greetings earthlings today I'm back with a review of a clone of the classic u87 that microphone is
the warm audio waa t7 if you do want to pick up this microphone it does cost around $600
like always I'll throw some links down below and for this review I have the microphone connected
directly to the Focusrite 18 i-20 my gain is set just at around 2:30 and I will not do any kind
of post-processing but I may have to boost it in post so check the doobly-doo to see what I
did he did and now let's talk about what comes in the box that went on way too long first you
will get this really nice wooden storage box of course you're going to get the microphone a shock
mount a very small stiff mount a 5/8 to 3/8 inch microphone stand adapter a couple of extra shock
mount elastic bands some documentation then as far as the build quality the microphone feels really
well put together it does have an all-metal body as well as a relatively firm metal mesh
grille on the front of the microphone you will find the polar pattern selection switch to go
between cardioid omnidirectional or bi-directional patterns and on the rear of the microphone you'll
find two switches one to engage a negative 10 DB pad and the second to engage in 80 Hertz high-pass
filter then as far as the specs of what we're given is a little bit limited and iffy noise
figure is presented somewhat unconventionally but we do have three polar patterns a cardioid
omnidirectional and bi-directional pattern we have a frequency response of 20 Hertz to
20 kilohertz an impedance of 150 ohms a max SPL of 125 DB or 132 DB with the pad engaged however
I'm a little bit confused by that spec because we have a negative 10 DB pad so you would expect to
see a max SPL of 125 DB or 135 DB with the pad engaged but they're presenting 132 I don't know
which ones right and then we have noise which is listed at negative 117 dB and I don't know
exactly what that means I don't know if they are saying that the self annoys is 8 DBA or if
they are using the max SPO with a pad engaged to calculate that so again I don't know exactly how
to interpret that now let's go ahead and walk through all of the polar patterns so you can
hear how they sound and see a demonstration of the pick up patterns so first up I am on
the cardioid pattern moving around 290 degrees here's how it sounds continuing to 180 degrees
which should be a dead area continuing around the microphone to the second 90 degree angle
and then rotating and ending at the front of the microphone next up I am on the omnidirectional
polar pattern and as we move around the microphone you should hear very minimal change to the tone of
the microphone we are moving around and ending at the front of the mic and lastly we have the figure
8 or bi-directional polar pattern I will move around to 90 degrees which continuing around the
microphone to 180 degrees which has another area of sensitivity continuing around the microphone to
the second degree and then rotating and ending at the front of the mic now let's see how this
microphone does at rejecting 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
about three inches off of the microphone with it pointed at the corner of my mouth and here
is how it sounds about 1 foot away from the microphone 2 feet away from the microphone
and about 4 feet away from the microphone now I am typing on a keyboard with cherry MX blues to
see how much of my voice versus how much of the keyboard it picks up and for delete gamers now
I am typing on the sad W keys here's how the microphone sounds in a well treated room and
here is how the microphone sounds in a completely untreated room and now I am back right on top of
the microphone to really accentuate the proximity effect on this microphone so I can demonstrate
what the high-pass filter on this thing does so right now the high pass filter is disengaged and
here is how the microphone sounds and now I have engaged to the 80 Hertz high-pass filter and you
can tell that it really starts to attenuate a lot of those lower frequencies especially when there's
a lot of information down there but here is how it sounds with that switch engaged now let's go
ahead and tap the microphone to see if there are any kind of resonant frequencies and now
to see how effective the provided shock mount is I am bumping the desk to see how much of that it
rejects and I will tap on the boom arm to see if it can reject - that kind of noise as well now
I want to do a very quick comparison between the W a 87 and a couple of other microphones
so first up I am speaking into the W a 87 in the cardioid mode on the Focusrite my gain is set at
around 2:30 and here is how the audio sounds now I have switched over to the SE electronics se4 t 400
a on the cardioid mode I did decrease my gain to about one o'clock on the preamp to avoid clipping
but here is how a microphone that is similarly Simo similarly priced to the W a 87 guess what
we're back on the W a 87 and and here is how it sounds Before we jump to another microphone
I'm sorry next up I am speaking into a JZ mics vintage 11 which is another similarly priced
condenser microphone which is just a cardioid mic and here is how it compares to the warm audio here
is another quick jump back to the W a 87 so you can hear how it sounds Before we jump to another
microphone and finally you would have to be smoking an actual crack pipe if you did not expect
me to compare the microphone to the Noi menu 87 a so here I am speaking into the actual classic
microphone that the warm audio is emulating or cloning and here is how it compares to that mic
we've got another mic we've got another mug that I will test to find out what it's really
like is it like the classic mug that it claims to be just like I guess we'll figure out when I
finally finish up this video quarter note quarter note quarter note how boring can you be spoiler
alert probably not probably not gonna be the same as a $3,600 mic sorry to be the bearer of
bad news alrighty so does this microphone sound exactly like a u-87 no no it does not but do I
really really like it yes I do and first up in terms of pros the tone of this microphone is
incredibly smooth especially for spoken-word which if you know anything about me is one of
my favorite characteristics in a mic also it did a surprisingly good job at plosive rejection I
found the off-axis coloration to not be harsh and to not be grading and be pretty darn good and the
accessories all did their job exceedingly well and it comes with a really nice box and then in
terms of cons the main thing that stuck out to me was that it does have a relatively low sensitivity
for a condenser microphone on the 18 I 20 I had to have my game nearly at 3 o'clock which is just
a little bit lower than I would like to see for a condenser microphone then as far as my overall
thoughts of this microphone on the electric guitar it's not my favorite but I do think
it's pretty usable the low end I did find to be a little bit soft and it wasn't to articulate down
there and then in the top end it was smooth for the most part but once I got to the upper end of
the neck I did find some notes to be a little bit piercing and a little bit unpleasant to listen to
then on the acoustic guitar I found with a tone to be very warm and it had a very punchy mid
section which I really enjoyed and the top end of this thing had a good amount of sparkle and life
to it but it wasn't overpowering or fatiguing to listen to next up for singing I really liked the
sound of this mic for that application it just has that wonderful and punchy mid section and
although the top end doesn't have a lot of detail and clarity to it it just has such a smooth sound
which is very beneficial especially if you have a harsh voice like mine loved it for that and
lastly for spoken word again I am a big fan of it for this application and something interesting
that I noticed about it is that it has a slightly compressed sound I'm guessing that has to do with
a transformer that's inside of it and I think that offers a lot of very interesting character and it
did a wonderful job at smoothing out the tone of the mic for different sound sources and to wrap up
what I recommend to the waa t7 absolutely I would I think it offers a very pleasing and smooth and
somewhat dark sound that I thought excelled on the vocals for spoken word and singing as well
as the acoustic guitar so if you're looking for a relatively affordable multi-pattern condenser
microphone with a less modern sound to it meaning the upper end is not overly boosted then I think
it's $600 this mic is extremely interesting and the last thing that I want to say is if
you're buying the waa t7 expecting to get the exact same sound as a u-87 stop it you're not
going to get that it has a very different sound to it but as a standalone microphone I think it
is incredibly impressive and that is going to wrap up for today but I want to hear from you
in the comments down below were you impressed with a wa8 e7 as much as I was or do you think
that I'm completely wrong in an idiot if you found this video fun interesting or helpful go ahead and
give me a thumbs up if you hated it give me a big ol thumbs down if you want more videos go
ahead and subscribe and don't forget to hit that Bell icon and if this video was actually brought
to you by the members of this YouTube channel I used it the income from that to pick up this
microphone so if you want to support the channel and become one of those amazing beautiful people
over here you can do so by clicking that join button and joining it the $5 tier or higher it
really really does help me continue to bring you these videos by making it possible for me to pick
up these mics so until next time thank you so much for watching thank you so much for listening bye