de/en/calculators/room-eigenmodes.html

This Behringer electret measurement microphone is just fine (in real world tests among measurement microphones, it performs quite admirably) for doing your own measurements at home, and costs 60 bucks

http://www.amazon.com/BEHRINGER-MEASUREMENT-CONDENSER-MICROPHONE-ECM8000/dp/B000HT4RSA

Which is a hell of a lot cheaper and wiser than spending 100 bucks on materials and potentially screwing up your room without knowing what you're even looking for to begin with.

Room EQ Wizard requires a few hoops to go through (signing up for the Home Theater Shack forum and waiting for account approval), and has a somewhat difficult learning curve (this is where you might want to start looking up some more in depth acoustic physics primers) but is among any number of relatively easily obtained, free software for measuring frequency response, and many many other variables with regard to how sound is being distributed through your room.

http://www.roomeqwizard.com/

Ethan Winer has some great beginning articles on acoustics to get you started with a little bit of room acoustics (and treatment) basics

http://realtraps.com/articles.htm

and the Gearslutz Studio Building/Acoustics forum has lots of in depth information and cough helpful users who can sometimes answer your quesitons and help you with problems as you learn more about the process.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/

Honestly, room treatment and acoustic physics go very hand in hand with audio engineering concepts, and it would behoove all engineers of any stripe to learn more about how sound interacts in the physical realm, as it's an integral part of mixing and recording that has practical applications beyond simply understanding how it affects your listening position while mixing. The information can easily be applied to microphone technique, live audio, and also understanding how certain aspects of your mix are interplaying, even if you're mixing totally in the box, and on headphones.

You can't really say what a room mode does or does not sound like. Every room is different and modes change drastically in every room. Normally people do not notice subtle room modes as there really is no reference. The most common room mode people notice (at the listening position) is the lack of bass in some rooms. Bass builds up in corners. No just the vertical corners either, it builds up in all 12 90 degree corners in the room. You can use online calculators which can help you find problem frequencies. You can buy something like the Behringer ECM-8000 and do room tests with Room EQ Wizard. If you wanted to take the cheapest route, and you have a good ear at identifying frequencies, then do a search on using pink noise to identify room modes. It will take some time as you'll need to stand in quite a few places in the room while the wave rises and falls to find the right frequencies. Hopefully I helped to explain a few things.

Pickup a Behringer ECM8000 .. a Blue Icicle Mic XLR -> USB Preamp .. Room EQ Wizard freeware software. A capable DSP.. and have at it. This is a very powerful piece of software.. and im surprised that its free.

BTW, I believe this is the mic you need.

https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-ECM8000-BEHRINGER/dp/B000HT4RSA

GIK gives free acoustic advice and they are great, getting a flat rate response mic

Behringer ECM8000 Ultra-Linear Measurement Condenser Studio Microphone https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000HT4RSA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_LPe2DbVXMFN2B

and

REW https://www.minidsp.com/applications/auto-eq-with-rew

That’ll tell you where you’re boosts and nulls are and then you can tell where you need to put the work in.

Bass traps in the corners, full range absorbers at first reflection points, and add diffusion. I hear diffusion is great in between the monitors as well as on the back wall.

Hope that helps!

Notable exception

Boom! I have the Mini DSP 4x2 and this mic. Very happy. If you need more info message me and I'll get back to you when I'm sober and not in Delhi

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-ECM8000-Omnidirectional-Measurement/dp/B000HT4RSA

(maybe this is what you meant by tuning your workspace, but I figured I would ask just in case)

Have you looked into getting a room-measurement mic (like the Behringer ECM-8000) and analyzing your room with Room EQ Wizard? That can help you be more objective about what the problem is, and would give you an idea of what you need to do to solve it (i.e. more bass traps, more high-frequency absorption)