Menu
Category Navigation
I keep my microphone reviews short and sweet.
I boxed up the ADK TC-47 to send off to it's rightful owner, u2redLight, the winner of the ADK Mics Metal Mayhem contest. I was sad to see it go.
The ADK TC-47 is doing the U47 kind of thing. This means it's designed to sound BIG BIG BIG. It does. For voiceover work, you definitely get that God-like feeling. When using the proximity effect to your advantage and eating the mic, this thing gets larger than life. You instantly hear that double bowling ball pants sound that the big time DJ's use on the radio commercials. It's a monster.
For rock and metal you can't really get away with this larger than life sound and you have to use some high pass filtering or low shelving to get it to fit in a dense mic. For softer, more sparse acoustic stuff this mic is BAD ASS. It's got that enormous low end you'd expect from a tube mic in this price range. It's always an “expensive sounding” low end...whether you want it or not.
I never had a shred of sibilance problems with ADK TC-47. In cases where I used extreme compression and decided to use a de-esser, I was barely getting the blue light meter to show up with the UAD Precision de-esser. This was impressive.
On acoustic guitar, my Neumann KM84 had a bit more sparkle and my Gefell M930s were a hair more “hi-fi”. Most people only reach for a U47-type tube mic for acoustic guitar when they want something slightly vintage-like....whatever that means. For that application, the U47 nailed it.
On electric guitars, I wasn't in love with it, but my guitar cabs in my live room often have more bottom than I want. Backing the mic off the cab helped, but my crappy little room doesn't making distant micing too practical, either. I could see this mic being pretty fun on Fender amps, particularly when overdriven. Fender amps, generally speaking, don't do the mammoth low end that many of the old Marshall amps do.
On tambourine and percussion, the ADK TC-47Au had no problem keeping up with the high frequency transients. As a general rule 47-style mics are intended to be a hair slow and this generally makes them good for things like tambourine which can get a bit too sparkly with a faster mic. That's subjective. I guess it's fair to say the ADK TC-47Au handles the key test quite well, but in more practical, unhyped way.
In the months that I used it, it was 100% reliable except for one session where I tried to use it 5 minutes after turning it on to **** up. Being a tube mic, it plays much nicer when you give it 30-60 minutes of lead time. I did manage to only let it **** up for 20 minutes for one session with zero problems.
Downsides
The shockmount is much like my U99 and I don't love the way the mic mounts to it. The mic slides into two circular clamps with pads on them. You tighten those clamps and the mic stays put. I found that I had to SERIOUSLY tighten them. Missouri humidity is always a test for this kind of thing and the glue wasn't perfect that held the shockmount pads together. Once I tightened it as tight as my wimpy little typing fingers could go, the mic had zero issues. In all fairness, the only shockmount I ever praise is the style where the mic actually screws directly to the shockmount. If you don't use that design, I'm probably going to bitch....and here I am.
The low end on this mic was hit or miss. I mean that I tried it on a screamo vocal and it was just way too much low end. Heavy filtering would have been needed. Even when backing abourt 24” from the mic, it's still fairly thick. I generally don't like to record that far back in my room anyway so it wasn't an option I could fully explore. While a combination of high pass and low shelving helped thin the mic out for denser mixes, I generally don't love to do this. With that said, most of us would prefer a mic that's a hair dark and a maybe too thick over a mic that's thin and too bright.
Conclusion
ADK is a real-deal mic company. I thought their $199 ADK S51 MK5.2 was an incredible deal...probably best thing going in the $199 range. However, it's clear to me now that ADK's upper end microphones are right up there with mics in the $2,000 ballpark. I felt the ADK TC-47 was a step above my Peluso 2247 short body which has quite a bit more bark in the upper midrange. (A power supply issue in the Peluso kept me from doing a fair test between the two.)
The ADK TC-47au is highly recommended for anyone looking for the 47 sound for huge vocals. The only problem is figuring out whether to do with the TC-47 or their upper end ADK custom shop offerings. I'm not even sure what they could improve, honestly.
(?)ADK TC-47au @ Musician's Friend --- ADK TC-47au @ ZZounds.com --- ADK TC-47au @ Ebay.com --- ADK TC-47au @ Amazon
--- ADK TC-47au @ B&HBrandon
paul999 and u2redlight like this.
Latests Articles
Latest Blogs
Lastest Forum Threads
vBulletin Message