All user reviews of 4/5 for the Neumann U 47 fet

The Neumann U 47 fet is a electret condenser microphone that is great for kick drums.  It has a half caridiod polar pick up pattern and has an XLR cable connected to it.  It can be used in a live setting or when recording, it will reach its full potential when being recorded though.

OVERALL OPINION

I've had the Neumann U 47 for about four years and while I don't use it all the time, it has a lot of uses that come in handy for a lot of different things.  This microphone is really designed for use in conferences and things like that so you can pick up the entire room, and I have to say that when you place this on the floor or on a table within a room it will definitely do a good job of picking up everything that is going on around it.  For this reason I have used it during live shows and have found that if you place it on the stage it does a pretty good job of picking up the vibrations.  I have also used it in the studio and works in many occasions as a room microphone or even if you place it within a kick drum or something like that.  While this microphone isn't the most versatile in terms of traditional audio recording, it does have a lot of uses, many of which aren't best suited for recording music.  While I haven't used it for this, I'm sure that it would do a pretty good job even as a broadcast microphone or simply for picking up conversations or something like a book on tape or something.  It has built in EQ that I would imagine is boosted at around 5 KHz to add clarity to the human voice even though its not made for voice.

The U-47fet is a great kick drum mic.... Musicians have been astonished to see me put one on a kick , but it can take it  ( in addition to the -10dB pad there is another -6dB pad adjacent to the XLR connector).

They are also nice for bass guitar , and can be good for piano. I prefer them to U-87 on vocals. However I must say here that I've never liked the U-87 as a vocal mic in 34 years of using them.  I found the U-47 could give sibillance problems on female voices, especially when used as a voiceover mic.

I wish I still had my U-47 - a rapper stole it from my studio shortly after I had the capsule reskinned! Doh! They are now ( 2009) seriously escalating in price, and in the UK 2.5k GBP might be average for a used one. Neumann have not made the U-47 fet for some years now.