Excellent review. Your voice clearly sounds warmer, deeper and cleaner on the SM7B. For a fraction of the price, the K690 is an excellent budget/value alternative. However, you mentioned that the K690 is geared more towards podcasting, voice-overs & RUclipsrs instead of musicians. In your pro audio engineer's opinion, which USB mic works well for musicians, specifically strings (violin, cello)? I find the regular Blue Yeti has a tendency towards sibilance with upper & lower register strings. Since the K690 is basically a Blue Yeti clone, it wouldn't work well, especially for string musicians. The Fifine K669 sounds awful with strings. I found slightly warmer results with the AKG Lyra but still not so pleasing to the ear. Perhaps USB condenser mics are not suitable for strings? Thanks for any recommendations.
To record violin well, I definitely don't think any USB mic will cut it. You should probably invest in a professional mic with a quality audio interface if you want to capture high quality violin recordings.
Hi James! I'm a hobbyist musician/production enthusiast who started to take self-learning audio production "seriously" around December last year through online courses. Been an awesome and encouraging journey so far and it's only gonna go up from here. Your channel is one of my favourites for this stuff. Thanks for your content. I have some questions and video suggestions if you don't mind: 1. Maybe a video on how one should go about learning audio production? I'm taking the approach of learning the absolute basics like how EQ and compression works before I jump straight in to mixing, but if you made a video outlining a roadmap of sorts that'd be awesome. Or maybe sharing your journey and how you got started, where you feel like you got stuck/hit a plateau but eventually got over them? 2. Could you offer some insights/advice on how to decide which plugins to buy? I never considered myself to have GAS with analog stuff (instruments/pedals etc.) but with software I totally understand it now LOL. Now, if I have the $ and the deal is insane, like what normally would cost a couple $1000's is on sale for a few $100's or 100's for 10's etc. then I'm obviously going to pull the trigger but lately I feel like I get way too excited about sales and buy things without fully understanding how it would benefit. I feel like I justify my purchases with the fact that I'm a beginner and I just say 'well, I don't have for example a drum compressor, so why not have one of them?' As a beginner should I even worry about not having plugins? or should I focus on establishing a workflow with stock plugins first within a certain style of music and determine my needs from there onwards? 3. Would love to hear your suggestions on making our recordings sound unique using common samplers/plugins. Now that real high quality guitar amp sims and bass/drum samples are in everyone's hands to toy around with, a majority of productions with no other particular tweaks will consequently sound very similar. What are your thoughts on how we can start to develop our own sound from a production perspective? Thanks again, cheers from new zealand!
I have a k690 on the way I got for $45 for black Friday. It'll be an upgrade from the $30 yanmai I've been using (that has no gain control and thus is very noisy once boosted) for sure. The sm7b definitely sounds better processed but unprocessed it's pretty muffled for a $400 mic. I feel pretty good about my purchase.
@James Zhan great freakin' review man! Super detailed and well thought out. Super underrated channel. Hope you can include the fully processed values for us to try it out.
Danm! What a great vid. Everything explained, real examples on how the mic patterns works and a good music in the end. Thanks and continue this work :D
Love your review! Really awesome and professional. Thank you so much for reviewing the K690 mic with comparing the SM7B. Review is very intuitive and helps people to find which mic is more suitable for them. Thank you so much for this James!👍👍👍🔥
How do you get rid of the background noise when recording
Excellent review. Your voice clearly sounds warmer, deeper and cleaner on the SM7B. For a fraction of the price, the K690 is an excellent budget/value alternative. However, you mentioned that the K690 is geared more towards podcasting, voice-overs & RUclipsrs instead of musicians. In your pro audio engineer's opinion, which USB mic works well for musicians, specifically strings (violin, cello)? I find the regular Blue Yeti has a tendency towards sibilance with upper & lower register strings. Since the K690 is basically a Blue Yeti clone, it wouldn't work well, especially for string musicians. The Fifine K669 sounds awful with strings. I found slightly warmer results with the AKG Lyra but still not so pleasing to the ear. Perhaps USB condenser mics are not suitable for strings? Thanks for any recommendations.
To record violin well, I definitely don't think any USB mic will cut it. You should probably invest in a professional mic with a quality audio interface if you want to capture high quality violin recordings.
Hi James! I'm a hobbyist musician/production enthusiast who started to take self-learning audio production "seriously" around December last year through online courses. Been an awesome and encouraging journey so far and it's only gonna go up from here. Your channel is one of my favourites for this stuff. Thanks for your content.
I have some questions and video suggestions if you don't mind:
1. Maybe a video on how one should go about learning audio production? I'm taking the approach of learning the absolute basics like how EQ and compression works before I jump straight in to mixing, but if you made a video outlining a roadmap of sorts that'd be awesome. Or maybe sharing your journey and how you got started, where you feel like you got stuck/hit a plateau but eventually got over them?
2. Could you offer some insights/advice on how to decide which plugins to buy? I never considered myself to have GAS with analog stuff (instruments/pedals etc.) but with software I totally understand it now LOL. Now, if I have the $ and the deal is insane, like what normally would cost a couple $1000's is on sale for a few $100's or 100's for 10's etc. then I'm obviously going to pull the trigger but lately I feel like I get way too excited about sales and buy things without fully understanding how it would benefit. I feel like I justify my purchases with the fact that I'm a beginner and I just say 'well, I don't have for example a drum compressor, so why not have one of them?' As a beginner should I even worry about not having plugins? or should I focus on establishing a workflow with stock plugins first within a certain style of music and determine my needs from there onwards?
3. Would love to hear your suggestions on making our recordings sound unique using common samplers/plugins. Now that real high quality guitar amp sims and bass/drum samples are in everyone's hands to toy around with, a majority of productions with no other particular tweaks will consequently sound very similar. What are your thoughts on how we can start to develop our own sound from a production perspective?
Thanks again, cheers from new zealand!
I have a k690 on the way I got for $45 for black Friday. It'll be an upgrade from the $30 yanmai I've been using (that has no gain control and thus is very noisy once boosted) for sure. The sm7b definitely sounds better processed but unprocessed it's pretty muffled for a $400 mic. I feel pretty good about my purchase.
Can you explain more about the audio processing you've done in your "Processed audio" comparisons? The before/after sounds really good.
i have fifine k690 microphone i can't record clear sound anyone please advice me to record good sound plase
A sounds better for me
@James Zhan great freakin' review man! Super detailed and well thought out. Super underrated channel. Hope you can include the fully processed values for us to try it out.
Danm! What a great vid. Everything explained, real examples on how the mic patterns works and a good music in the end. Thanks and continue this work :D
Love your review! Really awesome and professional. Thank you so much for reviewing the K690 mic with comparing the SM7B. Review is very intuitive and helps people to find which mic is more suitable for them. Thank you so much for this James!👍👍👍🔥
You are very welcome! Glad you liked the video!
In resume, K690 is a good microphone but SM7B has higher quality.
dayum only 400 dollars.... sm7b in brazil costs like 3k lul
Hey James, I like you video quality. What camera do you use?
This is my guess before going any further in the video but Mic A is the Fifine and B is the SM7b
Great video! Currently in love with the SM7B 🙌🏼
Thank you! Yeah one can’t go wrong with the SM7B for sure!
@@JamesZhan it’s such an all-rounder!
Very nice and informative video, thank you for reviewing the K690.
Can the fifine k690 used by singing vocalist?
Did you bought this mic or you get it for review
Great review mate!
Thank you!
How much does the microphone weigh?
Hey hope you answer .. there's any deference in quality sound between k690 and k678
No, the main advantage K690 has over K678 is having different polar patterns.
Sm7b is more quiet
Best comparison and review video for K690 on the net. THX
Thank you!
Eren yeager
Mic A is fifine.
Great review!
great video!
Mic b is sm7b
What do you film with? Awesome clarity!
Sony A7 III! My whole camera rig is in the description!
@@JamesZhan how did I miss that?! I’ll definitely take a look, thanks for the response.
Have you a video how you process your vocal?
I don’t! But I might make one in the future!
@@JamesZhan Nice
Good question!
Wow I thought the fifine one was the sm7b 😭 it sounds so much better in my opinion😂
your voice sounds great on the sm7b. for the price i'll just stick to k690.... it's $70 here where i live.
And where is that?
@@keathwalker here in ph bro.
where I like sm7b costs 3k 😂
Fifine K690 or maono au 903
Or Maono pm422 which is best for singing,???
Please rank all three microphones. Please answer 🙏