The audio files available on this page accompany my review of the Warm Audio WA-87 V2 FET large capacitor microphone in SOS May 2021.
www.soundonsound.com/reviews/warm-audio-wa-87-r2
In the article, I described how I found the WA-87 FET to be a very convincing sounding copy of a vintage Neumann U87. As I have a 1971 Neumann U87 at my studio I was able to directly compare it in several recording scenarios and these are the audio examples if you would like to check them out for yourself.
For the comparisons, I positioned the two mics so that the capsules were as close together as physically possible. All the recordings were captured using the preamps on my Audient ASP2024 console with no processing at the recording stage.
Audio Files
Listen to the MP3 SoundCloud files but you'll hear more detail by downloading the ZIP of 24-bit WAVs and auditioning these in your own DAW.
01_Female Vocal_U87
This is an example of a female singer recorded through my 1971 Neumann U87. For this example, I chose to apply some very light mix processing which involved 2-3dB of compression using the Softube CL-1B plug-in and a little reverb via the Valhalla VintageVerb. The upright piano on this track was captured with my U87 covering the lower octaves of the piano and the WA-87 V2 covering the higher.
02_Female Vocal_WA-87 R2
The same performance but with the WA-87 R2 capturing the vocal.
03_Male Vocal_U87
A male voice with no processing through my U87.
04_Male Vocal_WA-87 R2
The same performance through the WA-87 R2.
05_Drum Room_U87
This is how my U87 sounded around four feet back facing the centre of a drum kit. The capsule is in its Omni setting for this example.
06_Drum Room_WA-87 R2
How the WA-87 R2 sounded on the same performance. Again in Omni setting.
07_Voiceover_U87
How my U87 sounded on a male voice recording.
08_Voiceover_WA-87 R2
The WA-87 R2 on the same recording.