M-Audio Sputnik mic test

[David Polich]

Today, for the first time, I tried out the new M-Audio Sputnik tube microphone in my project studio.

My signal path, for those of you interested, was - Sputnik mic into a Dbx 576 Tube mic Pre/Comp, feeding my MOTU 828 MKII. Monitoring console is a Soundcraft Spirit 328 digital, speakers are Yamaha MSP10's. This is my normal recording setup.

Vocalist was the female vocalist for my band. Nortmally I've used my Rode NT2A to record her. She is a great singer but has quite a bit of top end to her voice, it's actually quite excessive at 8 to 10khz and I always end up rolling that off in mixing. She's also somewhat sibilant, but intermittently. Her voice exhibits little below 240 Hz, and she's got a natural shallow bump upward in the 700hz range, and a peak at 2.5 Khz with a very narrow Q to that peak.

My initial impression is that the Sputnik is so far the best mic for her. It's very very warm and big-sounding. Not overly bright, perhaps a bit on the darker side, in the case of my vocalist this really works out well. The Sputnik tamed the peaks in her voice and there was a lot less of that airy hash in the 8Khz and beyond range.

The mic seems to have a more pillow-y, rounded sound to it, very nice midrange and quite smooth. Definitely a tube sound, very reminiscent of a Neumann U-47. Oh yes, it's got a lot of output to it, plenty of gain, and doesn't seem to have any trouble handling high sound pressure levels - Chezere, my band's singer, is a very very loud vocalist.

I have yet to try the Sputnik out on other sources. So far I find it a very high-quality sound,first-class, wouldn't hesitate for a minute to use it on a major label project.

[mikebeckmotu]

Thanks for the review! I was wondering if this mic would sound good. Your details let me know way more about what it would be good for than any magazine review.