Of course the headline is not true, but with MFreeformEqualizer I couldn't tell the difference between lots of condensator mics. For example yesterday I got 3 AT 4041 for 300€ alltogether and couldn't resist... I just compared them for recording violin with my Octava Mk 012-01 cardioid. I first thought noise was much higher with AT 4041, but then after analyzing the signal of both and autoadjusting FreeformEQ in both directions each on could just sound like the other (higher noise in AT 4041 is mainly because of the presence in higher frequencies. When I look at the waveforms, I think
Maybe it's just my ears, but when you have a 'good' sounding basic mic, you can imitate quite a lot others with it. Of course it's nicer to not use EQ, it's just perfect if you have the 'perfect' mic for the source, but that's a lot of time experimenting... and it is quite handy to have a bunch of presets, where you can make one mic sound like the other (the best thing: you can give Octava 20% of AT touch, something like that).
So in the end, best thing is, to have a nearly 'noisefree' mic. I have a TLM 103 here and that is my basis of comparing. I used a quite noisy Aston Origin lately and copied the frequency response to the TLM 103. Just nice thing to experiment with, when looking for different colours.
The advantage of using FreeformEQ is, in contrast to impulseresponses, that I just change the differences, so my recording chain does not have to be highend in any way, because I just calculate the differences in freequency spectrum (in my case through RNP & RME babyface).
What do you think?
