At Grace Abbey Studios, we love this microphone. Why? In short, it captures the most truest sound possible.
Not Just a Pretty Face
Although the Aston Spirit is a gorgeous mic, we love it more for what it does than how it looks. Here's what Aston has to say:
"The Aston Spirit is a high-performance, switchable pattern, large diaphragm condenser microphone utilizing a 1” gold evaporated capsule. A switch on the mic body selects from Omni, Cardioid or Figure-of-Eight polar patterns. It is versatile enough to use with most instruments and excels on acoustic guitar and vocals. Its Aston 33 panel selected capsule is teamed with high-end transformer balanced circuitry using only the best components.
The Spirit is designed to deliver a beautifully open sound with sparkling harmonics. This highly accurate microphone gives a stunningly natural and transparent recording, capturing all the detail in the high range but without adding the harshness that some condenser microphones seem to."
https://www.astonmics.com/EN/product/mics/spirit
A True Sound
What we can't get enough of is the true sound that Aston captures on recording. Microphones tend to have a certain colour to the sound it captures. SM7B's for instance bring out the low tones of a voice and create a natural warm body to the overall. (we own this mic too).
Pre-dating this addition, we had the M-Audio Condenser microphone. This, while it was a good mic, ended up having a higher self-noise and was very bright, almost sounding tiney at times.
Amazing on Vocals
This mic shines the most on vocal productions and it is definitely our go-to mic. We love the SM7B for specific situations and it's tone. There are times we choose it first, often during ruff takes, instruments or background vocals. But often we just love the clarity the Aston brings to a performance.
Affordable
If you're producing your own music and looking to level up your microphone, this is a great microphone to purchase. At around $500.00 CAD, it performs closer to microphones costing upwards to $1,500.00.
If you're recording with Grace Abbey Studios, we've got you covered. However, if we are travelling and on the road, we will most likely be recording with the always shure dynamic SM7B.