How similar is the anthem mic and lyric mic?

[tedswan]

Hello,
I was just curious as to how similar these two mic's are? More specifically, can the presence knob on the lyric mic be placed at a certain position where it causes it to sound similarly to the anthem mic?

I currently own the Lyric and I enjoy it however I have found that it requires a great deal of eq to get it sounding right for my guitar. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it just requires patience and an ear. However, every clip that i've heard of the Anthem with 100% mic sounds very natural and not very "eq'd".

So, why the differences? Is the anthem "mic only" more feedback prone than the lyric?

thanks,
Ted

[Bryan McManus]

Hi Ted,

I'm happy to describe the differences for you.

Let me first say that the Lyric and Anthem use the same microphone capsule. The differences lie within the circuitry involved in the two products.

The Lyric's circuit is designed to use only the microphone for the entire signal, so it is a full-range mic. The Anthem is a completely different kind of pickup system that uses the undersaddle pickup for 100% of the low frequencies but none of the highs. Then the mic is used for 100% of the high frequencies while all the lows are filtered out of the mic signal. Either one on its own will actually sound terrible because they are each only part of the whole picture. The pickup and mic share duties much like the woofer and tweeter in a hi-fi speaker.

In your comments you mentioned listening to the Anthem with 100% mic. That is a misunderstanding. The truth is that there is NO setting on the Anthem that will give you 100% mic. The pickup is always in the mix but isn't obvious because it only handles the lows in the signal - specifically everything below 250Hz. This is what creates that full, warm tone in what appears to be the "100% mic" setting. In reality, having the pickup in the mix accentuates the bass response of the Anthem to some degree.

The Lyric's tone will vary because it reproduces exactly what the guitar is giving it sonically. It's only through EQ and/or processing that you can get much closer to the tone you're after.