Warm wa-47jr in black is going for $199

If you don't have to have a silver one, warm audio's 3 pattern transformerless large diaphragm fet condenser with their u47 capsule is 199usd right now. Might be ending today. While the lack of output transformer means it's not really a fet47, I had enough faith in warm based on their compressors to buy 4 for an upcoming session in DC at a place with a real lack of multi-pattern condenser options (are there ANY affordable studios left on the east coast with a comprehensive mic locker?). Will report back on sound quality shortly, but at this sale price theres not a lot of competition with this feature set....

Let me know what you think! Apparently there HQ is like 10 minutes from my house and I have a friend of friend that works there so very curious to hear your two cents.

Will do. When they get here I'm probably going to do some acoustic guitar and voice demos for a friend and I'm planning to try using the 47jrs exclusively for that... and assuming we don't wind up in a fresh covid lockdown I'll try them out on some drums and guitar/bass canbs between now and xmas.

The 47jr punches way above its price point even at $300+... but! It's not a 47 fet. You trade the unnaturally fat bottom for multiple patterns. And the omni and 8 are really useful. Its wouldn't be my first choice for bass or kick but it's a strong contender on guitar and vocal so far.

Its suitably mid forward for a Neumann relation and lacks no top end but can't get harsh. It resists sibilance and pops really well when positioned well and even in figure 8 it can be angled to balance out the proximity effect very pleasantly which a lot of cheap mics fail at, maintaining that exaggerated boom at all useful angles. It also responds well to eq and compression both analog and in the box. For a vocal you'll want a good preamp... it was passable through a clarett octopre and pretty lush and through a pushed 1073. It liked my soundcraft 400b pres as well on but was a bit nasal with my lousy voice.... however on acoustic guitar I preferred the neutral motu preamps because I wanted something that would sit back for what I was doing because it felt like I was hearing my guitar and my room and not the gear. It was basically indistinguishable through the analog systems preamps in my inline sountracs desk. Maybe a bit more colored than the 838es preamp. It certainly didn't sound bad through the 'better' preamps on acoustic guitar... it really gets on with anything you use, it's just some combos are more flattering for some sources and patterns.

I'll be giving these guys a drum workout in january and will publish my review. I really think that for the money it's hard to beat this mic as a utility piece. Buy 2... or 4! It's not bad at anything. The high pass is unobtrusive, the pad works well if you need a pad between the capsule and internal active circuit and the polar patterns behave exactly as expected in a dual diaphragm LDC.

One flaw is that the xlr us finicky, not all cables lock neatly, including warm's own OEM cables by Gotham audio! You would think they would make their cables lock.... it seems to prefer switchcraft to neutrik jacks... on the other hand it's very consistent sonically unit to unit. All my 47jrs pair up fine though none are factory matched.

So, being a comparative mic novice, here's my question: if you'd used actual Neumann U 47 FETs on this specific project, do you think the end result, after mixing and mastering, would be objectively superior?

Great writeup by the way, you spoil us.

The difference would be in the bass. It's hard to describe but you know it when you hear it and you know it when its missing. It doesn't matter on a lot of sources. I'm not going to pretend a 47fet would be my first choice on voice or guitar for various reasons including the hyped bass but you can do worse too... the warm did pretty well in these roles though thanks to the more neutral low end and subtle 80hz filter option. It's not incredibly special but it sounds good and has a really smooth top end for a budget solid state transformerless design. In the famous fet47 role outside bass drum or on a bass though it might not fo the job. A better dirt cheap option would be the similarly voiced oktava mk-319 and the 319's fixed cardioid pattern would be perfect for a kick drum (a place I use it often since I won'tbe sad if it gets damaged), though I prefer figure 8 for bass cabinets and even stand up bass unless the room is acoustically hopeless. At this price point I don't own a multipattern that would be any better than the warm 47jr... though a few exist that may be contenders. For a several more bucks there are some real heavyweights though. You could definitely try the jr on electric or stand up bass and it might be right depending on the source... I can certainly imagine it kicking some butt on a solo cello for example. Anywhere you might try an AT4050 the 47jr is worth trying for a less modern, fizzy top end... the 40 series tends to have very open midrange as well whereas the 47jr is mid forward and extremely detailed in that register. While I will audition the 47jr on bass and kick for this band, I highly doubt if I use a condenser it won't be a 319 or 4047... maybe on bass, I really lile figure 8 condensers on bass.

I should also point out the 70s u47fet was fixed pattern cardioid, the addition of 2 more patterns is great!

I really think anyone in need of a multi pattern jack of all trades condenser should buy a pair of black 47jrs from sweetwater by x-mas before the price doubles again. At this price, even if you only use them occassionally they will still pay for themselves in a few recordings.

I really think anyone in need of a multi pattern jack of all trades condenser should buy a pair of black 47jrs from sweetwater by x-mas before the price doubles again. At this price, even if you only use them occassionally they will still pay for themselves in a few recordings.

Coming from someone with your depth of studio experience, this is a hell of an endorsement.

However, it looks like the sales have ended. I'm seeing the black 47jr listed at $299 at Sweetwater... now it's the silver/nickle one is on sale, listing for $249.

Here's the little demo with 2 of the 47jrs... I set it up for EB with guitar solo, voice solo followed by a little mixed version which is what I sent to my clients so they could approve or deny the bridge I was asked to write for their tune...

https://soundcloud.com/james-marchione-1/warm47jr-demo-jimmy-by-jimmy-ann-paul-and-jim/s-AxevYDve9e2?si=0b3203d82898479d87eda52225119eaf&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

There are still some vendors dumping black ones at 199 via reverb and ebay but there may be shipping charges whereas my sweetwater buy was free shipping and they let me use a discount code I had earned as a loyalty reward. Even at 299 it's a solid all arounder and you'll be hard pressed to better it without jumping above the 500usd mark.... maybe a lauten or sE might keep up for features and sound quality in that price range. I'm planning to auditioning some of those multi patterns next. I find myself using a lot more LDCs again... kinda backing off the dynamics/ribbons on instruments. Now I just gotta find an affordable SDC I like better up close than the sm81 or c451 with good headroom or a pad. I like the oktava mc012 a lot but you have to buy an inline pad that goes between the body and interchangeable capsules and to engage it you have to pull the mic down, unscrew everything and then reposition it as close as possible... and the road NT5s (which are lovely overheads, really) don't even offer a pad or other capsules as far as I know... meh

Oh for a world where all tube km series microphones and spare capsules rained from the sky and all I had to do was put am air mattress out to prevent them breaking on my patio! And maybe build a PSU since that would be pretty dangerous if it fell from the stratosphere....

I had good luck this weekend as figure 8 drum overheads. I'm not sure I would use it for a vocal beyond a demo but they don't suck all that bad and certainly sound better th as n anything else this cheap. I have to jump to an audio technica 40 series to get much better. I don't have asony c800g and probably never will... if I do? It'll be 1, not 4. I thrive on cheap mics. When a band can't afford a decent studio they get their shit on tape. Or computer these days. I prefer to go somewhere with a mic locker but that's not always in the cards.

I'm sorry I missed your thorough reply with the demo, Jim. That's not like me. I don't know how I didn't see/catch that one. Apologies. I'm not a mic expert, but sounds OK to me.

I gotta thank DMP for getting this thread back on my radar.

I'm sorry I missed your thorough reply with the demo, Jim. That's not like me.

I've barely been on the internet so it's no problem. I'm surprisingly swamped with work right now. I need to raise my estimates and stop doing favors. I want to work a little less or be making a lot more. But whenever I do that business dries up. People DIY or go elsewhere. I really hate the business part of this business.

Welp. Time to setup more click tracks with tempo changes for Saturday! Oh the joy.

Yeah, I was speaking in terms of the 47jr as a vocal mic.

It ain't nothing to write home about, but I wouldn't put an original fet47 on a vocal if there was a better choice like an 87 or even a 414. It's a really primitive preamp circuit and warm dumber it down further and you get an inferior capsule to those 70s k47s. Its tolerable though.

Definitely a better fit for OH. I can't argue with that and I agree about the Sony being used for overheads.

Thats really why I bought a pile of matched wa47jrs. I do more rock bands than anything else. I was mainly mixing but when I got yanked back into tracking last year I needed to add some reasonably priced multi patterns to my collection that don't have piercing top end when pointed near a cymbal in an overly bright room but that can also do a reasonable guitar recording, work as room mics, get a bass cab paired with a d112... not crap out in front of a kick in a pinch... get smooth gang vocals in omni, handclaps, tambourine whatever a 414 or audio technica 40 is too tizzy for.

They've been serving me really well at a project studio with a nice but bright drum room and a limited mic locker not well suited to the room treatment. I had low expectations of this warm mic bit they're giving a lot of value for dollar.

4 C800Gs as OH for drums in an Atmos mix would sound great but the benefits by the time its processed and rendered wouldn't be worth the life lost in the tubes, unless you're shooting a commercial for Sabian or something like that.

Ha!!! Good one.

I'm actually only using 1 mic as an over snare in figure 8 way up, the other positions are a bit unconventional but it's a large dw kit... it's a heavily modified glyn johns on most of this record. So its like overhead, sidefill, front of kit. Spot mics as needed.

At this point fet 47s vary a lot. Many have taken a pounding for decades and have not been cared for... it was a weird mic for Neumann to release on the early 70s anyway. A cool mic I really like for lots of purposes, but it was strange to release it hot on the heels of the 87 with all those features and sophisticated circuit that's so tailored to the k67... I can't help but wonder what the thinking was on the fet 47.