On paper, this mic is better than this one in pretty much every way. So why am I likely to see a mic that looks like this on stage? Wouldn’t I just use the good one?
Good engineers live and die by their ability to manage resources. Even in studios with seemingly limitless resources, the best engineers are making choices that don’t boil down to something as simple as a stat sheet. I mean, first of all, what do I mean when I say this one’s better?
It’s more sensitive, it’s more flexible, it has lots of polar patterns, it probably has a wider frequency response, it’s more expensive, but these are just trade-offs. It’s also more fragile, and fragile and expensive don’t always make a great combination. In fact, I probably don’t want to pick up everything in a live environment.
And when you’re watching me perform, you probably don’t want this in front of my face. Most of us don’t have access to unlimited great vintage microphones, and even those of us who do find that one specific thing really wants to be paired with one other specific thing, which means now you’ve got to figure out where to put all the other stuff. Good engineering often comes down to good resource management.
Understanding the big picture, this microphone does something, this one doesn’t. Understanding what that is means you can deploy the resources where they’re needed and not squander them on where they’re not just because this one costs more.
