greetings earthlings today i'm back with a review of a brand new microphone from sennheiser
that microphone being the md 435 which is a cardioid dynamic microphone
if you are interested in this microphone it will cost you around five hundred dollars like always
i'll throw some links down below full disclosure i do need to let you know that sennheiser did send
me this microphone free of charge for the sake of doing this review and for this review i have the
microphone connected directly to the focusrite 18i 22nd gen no phantom power is turned on and
the gain is set at around four o'clock i will not do any kind of post processing but check the lower
third of the dooblydoo rather to see what i didily did now let's talk about what comes in the box
first off you get this zippered carrying pouch or storage pouch you will of course
get the microphone a microphone mount a 5 8 to 3 8 inch microphone stand adapter five additional
foam inserts for the head basket i'm guessing this has to do with covet and wanting to offer you the
ability to switch out the pop filter from singer to singer and you'll get some documentation then
as far as the build quality i have absolutely no complaints about it it actually feels very similar
in terms of quality to the e835 and e935 line it has an all metal body as well as a very sturdy
metal mesh grille which i should not be hitting on the table but i am the microphone weighs in at 350
grams as you move around the microphone there are no switches or buttons or dials or anything the
rear of the microphone has the xlr port and here is what the capsule looks like if you find that
interesting or informative at all then as far as specs this microphone has a cardioid polar pattern
a frequency response of 40 hertz to 20 kilohertz a sensitivity of around negative 55 db an impedance
of 245 ohms a self noise of approximately 17 dba and a max spl of 163 db now i am spinning around
the md 435 to 90 degrees so you can hear the off axis rejection and coloration will continue
around the microphone to 180 degrees here's what it sounds like from the rear continuing around
the microphone to the second 90 degree angle and then rotating and ending at the front of the mic
now let's see how well this microphone does a rejecting direct plosives please bring
pizza pronto please bring pizza pronto please bring pizza pronto now i am right on top of the
microphone to demonstrate the proximity effect on this thing now i'm about three inches off of
the microphone and here is how the audio sounds about one foot away from the microphone two feet
away from the microphone and about four feet away from the microphone now i'm typing on a keyboard
with gatoron blue switches to see how much of my voice verse how much of the keyboard it picks up
and for you elite gamers now i am typing on the sad w keys
here is how the microphone sounds in a well-treated room
and here is how the microphone sounds in a completely untreated room
now because this is a handheld microphone i'll go ahead and pass it back and forth between
my hands to see how much handling noise it rejects
now with the microphone attached to a boom arm i'll go ahead and tap on my
desk to see how much of that noise it is able to reject and i'll tap the boom arm
now because i'm annoying i will go ahead and tap on the body of
the microphone to see if there are any kind of resonant frequencies
and even though you should not be doing this i now have my hand completely encapsulating these sides
of the microphone you should not be doing this but this demonstrates how the microphone sounds if you
were to be cupping it this is without cupping the microphone and this is with cupping the microphone
still sounds tolerable pretty good now for the fun stuff because i want to compare this microphone to
a bunch of other microphones handheld dynamics so you can hear how it compares against all of
those of course we are going to start on the sennheiser md 435 i am three inches off of the
mic gain is set at four o'clock and make sure to check the lower third to see how much i boost each
of these microphones in post first up we are on the luit mtp 250 dm this is an 80 handheld dynamic
three inches off gain at four o'clock check the lower third to see how much i boosted it
and here is how this sounds eighty dollars versus 500 let's go back to the sennheiser we are back
on the sennheiser md 435 same distance same gain setting here is how it sounds
let's jump to another one now we are on probably the most popular handheld dynamic of all time
the shure sm58 this goes for one hundred dollars three inches off gain at four o'clock and here
is how this sounds compared to the much more modern md-435 both are cardioid all that stuff
let's jump back to it we are trying to breeze through these because there are so many of them
i am back on the 435 this is how it sounds no changes to the settings let's jump to another one
hey we're now on the akg d5 another 100 handheld dynamic microphone three inches off of this thing
gain at four o'clock and here is what a 100 rather bright dynamic mic sounds like against a 500
rather bright dynamic microphone hey we're back on the md 435 again cardioid handheld dynamic
mic 500 bucks gain still at four o'clock three inches off let's jump to another mic and do some
more comparisons now for something interesting we are on the sennheiser e835 a cardioid dynamic
microphone this goes for 100 as well it will be interesting to hear how a 100
dynamic from sennheiser sounds compared to a 500 handheld dynamic from sennheiser sounds
let me know let's that that's this microphone very cool back on the md435 again here is how
this microphone sounds i'm not going to talk for too long let's jump to another mic so you can hear
how this compares to other mics on the market now we are on the se electronics v7 this is another
100 handheld dynamic microphone can you tell this portion of the market is very saturated
100 bucks three inches off of this thing gain at four o'clock
check the lower third to see how much i'm boosting each of these microphones in post
that's the se electronics let's jump back to the sennheiser and do some more comparisons
back on the 435 again so you can hear how this thing sounds in case you are curious in case you
forgot let's jump to another mic and compare it to that now we are on the sennheiser e935 which
is a cardioid handheld dynamic microphone this goes for 200 jumping up and doubling in price
three inches off of this thing gain at four o'clock how does a two hundred dollar microphone
from sennheiser sound like compared to a five hundred dollar dynamic mic from sennheiser let me
know let's let's do more comparisons there's more of them to do more more work to be done hey we're
back on the 435 if you are interested in how this microphone sounds i did use this on my podcast you
can check it in the card on this video i'll throw it in there if you want to hear it in a very long
form 30 minute speaking thing check it out let's jump to another mic now we are on the sennheiser
e945 this is a super cardioid dynamic microphone 200 as well same as the 935 three inches off gain
at four o'clock here is how this mic sounds compared to the md 435 200 versus 500 dollars
super cardioid versus cardioid there you go let's do a couple more comparisons guess what we're back
on the md435 again so you can hear this there are a lot of microphones we're comparing it against
let's jump to another one and compare to that now we are on the buyer dynamic m88 tg this is a 400
dynamic microphone i am three inches off of this thing gain's still at four o'clock why would it
change now i'm i'm gonna keep saying it because i need something to say in these little sections
so you can hear the microphones four hundred dollars hypercardioid versus cardioid so that
is quite different but four hundred dollars let's do a couple more comparisons and first let's jump
back to the 435. would you have thought that we would still be doing these comparisons well we are
and this is the md435 again this is how this microphone sounds without any changes to the
settings or my distance to the microphone let's jump to another mic and do some more comparisons
now we are on the shure ksm8 this is a cardioid dual diaphragm a dual dyne
dynamic microphone this goes for 400 or 500 it says 400 now i think it's on sale or maybe
it dropped in price 100 bucks doesn't matter four o'clock on the gain three inches off of this thing
here is what a four to five hundred dollar dynamic mic from sure sounds like compared to
the sennheiser let's do another comparison and we are back on the md435 please to the lord or
lords above or below whatever you believe in let this be the last mic we're comparing it against
this is the 435 here's how it sounds let's do one last comparison and lastly we have
the sennheiser md-445 this is a super cardioid dynamic version of the 435 the md 400 series also
500 i just wanted to include a sample of the 445 against the 435 this was also sent to me free of
charge by sennheiser i will be doing a full video on this in a couple of months i want to spread out
the videos but here is what the super cardioid version sounds like compared to the cardioid
500 bucks let me know in the comments down below which of the microphones that i compared here was
your favorite was it the 435 or i'm not gonna list all the other ones i did that would take too long
which one was your favorite let me know in the comments down below now let's do a music test
if i had one thing that i could say to you i'd call you dumb yeah i'd call you dumb because i
think you're really dumb now hold on i know the lyrics are redundant you need to understand this
person is really really stupid they need all the help they can get to understand the words that
are coming out of my mouth repetition helps them understand because they are that stupid
all right it is no secret that i am not the biggest fan of bright microphones but
in the realm of bright microphones i think that this is a pretty interesting option
and first up in terms of pros the handling noise rejection on this thing was absolutely
outstanding the background noise rejection also did very very well with a max spl of 163 decibels
you're never gonna actually clip the microphone maybe the preamp but you're not gonna clip the
microphone the build quality on this microphone was also excellent i thought the inclusion of
the five additional foam windscreens for this thing was a nice touch and i like that they're
making this microphone in germany then as far as cons the main drawback for me is the top end in
that it gets a little bit sibilant for my ears what i mean by that is when i say my s's this
you can hear that it starts to get a little bit piercing a little bit sharp sounding because of
that i think this microphone really benefits from a de-esser if you can throw one in the
signal chain then as far as my overall thoughts and opinions on this microphone on the electric
guitar i actually found myself really enjoying it mainly because of how aggressive it sounds
the top end is very very dominant but it doesn't become too piercing even towards the upper end
of the guitar the lows were nice and controlled however i did notice a little bit of graininess
a little bit of artificial sound to it but overall for electric guitar if you're going
for a really biting aggressive sound i thought it worked great for that next up on the acoustic
guitar i personally just thought the microphone was a bit too bright almost unnatural sounding
i know that my guitar is a little bit dull because the strings are a bit dead if i had brand spanking
new strings on the acoustic i think it would be way too overbearing so on the acoustic not
something that i would reach for next up for singing that is my favorite use case for this
microphone i think the top end adds this really nice shimmer to it it almost gives it a condenser
studio like sound also the big boost to the top end means that if you or the singer don't have
the best microphone technique and you're really engaged that proximity effect it still maintains a
fairly clear sound and you can hear what is being said or sung into the microphone and lastly for
spoken a word i wasn't the biggest fan of it i tend to lean towards more neutral sounding
microphones for spoken word that's what i like and this has a massive boost in the treble region
not something that i typically look for for spoken word mics i think the sibilance gets
to be a little bit too much and when i use this on my podcast i had to throw on a de-esser and
use it quite aggressively so in my opinion for spoken word at 500 i just think there are other
microphones that i would much rather use instead of this one and to wrap up would i recommend
the sennheiser md 435 both yes and no we'll start with the yes if you're looking for a live singing
microphone that is of a brighter nature and gives you a really nice shimmer to the top end and helps
your voice cut through a mix then i think the 435 is a very interesting option because it also does
an outstanding job at rejecting handling noise and rejecting background noise and bleed from other
areas around the microphone i think in a live situation that is outstanding but on the other
hand for spoken word in a studio i don't think this is the best fit i think the nearly 10 db
boost or 8 db boost around 5.5 k isn't necessarily flattering especially for long form content i
think that would get a bit fatiguing and you will have to get pretty aggressive with a de-esser but
it's possible that i am in the minority because i know there are other people who absolutely
swear by the e8 35 and e-935 for their podcast neither of which are my go-to's for podcasting
and long-form spoken words so if you are somebody who likes those you may like this one as well just
in my opinion i don't think it's really designed or really functions well for spoken word for long
form content all right i think that's gonna wrap up for today i would love to hear from you in the
comments down below which of these microphones did you like the best do you like the md435
e835 e935 e945 sm58 visa any of them let me know in the comments down below if you found this
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thank you so much for watching thank you so much for listening i'll talk to you later bye
you