Our friends at Slate Digital have recently conducted a shoot-out of their Virtual Microphone System (VMS) and some classic mics. They say of the shoot out;

We went to the famous NRG Recording Studios to compare the VMS FG-251 and FG-47 to the real vintage microphones on male and female vocals, acoustic guitar, and drums. Extreme care was taken to ensure that the capsules were aligned for each source. The vintage microphones went through the real 1073 preamp that was used for the modeling process of our FG-73 preamp, which was used for the VMS tracks.

NRG has several U47’s but one in particular sounded nearly identical to the VMS’s own FG-47 model. This is the same mic that famed engineer Ross Hogarth used for his VMS/47 comparison at NRG a few months ago, only to proclaim he was “blown away.” NRG’s Elam 251 also sounded nearly identical to the VMS’s FG-251 with the intensity set around 125%.

You can see the shoot out as well as download full resolution audio files at Slate Digital.