Seven mikes for a sax

Motivation

Tension hormonale contrôlée is entering the studio very soon. It's about time to think a bit about the microphone options. The band always records live, as you might expect from the numerous improvised parts. We'll have to cope with the bleed as well, especially since the basement we'll record in is very live but I wanted to get an idea first.

This year, we have many more mikes at our disposal than we had last summer for the Balsagob sessions. Since this is live recording, we obviously can't use the same mike twice, which isn't recommended anyway.

My fellow Dup', Tension's tenor sax player, as well as Samarkand's and Ressources Humaines' kindly agreed to record the same thing seven times. We selected a half-improvised phrase that goes through the entire range of the instrument,  and he played some dirty chops as well,, including growl.
The whole recording took about 15 minutes, so don't expect to hear real music here,  you'd better follow the links to the bands' sites instead.

The microphones

• Rode NT1000: large diaphragm condenser. I've been using it a lot on voices, and also as a front-of-kit for 3-mike drums recording. Up to now, it's been the choice I've made blindly for Dup', when available, as in the recording of l'Ogre (see image above).
  
• Oktava MK-012: small diaphragm condenser. Keep in mind that they're supposed to be quite different from one another. Here you can hear the cardioid and hypercardioid capsules.
  
• Oktava MK-102: large diaphragm capsule for the MK-012 body.
  
• Oktava MK-103: medium diaphragm capsule for the MK-012 body.
  
• Beyerdynamic M160: hypercardioid ribbon. Most ribbon mikes have a figure-eight polar patter, which I can't use in the sessions. I've never used it on so powerful a source. Was I wrong?
  
• Sennheiser MD421: great radio and tv classic in Europe. This one is vintage (HN) and came to me directly from the sixties...
  

Testing method

     The sax player stood in a small recording booth, with clean acoustics (to my taste anyway). The microphones were placed in the same way, about half a meter in front of the bell, pointing slightly above it, as in the picture (less close).
I used a basic pop filter on all tracks (didn't want to blow the frail ribbon). In such a booth, for an overdub, I'd probably set the mike a bit further away, but remember I want to record live.    
We tried the microphones one after another, hence the playing is different in each sample. The signal goes straight to a Focusrite Saffire Pro, no post-treatment except for level matching.

Dup's sound is really loud and powerful, with a rich medium range and a lot of brightness. From less than 2 meters from the sax, one can distinctly hear a singled-out harmonic floating very high in the spectral range. In a live room, you can even hear it from farther and from the sides. Nothing can be done about it, it belongs to the sound, so it has to be reproduced in the least unpleasant way. Make yourself an opinion of which mike is the best at this game...

Disclaimers

Stating the obvious can't harm. Please keep in mind that this is just ONE shootout on ONE source. Besides, I don't make a living recording, I might very well have missed something. Still don't worry, I didn't scramble the tracks. Anyway, don't draw general conclusions about the intrinsic quality of these microphones. What works well on this source can very well be awful on another one.

Again, this a microphone test, not a sax contest!

Credits/License

 The tracks are cut with Ardour, free DAW software (GPL license), which I'm VERY satisfied with.
 Files and text published under the terms of the Creative Commons by-nc-sa-2.0 license.
 The musical phrase is the main theme from Très haut dans le cosmos, originally by Tension's ancestor, Thurne Cosmique. It's been on the playlist of all Tension hormonale contrôlée concerts so far.