Welcome back to the blog! Today is week 4 of our focus on The Best Scenarios for Each JZ Series, and we have finally gotten to our dynamic section and in turn, today we’ll be talking about the HH1.I’ve been using the HH1 for many years now, and for me and my band, it’s become an important part of our sound.
Before that though, I’m sure many of you will already know about our summer sale, but this is also the last weekend for you to get involved and get the mic that you want with up to 50% off - and the sale includes our entire catalog too.
With all that said and done, let’s dive in!
Dynamic Options
Dynamic microphones are the result of some of the earliest innovations in microphone technology. Their conception was actually developed from the first ever microphone design developed back in 1877 just one year after the telephone was invented, with the innovation coming later in the 1930’s when they were first available commercially. They’ve been a mainstay in studios however, since around that time too, and for good reason. Dynamic microphones are a rather special design of microphones for a few different reasons, but arguably the most important one being that they can record extremely high SPL sources without breaking a sweat.
There’s many different designs of dynamic microphones on the market but none are quite like the HH1. The main problem I always found with many other options was that they would always sound too dull and too shrill all at the same time which was as confusing to me as it sounds! Usually, dynamic microphones don’t have the best extension to their high frequency response, many of which I’ve found to share a similar frequency response with them rolling off pretty quickly after about 15Khz, coupled with a very unwelcoming boost around 2-3Khz; both of these make for a very unwelcome sound if not positioned correctly on a source.
The HH1 on the other hand doesn’t share the same roll off that the other mics do thanks to it’s extended upper frequency response; in fact, it captures far more than the usual mic’s I had been used to for many years with it going up to 18Khz and it genuinely makes an immeasurable difference in the sound quality. Not only does the HH1 capture more detail in the high frequency content, but it also captures the upper midrange in a much less harsh manner, and shifts the presence into the 5-7hz making it a much more suitable microphone to use on pretty much all sources.
As I previously mentioned, one of the main benefits of dynamic microphones is that ability to record very loud sources, so understandably it shouldn’t come as a surprise to many that the HH1 excels on drum shells, snare and toms in particular, as well as electric guitar cabinets and bass, as well as the more obvious source, vocalists of all kinds. But thanks to the extended high frequency response, the HH1 is great on acoustic guitar as well - in fact I’ve used it several times on many records and below you can hear it for yourself:
An Overall Recap
All in all, we’ve gone through every microphone line and talked not just about the sound, but the quality and versatility of every single microphone. And I think that’s probably the best thing to say about the entire JZ line of microphones in general, they’re versatile tools for many different jobs, lending themselves to basically any source you want to capture. Within the focus this month, the main thing I set out to do is to give some recommendations as to where I like to use the microphones most, but thanks to the way these mics are made, they can and will in fact record everything to an outstanding quality every time; so the only thing that may be different is simply the way I hear compared to someone else, and so ultimately it’s down to the user to choose which mic for which source.
Since working with these mics, it’s also become very clear that the Golden Drop Technology plays a massive part in what separates all of the JZ Mics catalog from the rest of the herd. It’s odd to go back and try another microphone to me personally, simply because to me, my old microphones don’t come close to what I can achieve with a JZ Microphone - the biggest difference being the transient detail and clarity which is why I mention the Golden Drop Technology being a game changer.
If you take advantage of our Summer Sale before it ends this Tuesday, make sure to show me and the team on social media, and remember to check out all the posts from this months focus if you’re unsure which microphone is best for you; failing that, you can always reach out to me either in the community or via email: Harri@jzmic.com
Until next week, stay creative!