greetings earthlings today i am back with a video type that i don't think i've made before because
it is the holiday season and i want to take it a little bit easy i don't want to produce a full
review or versus series or anything i thought it would be fun to look back at the last year
and discuss my favorite audio gear of the year ranging from microphones i've used to interfaces
i've reviewed to gear that i've purchased and the most essential gear that i use in the studio
first category we have is favorite microphone that i reviewed and that microphone is the austrian
audio oc 818 which you can hear me on right now i absolutely adore this microphone i think it is an
instant classic i think that's exactly what i said in my review it is made by xakg employees
when they shut down the austrian factory they took their expertise founded a new company and they hit
the ball right out of the park this microphone sounds phenomenal on everything that i threw at
it i have not seen a single bad review about this microphone and for the versatility for the money
this is going to be a microphone that i truly do believe that people will be
lusting after for decades to come and it will be a staple in studios around the world i don't
know if i said this in the last section but if i didn't the austrian audio was the overall winner
of my favorite microphone that i reviewed last year then we have the runner-up and the
runner-up of my favorite microphone or the second favorite microphone that i reviewed last year
is the neumann u87ai this is the most expensive microphone i've reviewed on the channel it was
not cheap it took me years to get to the point where i could finally buy it and review it it took
me months of testing and playing around with to really get a feel for it and get a use out of it
and it is an incredible sounding microphone is it going to be everybody's favorite
no by no stretch of the imagination but it does have that unique neumann u87 ai character but
more than it just being a classic and very popular voice over microphone and
studio microphone in general it is more of a milestone for me because you never think that
when you start a youtube channel you'll get to a point where you're able to get a microphone that
people will be able to use for 50 years 60 years and it will still sound great it will
still be in style and people will still love it and because of that the u87 ai is my runner-up
a lot of you may be thinking this should be my number one but due to the price of it i did think
that the austrian audio ought to be number one because it is more accessible they have the 700
version and it really just blew onto the market and made some serious waves that is why i picked
the austrian audio over the neumann and the next category is my favorite audio interface that i
reviewed this year and i admittedly did not review that many i think i only reviewed three of them
so it's very slim pickins but all three of them are incredible so it was hard to pick
but the winner of this section is the audient evo four the reason i'm picking this
over another one is because this is a lot more affordable than the other one in this category
the functionality of it makes it very user friendly especially for beginners the preamps
are great it has great implementation with the software and just all around for around 130
i think it's a stellar entry-level affordable audio interface and the runner-up in this category
is the solid-state logic ssl 2 and ssl 2 plus yes the preamps in this half more gain yes it has
great converters yes it has the analog 4k legacy switch to get that ssl saturation and add some
character to your recordings i love that but the reason that this is the runner up is because it
is quite a bit more expensive than the evo 4 i also am not too keen on the meters on this
but if you got the extra money and you want the preamps that just are bonkers and you want that
4k legacy switch i think this is a really cool option the next category we have is gear that i
purchased and ultimately will be reviewing and the winner of that category is the microphone you are
listening to me on right now and the microphone you've been listening to me on my podcast for for
the last couple of months the neumann u67 reissue a stupid expensive microphone but in my opinion
a stupid amazing sounding microphone this is a tube microphone so it is not going to be the most
logical choice for the most people but it is the most accurate representation as you can get to the
original u67 because neumann brought back all the parts that they were able to get their hands on to
make this run of u-67 reissues and this is another one of those milestones it seems like neumann
is going to be the staple in terms of milestones because the gear is so pricey but this was to
really celebrate hitting five years uploading consistently to the channel and surpassing 200
000 subscribers and it's great that i was able to get my hands on this i had to be on a waiting
list or pre-order list for months to get it and it's just going to be a microphone that i use
as much as i can until the day i die and i cannot wait to review it it's going to be a blast to
review i need to get through a bunch of other tube microphones first there's a stack of them 2021
is the year of tube microphones and the runner up to this category is the aea ku5a a super cardioid
ribbon microphone the reason i'm picking this is i found that i absolutely adore ribbon microphones
and i had to try this thing out i used it on my podcast for about a month and i absolutely adored
it i also recorded some music with this thing on the ukulele and holy crap it sounds incredible it
adds this amazing warmth and body to a uke which should not be there because the uke is this tiny
instrument and it adds some warmth and body to my voice which is lacking in all of the above because
of that i absolutely adore this microphone it's the runner-up because it's not the u67
reissue and i can't wait to review this one either really cool microphone and i will link the podcast
and the music that i recorded with it in the description if you want to check that out
that's the runner-up for the favorite gear that i purchased in 2020 that's the year we're in and the
last category that we have is the most essential gear for my production and the winner of this
category is the symbiosis box of doom this is a piece of gear that i have been using for about
two years at this point and it is the probably most essential piece of gear in my entire studio
the box of doom is an isolation cabinet and it attenuates the signal or the loudness of the
guitar speaker by about 30 db and i researched this i contacted sylvester from symbiosis and he
was amazing enough to work with me to build in a usb pass-through so i can test out usb microphones
on this thing as well and it also has three xlr pass-throughs but this box has legitimately
saved my channel back in march of 2019 i got a noise complaint for playing my guitar while
testing microphones even though it's only five minutes a week but i got some noise complaints
and i was thinking i would not be able to play guitar in my videos anymore to test microphones
but with the discovery and the purchase of the box of doom i was able to continue to include
those tests and i think that's really essential to what i do because it gives additional context
for the performance of a microphone it draws out different benefits and different cons for each
microphone and i really don't think my channel would still be here had it not been for that box
so i want to send a sincere thank you to sylvester because i don't think i've said that publicly
and if i can find his social media accounts i'll drop them in the description go send him a thank
you from me and thank him for saving my channel or if you hate me curse him for saving my channel
i know there are some of you out there you're just you're dreading the fact that i'm still here blame
blame sylvester don't blame sylvester but thank him because this box saved my channel now i'll
include a quick sample of what it does and how it accomplishes that okay i know my voice sounds
terrible but this is a quick demonstration i have a db meter on max hold i'll play with the
iso cab open so you can see oh hey 666 you can see how loud the guitar is without the iso cab
88.1 db let's close it and see what we get and with the iso cab closed let's hit max hold
pretty good and the runner-up of the most essential gear for production in 2020 is or are
the sennheiser 650s for the longest time i continued to use the sony mdr7506s solely as
my tracking headphones then i would switch over to the hd 650s to monitor and do all my editing and
processing and post all of that stuff but this year i made this switch completely over to the
hd650s even for tracking live because i don't listen to myself too loudly in my headphones
i also don't have any music playing in the background through the headphones i don't have any
game audio so there's not any bleed and this just gives me a really great experience because i don't
feel claustrophobic i don't feel closed in and the 650s are just some of the best sounding headphones
that i've ever used i am no headphone expert i'm leaving that to the headphone expert channels
i just love the sound of these headphones and i think that's it for today that's all i have
for this video i want to hear from you what is your favorite audio gear of 2020
whether it be something released this year whether it be something you've been using for years
or whether it's something that you just got this year let me know in the comments down below
if you found this video fun interesting or helpful helpful helpful helpful go ahead and give me a
thumbs up if you hated it thumbs down why did i do that you can subscribe for more videos you can
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with that being said i hope you have an amazing christmas a happy hanukkah a happy kwanzaa a happy
new year or a happy vacation if you celebrate nothing and you're a nihilist whatever you are
whatever you believe in whatever you celebrate i hope this time of year brings you a joy and i hope
you're safe and sound and that you get to spend some time with your family and next week we have
another low effort video that's going to be a ton of fun thank you all so much for an amazing 2020
i know it's a crazy year but i appreciate each and every one of you and i wish you the best 2021
even though i said that in 2019 and it led to a terrible 2020. should i reverse psychology
i'm not gonna do i did that joke on my podcast i'll talk to you all later i love you bye you