Can a Modded MXL 990 Compare to a More Expensive Mic?
My MXL 990 Mod vs. a Blue Baby Bottle.
After I completed my mod, I ran both the MXL 990 and my Blue Baby Bottle through my Apollo Twin to compare. While the Baby Bottle is by no means an expensive mic, it is a very nice-sounding mic indeed. I have used it for a couple years, and know its sound very well. I figured that I could tell what the MXL should sound like in comparison to it.
The differences that I heard.
First, there was a significant difference in output between the two mics. The MXL had about -6db less output than the Baby Bottle, which made it a bit of a pain to set the gain for. Once I finally got the levels pretty similar, I noticed that the Baby Bottle had a bigger bottom end in comparison to the MXL, but the MXL 990 was much more defined in the high end.
Take a listen yourself.
I did one take of the first verse of Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City.” Not the best performance of my career, but definitely works to showcase the differences between the mics.
https://www.youtube.com/FV46nKWO9Z4