Premium Budget Mic for Podcasting! Earthworks SR117 | Curtis Judd

What a phenomenal overview of the SR117, thank you so much Curtis!!! This made our whole team's day :)

I recently recorded a 5 person podcast with 2 Ethos, an SR314 (with Ethos windscreen), and 2 SR117s. The SR117 sounded very different and needed a bit of a high frequency boost to sound anything like the other mics. I mainly do live sound and the SR117 is slowly becoming one of my favorite vocal mics. The mic is so flat sounding it’s boring, but if you color it to taste with a colorful preamp or plugin it becomes something pretty special. Not ideal for loud stages (what mic is), but it works better with wedges than the SR314. I’m so tired of 58s being the standard vocal mic. Glad to see this mic and the V7 gaining traction.

Always a pleasure to watch. I've heard of Earthworks but not heard them. Thanks

thank you for sharing your professional opinions on this nice mic!!

Earthworks mic’s are amazing, nice to see them get the attention they deserve

Sweet, I'm excited to see Earthworks and budget in the same sentence!

Very nice, thanks so much.

This mic looks and sounds very promising

Good review and a very good suggestion to look for a live microphone for podcasters which is more versatile than a typical 'podcast' microphone. I would also suggest the Shure Beta 87 and my personal favourite the DPA 2028 in this context.

I may be mistaken, but the frequency response curve you're showing for the SM58 appears to be the curve for the SM7B. Your observations about SR117 are spot on. Thanks for your high quality reviews.

I've owned or still own an sr314, ethos and icon pro. All mics built well and "honest". The 314 very much so. I can only imagine what this is like.

Earthworks has some really nice mics for sure. I have a matched pair of SR-77 that I simply love. The SR117 mic would be great for the stage to reject that drum kit right next to the vocalist. Having said that, I found an SM58 in the garbage can when dumpster diving one day, and will be using that for my table top videos going forward. It's my way of being a bit of a rebel and "sticking it to the man".

I use Rode M2 mics for podcast and they work nice for the price (usually around 90€ in Spain). They go into an old SD302 and they line level into a Zoom F4. A bit heavy setup, but it sounds pretty good on a budget. Thanks for this review!

Had this on tour for the past month or so, DPA 2028 on main vocal and SR117 on backing replacing a Beta57a. Did exactly what I hoped, far less colouration of spill off-axis. If you're going to have drum spill at least have it sound neutral rather than weird. Plus I wouldn't hesitate to use it as a sub for the 2028 if it wasn't available. If anything I would have liked a little touch of a bump at 10Khz like the kms105 so I didn't have to add it. The slightest bit of Clariphonic is a demon for adding a little touch of bite back in on the vocal bus.

That off axis rejection is REALLY nice. As is your red fingernail polish.

Yeah, that is a very honest mic! You sound great on it. As you indicated, starting from a place of neutrality, you can EQ it to get what you want the talent to sound like. I see the attraction. The old standby, '57 or '58, is brighter and has a much more pronounced proximity effect at the same distances. That can be good or bad, depending upon the voice in front of it. Frankly, this has the answers to most of my objections to the SM-7B — higher level, smaller size, modern shape, less proximity effect, and sonic neutrality. I've never liked seeing great big microphones in front of video bloggers. They just look as though they're made to "look professional." The sound difference isn't worth the imposition. I want to see the talent's face, not how much money they spent on equipment.

I am not very experience in all of this audio stuff. But I am so glad to hear that you said that the SM58 sometimes needs up to 60 db of gain. I have been getting low volumes in recordings and on Zoom but afraid to push the gain anywhere close to that number. I am curious, how do you think this holds up to the sE Electronics V7. I have heard that is know for having an "honest" sound.

What did you have your Sound Devices recorder mounted to? That angle was great.

Would this be worth testing to replace an overhead boomed samson CO2 running through a scarlett solo for zoom sessions? My wife is setting up a zoom studio for work and she absolutely cannot have a visible mic on screen. Currently system is working ok but needs a lot gain as the mic is about 25-30cm away. Room is sound treated and quite. Unsure of her ability to use EQ software on her work laptop and/or its compatibility with zoom. Thanks!

Question: friend of mine asks for a better Mic than in his Notebook for recording kids-stories. Whats the recommendation? USB-Mic? Or xlr-mic like this with witch interface? What Combo?