well greetings earthlings and welcome back to podcastage today i'm back with a review of a
couple of effects microphones i apologize i legitimately cannot help but speak in
that transatlantic accent whenever i talk into the carbon phone it's it's inevitable
it will happen but the microphones that we're looking at today are the placid audio copper
phone mini which is 315. and the placid audio carbon phone ru 80 and this costs 300
and if you are interested in either of these microphones i will throw links in the description
down below and in the sake of full disclosure i do need to let you know that i bought both of
these microphones directly from placid audio at a slight discount for the sake of doing this review
and for this review i will have both microphones connected directly to the
focusrite 18i 22nd gen 24 bit 48 kilohertz for the copper phone mini my gain is set at around
4 15 or 4 30. and then for the carbon phone i have 48 volts phantom power turned on and my gain is
set at around 10 30. i will not do any kind of post processing for either of these microphones
but i may have to boost it a little bit in post so check the dooblydoo to see what i didly did
and now let's talk about what comes in the box but i did not get one so we have a stand-in box
you're going to get the microphone and a little bit of documentation
and that's it then as far as the build quality of these microphones they both feel absolutely
outstanding i believe the entire casing is solid brass the brackets are also really nicely machined
you do have a 5 8 inch threading on both of the mounts and all around they feel incredibly robust
and durable and if the manufacturing location matters to you all of placid audio's microphones
are hand built in the usa then as far as the specs for the copper phone mini it has a cardioid polar
pattern a frequency response of 200 hertz to 1.4 kilohertz and an impedance of 150 ohms
and then the carbon phone also has a cardioid polar pattern a frequency response of 50 hertz
to 10 kilohertz an impedance of 150 ohms and a phantom power requirement of plus 48 volts
i really don't think we need to do any of these tests but i'm rotating around the carbon phone
to 90 degrees so you can hear the off axis rejection and coloration will continue around
to 180 degrees there you go continuing around to the second side and then ending at the front
of the microphone and then on the copper phone mini rotating around to 90 degrees there you go
then going around to 180 degrees that's the rear continuing around to the second 90 degree angle
and then ending at the front of the microphone and now let's test the plosive rejection on both of
these microphones please bring pizza pronto please bring pizza pronto please bring pizza pronto and
on the carbon phone please bring pizza pronto please bring pizza pronto please bring pizza
pronto now i'm right on top of the carbon phone to see what kind of proximity effect this thing
has about three inches off of the carbon phone and here is how it sounds about one foot away from the
carbon phone two feet away from the carbon phone and about four feet away from the carbon phone now
i am right on top of the copper phone to see what kind of proximity effect this microphone has which
is pretty much none then about three inches away from the copper phone and here's how it sounds one
foot away from the copper phone two feet away from the copper phone and about four feet away from
the placid audio copper phone mini and now i'm typing on a keyboard with gatoron blue switches
to see how much of my voice versus how much of the keyboard the copper phone mini picks up
and the sad w keys and now i'm typing on my keyboard with gatoron blue switches
to see how much of my voice versus how much of the keyboard the carbon phone picks up
and in case any gamers are going to be doing it now i am typing on the sad w keys
and now let's see how well this mounting system rejects shock so i'll go ahead and tap on my desk
to see how much of that it rejects and then on the boom arm
also we need to see how well the provided mount and microphone as a whole reject
shocks so i will go ahead and tap on my desk to see how much of that it rejects
and on the boom arm
and then for the sake of being pedantic i'll go ahead and tap
on the outside of this and then on the body to see if there are any kind of resonant frequencies
and like we always do i'll tap on the body of the
microphone to see if there are any kind of resonant frequencies
now normally right here in my videos i will do a couple more tests
and also do a bunch of comparisons against the microphones competition but being that these
are so unique i don't think the other tests or the comparisons add much value so we'll just
cut to something that i think is interesting for these and we'll jump to the music test
i've got something to say i ate some pizza today and it doesn't matter much to me
as long as i'm fed sweet lovely death i am waiting for your breath come sweet death one last
first off glenn danzig i apologize profusely for destroying and ruining your song secondly youtube
this is what we call a parody so please do not copyright strike please do not demonetize and
please do not kick me off of your platform thank you so much let's go to the conclusion now okay
i will admit up front i have no idea how to approach reviewing these microphones
because they are so unique and they are so specialized they're effect microphones how
do you make a generalized review about effect microphones let's give it a go
so let's try to start with the pros both of these microphones give you an insanely unique sound with
the copperphone mini you may be able to recreate that with an eq in your daw but the carbon phone
i don't think you're going to be able to recreate that that is an incredibly
unique and very specific sound you need an actual carbon element to get that i believe secondly the
microphones are incredibly well built and i always like to see it both of the microphones
are hand built in the usa and then as far as cons that's where i really struggled with this because
i can't fault them for much you may be thinking oh but they sound so bad that's intentional they're
intentionally made to sound like that the only thing i can really fault either microphone for
is the spring buzz that i found on the copper phone mini i think once they address that then
they they function as advertised and then as far as my overall thoughts and opinions
of these microphones on the electric guitar i liked both of them quite a lot
the copper phone mini when i heard that i thought i would use this on the introduction to a song and
then when the full band kicks in switch to a regular microphone of 57
whatever you want to use and then on the carbon phone holy smokes i heard this thing and i wanted
to go find some gutter punks and start a hardcore punk band it's that fuzzy it's that gritty
i absolutely loved it and i was not expecting to so the carbon phone was unique and i loved it on
the electric guitar then on the acoustic guitar it's the exact same story on the copperphone mini
i would use it during the intro to a song or during a break in the song where i really want
to reduce the energy and then when the full band kicks back in or when i want this song to hit
again i would switch back to a regular microphone but as far as the carbon phone on the acoustic
i wasn't a fan of it i found it to be way too sputtery sounding and just didn't work well in
my opinion so i will not be using the carbon phone for that next up for singing it's the exact same
thing with the copper phone again use it in a part of the song where you want an attenuated energy
and then when you want everything to kick back in and get into high gear if you will switch to
a regular microphone and then the carbon phone this one was interesting i did find it difficult
to understand my lyrics what i was singing and i found it a bit muddy sounding but then
when i listened back to it i could envision a very specific use case for this and maybe it's inspired
by v's underground lair and v for vendetta but i think this would be perfect to put a solo jazz
vocalist in front of and then play that audio back through a jukebox for a movie i just think that
would work perfectly so that's what i would use it for and lastly for spoken word i really wasn't a
big fan of the copper phone mini i simply don't know what application i would really use it for
unless you're going for that low-passed and high-passed sound maybe you could use this in
a movie as a prop i'm not sure but for spoken word really not my favorite application but i did love
it for music but as far as the carbon phone again i did find it a little bit difficult to understand
it wasn't the greatest with intelligibility but when i speak into it i automatically adopt that
transatlantic accent because it sounds like it should be used in a 1920s 1930s am radio broadcast
if that's the kind of effect you're going for i don't think you could recreate that with effects
in a daw because you have an actual carbon element in this microphone which creates that fuzziness
and sputteriness and all that 1920s vintage goodness which is what i really enjoyed about it
i'm not going to use it in situations where i need the utmost intelligibility but as a fun effect
i really enjoyed it and to wrap up would i recommend the copper phone mini or the
carbon phone ru 80 yes i would and i am saying yes for a very specific reason i don't think anybody
listened to the samples of these microphones and remained on the fence either they said oh my gosh
this is exactly what i have been looking for i need it for this specific application or they said
ah that's stupid i don't want that at all if you were somebody who was sitting there saying this is
dumb don't buy it but if you are somebody who is saying i need this for this specific application
i think they're pretty rad they give you that really unique sound and i really enjoy using
the copper phone in particular because i have no way that i can think of to recreate this
digitally this is an all analog carbon sound really interesting set of microphones and
a lot of fun to play with and that's going to wrap up for today but i want to hear from you
what would you use these microphones for what kind of effect would you be using these microphones
to achieve let me know in the comments down below because i think that will be really fascinating if
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so much i hope you have an amazing rest of your week and i will talk to you on a later date bye