Earthworks SR314 Handheld Vocal Condenser Microphone - Stainless Steel

Product Information

But you have to deal with those people when playing small venues, so understanding and empathy go a long way in making them work for you rather than against you. The Earthworks SR314 is a vocal microphone suited to all ranges of voice recording and performance and is ideally suited to stage, recording, broadcast, podcasting and voiceovers. The sonic character embodies the amazing speed, clarity and definition that EW is so famous for; but there is something very special about this mic. when I used to gig in the UK 10+ years ago, the one consistently great guy we had was also the promoter for the venue, so had a vested interest). The pattern tightens up a bit around 6 kHz, and then becomes more omnidirectional at frequencies above roughly 8 kHz.

I have average sized hands and I find the body/handle of the mic somewhat uncomfortable - it's very wide for a handheld and there is no ridge or contour that keeps the hand from sliding up toward the grill. Off-axis rejection is good throughout the frequency range, and any spill that is captured sounds natural. The first of these was the SR40V, a back-electret stage vocal mic that was reviewed back in SOS December 2011.

The rejection of sources at 180 degrees is superb, and it still offers a reasonably wide sweet spot to allow the vocalist a good range of movement without drastic changes in sound quality. I was a bit worried about running into bleed issues with cymbals on stage, but it never created any issues for me.

Agreed - being the in-house sound guy at your average small venue is thankless - a parade of no-hopers with the occasional bright light. You should note that the pickup pattern of this mic is very tight which will require the singer to stay on axis for consistent performance and as such it is not the best microphone for ambient duty in my opinion.

Unscrewing the screen reveals a classic Earthworks-style design with a tapered thin head housing the small diaphragm. For a singer going to all kinds of venues, having your own phantom power supply and a high-quality lead that you trust is a good idea if you're gonna use a condenser mic imo. The high-quality small diaphragm cardioid condenser capsule is coupled with a Class A amplifier circuit and housed in a steel exoskeleton. Earthworks microphones have always embodied a very distinctive ethos, aiming to capture sound with the highest possible fidelity across the widest possible frequency range, and laying particular emphasis on the accurate representation of transients. Engineers are unencumbered from the necessities of heavy corrective EQ, compression and de-essing, and constant vigilance against feedback.

Audiences experience vocals that sit comfortably and easily in the mix, with every detail and nuance bridging the gap that so often separates live music from recordings. Like the SV33, the SR314 is an end-address mic that uses a small-diaphragm cardioid capacitor capsule; and, again like the SV33, its design is optimised not only to pick up the wanted audio with optimum clarity and faithfulness, but to reject off-axis audio evenly through the frequency range. Capable of handling sound pressure levels of up to 145dB without distortion, the SR314 can handle nearly any vocalist.Overall, I’d classify the polar pattern to be very tight, and the off-axis rejection to be excellent. A highpass filter set around 150 Hz with a steep slope (18 dB/octave) helped reduce this thickness; that filter frequency was much higher than I’d normally use on this particular singer. You can then choose which finance term you'd like to apply for, and change your deposit if you wish. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.