Oktava MK 012-01 MSP2 Pair

I've bought this matched pair to upgrade my mics to record OH Drums, but i've been nicely surprised for his versatility.

The briefcase is very cute, and prevents any hit (unless you throw it from the 4th floor's window);
The mic is assembled: it comes subdivided from his capsule, his attenuator -10 dB, e naturally his clamp

the sound is very valid, it results pretty faithful to frequencies, maybe with a subtle emphasis to mid/low spectre; it results great for recording OH, but also for acustic and electric's guitars; the most impressive consideration is about the room's reverb: compared to other mics, the mk 012 dull almost every reverb's reflection, resulting much detailed and accurate; this detail is not absolutely a small thing if you wanted to use the microphone for broadcast contexts, specifically for outdoor shooting, as it destroys almost all the reverb's reflections, compared to Rode ntg-3 (clearly for outdoor shooting).
The only defect would seem the clamp microphone as having no suspension whatsoever, it is subject to filming any vibration, so it is advisable to use a shock mount

PROS

- sound
- modular
- quality construction

CON

- clamp

Overall it's a mic by the excellent ratio Quality / price, very versatile, and allows you to experience a lot, I would advise buying.

These are mics that are very much of a certain style, they can be dark and their sound is rich with lots of oomph and low end. Placed close on the body of a classical acoustic the low frequencies will resonate but to my ears not in an unpleasant way. As drum overheads they capture a lot of the toms with a good amount of fidelity and I feel do not suffer from over-saturation in the highs. On amps and cabs they work very well with the 10dB pad screwed in and playing louuud. You can really push them to some lovely harmonic distortion. They're fantastic mics, hands down not even with the caveat of "for the price". The bespoke wooden case is lovely and the ability to purchase low-end rolloffs, additional capsules of varying frequency patterns and even figure 8 is genius. The quality of acoustic guitar and voice recording with just these mics and a quality vocal mic like an RE20 or even just a beta58 is fantastic. They play well with other mics and sound excellent specifically for re-amping which I do a lot of, for re-recording in the box samples in an analogue environment I have to say the darkness of these mics imparts a certain quality to what was once a purely digital signal. They do have a warmth to them as much as that can be such an overused catchall phrase. A fantastic purchase, no doubt. Great allrounders for an independent studio or musician looking for a high quality small diaphragm stereo pair but not financially ready to throw down for Sennheisers/Neumanns/or Earthworks.

As a plus the build is good, the threads where the capsules screw onto the chassis were a bit fresh when I first used them but have since deburred themselves as I've used them. If these ever had to be fixed it doesn't seem like it would be impossible to do so, for the most part you could simply purchase a new capsule. I feel that these mics easily beat out the competition in their price range, compared to Rodes and cheaper Sennheisers these stand their own and carry their own unique character. In my opinion they are most closely matched by AT 2031's and although they have superior clarity to my ears they lack the oomph of the MK012's. And I have a serious soft spot for Audio technica's especially older makes.

These are good microphones.