That's a big ask there, friend!
1. Internal systems I have used... 5 to date:
- factory setup from Hohner, the single mic INSIDE the accordion, on my Hohner Morino
- factory setup from Iorio on their S3 Accorgan
- factory setup from SEM that came on my Elkavox 83
- the custom setup that I played with briefly on my friend's Bugari 288
- the LIMEX MIDI 15 mic setup (10 RH and 5 LH)
I've rated them from worst to best, but the only one that I would say was "bad" was the original Hohner one, which when new really wasn't so bad but was not stereo.
The other ones are again, not bad by any means, they worked well and sounded good both live and when recording.
However, the best (SO FAR) with a 10 mic right hand and 5 mic left hand, is the Limex setup. Strong separation, super clean, perfect volume controls and even an integrated equalizer for each hand. It has an amazing VERY strong rejection of external noise (I can record the R/L hands while playing the backing track on speakers behind me over the sound of the accordion, and they appear VERY faintly on the track... we're talking roughly 40db under the main track! This means I don't need to wear stupid headphones or even the well hidden earphones that I would need to with other setups.
Unfortunately, the mic system that I would
want does not exist yet. For most accordionists, they can get away with the options available today, however, I play Free Bass accordions and desire equal sound quality from both hands. I would also want a system that is wireless and is at least 10 mics on the right and 5-10 mics on the left. Next year, I may approach a manufacturer to discuss this idea with them.
2. When recording on accordions that do not have internal microphones (and I'll state it now, that I have a strong preference for
good internal mics simply for the greater stereo separation and higher external noise rejection). That said, I won't usually use more than 2 mics at a time. The exception was in the beginning when I was experimenting to see how each set of mics sounded on the same accordion.
I earlier said 6 mics, but its really 7... but not really 7.. lol. The mics are currently own are:
- 1 SM58 clone (it is tested to sound 100% the same as the real thing, and it looks the same)
- a pair of Neewer NW-800 at a whopping $40 total investment
- a matched pair of Neewer NW-410 with 3 capsules each (cardiod, supercardiod and omni) at $99 (now around $150)
- a matched pair of SE Electronics SE4400a at $999 but now locally over $1500 if lucky.
So it's really 4 brands of mics.
So, from $20 to $750 per mic, is there any difference? Less than you would expect. I went for the NW-800 for no reason other than the cheap price and to break in to the condenser mic arena. The NW-410 were the best sounding and performing pencil mic setup with 3 different capsules per mic that sounded really good. The SM58 sounded ok, but colored the sound a lot (lots of bass added) and needed a preamp with lots of gain.
I really stressed about my high end mic solution. I wanted top end sound but did not want to pay $5000+ per mic (even though I did have the budget for it and was prepared to pay that much if something blew me out of the water). In the end I took about 2 months and tested about 40 different mics from Sennheiser, Rhode, Neumann, SE Electronics and others. I kept coming back to the SE4400a mics and liked them not for how good they sounded, but how
natural they sounded. The deciding factors were that they sounded good wearing $9000 headsets, wireless Bluetooth earbuds or $1 wired earphones and low end and high end speakers.
In my blog I discussed that the deciding moment was while I was listening to a recording that I had made on these mics and started thinking "man I wish I was that good, this guy’s playing sounds so creamy smooth…”, and it WAS me! It just made any music I made sound like it was recorded in an expensive $500/hour pro studio, and I was in some back room of a music store at the time with people all around me!
I chose them because they sounded not “good” but super natural and gave me recordings that sounded exactly like what my accordion sounded like when I was playing it to my ears. They are the most natural sounding mics I have ever heard anywhere, and the resultant sound they produced was just so ready to accept whatever EQ, compression, reverb or whatever sound modification I tossed out at them and it always sounded SO SMOOTH and NATURAL and… AWESOME!
On top of that, the 4400a mics are extremely versatile. They have
four available polar patterns: Cardioid, Omnidirectional, Figure-8 and HyperCardioid all in the same mic! Not to be outdone, it also has a -10db and -20db pad as well a 60hz and 120hz cut off “high-pass” option.
The final nail in the coffin, so to speak is that they came in a matched pair and a small sound bar for $1 less than if I bought 2 separate mics. I was sold.
A strong point for me was that the higher up the $$ scale I went over $1000, the smaller the returns became. I literally could not tell apart the differences between the SE 4400as and a Neumann U47 at $5700 CDN
EACH at the time I was looking, I even set up a fast blind test at the store. I failed... lol
3. I don't own a pure musette accordion, I had to choose a system that made all accordions I had that needed it, sound good... and on top of that, I wanted versatility AND a good sounding mic that I could take to events and not worry if they were lost/stolen/broke, and that is what the Neewer mics were all about.
I did a Cory Pesaturo seminar with the NW-800s and was satisfied with the sound. I did a piano/violin/viola recital with the NW-410s and the NW-410s really surprised me... small, light, versatile and sounded great for the money... I am sure 90% of the people here that tried them would be completely satisfied with them.
4. The Sennheiser MD441 dynamic mic is an audio beast... at around $1500 each they were on my list of mics that I tested, but they were not as versatile as the 4400a's and they also did not have the figure of 8 pattern so one could not do recordings like the Mid-Side recording technique, and I wanted all options open to me. I also found that dynamic mics in general needed a really good preamp as they are very gain hungry compared to condenser mics. On my mixer, dynamic mics regularly need a gain of 75% or more but condensers need between 40%-50%, so in theory there was less audio noise introduced if you are not maxing out your preamps. Of course if you have 75db of gain like my Zoom F4 recorder has, this is a complete non-issue.
To answer your final question, I haven't standardized on a single recording technique, I've looked at the close A-B, far A-B, Mid-side, Blumlein and a couple others and each has it's charm and personality. However, my personal preferences are centered on a very natural sound BUT I want a LOT of channel separation, which most externals would be weak in unless you placed them on top of the accordion... lol You would be surprised at how some accordions blast the sound everywhere vs others that have cleaner separation between the left and right sides. For example, my Beltuna has clear right hand sound coming from the bass area! Good when playing live without amplification or when playing live, impossible to control using external mics in a recording environment.
That is why I am more leaning towards internal mic systems, better separation and you cannot see the mics in the videos. The quality of sound is lacking a little in clarity and quality natural sound compared to the higher end mics, but they have other advantages. It all depends on what you want to do... if it is sound recordings, I think the externals take the win, but for videos the internal mics take that win... *if* your accordions have them.
Final answer, it depends on what you want, what you have and what your goals are!
