SE Electronics SE2000 review part two
By Rob Sandall
| Posted in Music Technology
The SE Electronics SE2000 is due some use. Last time we took a look at the considerably impressive spec – especially for the price – but this time we’ll put it to the test.
Recording my vocal on its own yielded some fine results if I do say so myself. That presence that the manufacturer mentions is there, notable in my voice more than others because I have a low range which can sometimes come across a bit flat. A little more musicality in the upper-mids of the sound actually helps push this into the realms of voluminous tone, and will be particularly helpful mixing your vocals over complex band arrangements – you can cut through. By the way, if you don’t have a pop shield, buy one at the same time – there’s nothing specifically bad on that front here, but like all mics, you’ll get pop without one.
Acoustic guitars also picked up well. I put the mic a bit further back than I’d initially intended, as this removed a heap of the percussive click you get from strumming with a pick, although some of you will like that. Because my guitar has good projection, this still made for a powerful, natural sound that came out a touch bright, but in a pleasing way. If you have a very toppy guitar you might want to add a little shade when you’re mixing, but actually for simple one-take recordings this performs well on the whole as-is, especially if the track is solo acoustic.
The viola sounded good through the SE2000 too – there’s enough of a sensitivity here to pick up the harmonics and nuances of the instrument, which is good enough for me. Again, there’s depth too, which is good to know as strings can often sound very thin on recordings, which is infuriating.
Recording a viola and violin at once fared similarly well – the frequency range meant that both were not only well-represented but had enough separation that you could clearly hear both in their own right, not a muddy middle-ground mixture.
And the mob vocal – a classic when you’re doing your post-punk warbling – shared these traits, although I perhaps should have recorded half the mob at a time and layered the vocals for a little extra clarity in the signal. However, it sounded more than good enough to be hidden in a mix, and there’s something highly satisfying about the realism of a community sing-song. Space was tight, admittedly, so again if you’re after doing the same thing, split the chorus in half!
So: all up, this is a good mic. It doesn’t cost a lot, but it will more than do the job for the home producer. The slightly upped presence is nice and natural-sounding – you might not want it, and that’s fair enough, but really it just adds musicality rather than overly colouring your tone.
It you’re starting your studio and want to make an impact with your acoustic and vocal recordings, there’s a lot to love in the SE Electronics SE2000.
Tags: large diaphragm condenser microphone, SE microphone, vocal microphones
Hi rob..I am looking at getting a cheap budget microphone and was wondering if you think this se2000 would be better than some other mics in the same kind of price range…was also thinking of the at2020….Samson co1 or the Samson co3……not taking into account any extras, just based on the microphones themselves….
Many thanks
Ken