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Post by amanajoe on Nov 18, 2022 16:56:21 GMT -5
I keep thinking that I want to get a better mic. I have an Audio-Technica AT2020, not expensive. But I really like the sound I get on both vocals and my acoustic with it. Not to mention, if I’m going upgrade, I’d probably want to spend a lot more money. The 2020's and the old Studio Projects C1's are my live large condenser mics. They are inexpensive, but a very good mics. The C1's I have recorded guitar, vocal and even a brass ensemble and they handled it all. The placement is key and in a live situation, you just do not want to get too close as the performers do move around a bit. This recording had the C414's as elevated main pair and C1's as spot mics. The C1s are an example of the Schoeps (something I'll talk about in the next installment) circuit combined with a decent copy of the K47 capsule. Do you have the original ones with the offset (off center) XLR? I remember really liking those. The newer model (I think MK2) moved the XLR to the center and changed to surface mount parts. I don't think they used as much care in making them when that change happened.
Great acoustic space helps too. I wish every place worked as well as that room sounds.
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Post by amanajoe on Nov 18, 2022 17:04:06 GMT -5
Absolutely nothing wrong with the AT2020, for the price it is a sturdy mic for the first time buyer of a recording mic. It does emphasize the bass side of things a bit, so it shouldn't be used on bass heavy stuff and has a definite proximity effect, so back up from the mic a bit. It is quite good at guitar recording, just don't have it too close and it will sound good. About 8 to 10 inches out, pointed at the 12th fret, angled slightly at the fretboard. I’ve tried a bunch of different stuff, but that always works. For vocals I put it just to the side, so I’m not popping right into it, and seems to work very well. You are right, many times when recording acoustic guitar you will see a pair of mics in an X pattern closer to the upper bout of the guitar. One pointing toward the 12th fret, the other angle toward the sound hole / lower bout. That works great, but most of us only have one mic. In live situations, it isn't a good choice but in studio settings, I like the mic at least a foot away, centered about the sound hole and pointed toward the upper bout. Then you crank the gain to get the level you need. You got a good sound in this recording. You need to get as much of the guitar's sound into the cone of the mic, and putting it to close to the upper bout will make it sound thin. Pointing it into the sound hole will make it get woofy.
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Post by gbacklin on Nov 18, 2022 17:21:47 GMT -5
About 8 to 10 inches out, pointed at the 12th fret, angled slightly at the fretboard. I’ve tried a bunch of different stuff, but that always works. For vocals I put it just to the side, so I’m not popping right into it, and seems to work very well. You are right, many times when recording acoustic guitar you will see a pair of mics in an X pattern closer to the upper bout of the guitar. One pointing toward the 12th fret, the other angle toward the sound hole / lower bout. That works great, but most of us only have one mic. In live situations, it isn't a good choice but in studio settings, I like the mic at least a foot away, centered about the sound hole and pointed toward the upper bout. Then you crank the gain to get the level you need. You got a good sound in this recording. You need to get as much of the guitar's sound into the cone of the mic, and putting it to close to the upper bout will make it sound thin. Pointing it into the sound hole will make it get woofy. Here is an example of C1 on guitar originally at between 12th fret and soundhole, but after a number of performers and moving the chair a bit, it ain't exactly in that starting position I have the AT 2020 for the vocal.
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Post by gbacklin on Nov 18, 2022 17:34:30 GMT -5
The 2020's and the old Studio Projects C1's are my live large condenser mics. They are inexpensive, but a very good mics. The C1's I have recorded guitar, vocal and even a brass ensemble and they handled it all. The placement is key and in a live situation, you just do not want to get too close as the performers do move around a bit. This recording had the C414's as elevated main pair and C1's as spot mics. The C1s are an example of the Schoeps (something I'll talk about in the next installment) circuit combined with a decent copy of the K47 capsule. Do you have the original ones with the offset (off center) XLR? I remember really liking those. The newer model (I think MK2) moved the XLR to the center and changed to surface mount parts. I don't think they used as much care in making them when that change happened.
Great acoustic space helps too. I wish every place worked as well as that room sounds.
Here are my AKG's C1's
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Post by amanajoe on Nov 18, 2022 21:05:11 GMT -5
The C1s are an example of the Schoeps (something I'll talk about in the next installment) circuit combined with a decent copy of the K47 capsule. Do you have the original ones with the offset (off center) XLR? I remember really liking those. The newer model (I think MK2) moved the XLR to the center and changed to surface mount parts. I don't think they used as much care in making them when that change happened.
Great acoustic space helps too. I wish every place worked as well as that room sounds.
Here are my AKG's C1's Jim Williams used to do mids ro the C414 (adding some capacitors here and there) but as far as I know it was never published and most likely not really necessary. Too many people get hung up on how a mic sounds with the equalization flat. For God's sake, that's why everything you plug mics into has equalization! One thing to watch out for on them is if they suddenly pick up a hum. The head basket is just friction fit and if you get the screen a little loose it will not ground well anymore. Generally it is am easy fix. Yep, those are the C1s I was talking about the "red badge" ones aren't as impressive. They stayed the same pric2 over the years so they must've been cutting something out. In the past I've sent those get the U87 negative feedback added to tame the upper end of the capsule or just a straight capsule swap to a C12 or K47 since they work really well with the circuit. I myself wouldn't change them unless they were causing an issue.
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Post by gbacklin on Nov 19, 2022 8:51:45 GMT -5
I also have their C4’s purchased around the same time. While not the 184’s like Marshall has, I’ve been very pleased with their performance.
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Post by John B on Nov 19, 2022 9:46:46 GMT -5
Man that sounds fantastic. Pretty incredible mix for live, but I guess classical players are used to fitting in their volume and tone, but I assume the spot mics help with that. The french horn player using her fist as a mute. Umm... the proper position for a french horn player's right hand is in the bell. I'll try to find a picture of me from my dad's french horn instructional book, but this video probably demonstrates it better. Signed, The son of a french horn man
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Post by amanajoe on Nov 19, 2022 11:23:05 GMT -5
Man that sounds fantastic. Pretty incredible mix for live, but I guess classical players are used to fitting in their volume and tone, but I assume the spot mics help with that. The french horn player using her fist as a mute. Umm... the proper position for a french horn player's right hand is in the bell. I'll try to find a picture of me from my dad's french horn instructional book, but this video probably demonstrates it better. Signed, The son of a french horn man I have a friend who is the first chair french horn in the St. Louis Civic Orchestra. I always remind him of the line from Garrison Keillor's Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra, "If our Lord had played an instrument, which one would he have chosen? Probably not a French horn. It takes too much of a person’s life. French horn players hardly have time to marry and have children. The French horn is practically a religious belief all by itself. In some orchestras the french horn players are required to remain celibate, sometimes by their spouses, because they think about the horn all the time anyway!"
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Post by amanajoe on Nov 19, 2022 12:04:33 GMT -5
Small / Medium Condensers (I promise this is almost over) Around the early 2000's the TOMB (Tape – Op Message Board) was the happening place for us audio idiots. On there was a fellow by the name of scodiddly (Scott Helmke) out of Mundelein, IL (notice this strange confluence of Chicago people involved in some of this stuff). He had noticed that there were several interesting electret condensers popping up on the electronics market that appeared to be way better quality than their original intended purpose (cell phone mics). I was messing around with panasonic capsules because I was working at Arrow and had access to those, but I wasn't happen with the results. In late 2004 / early 2005 if I'm remembering right Scott published a new design he had worked on where he took the Schoeps FET microphone amplifier, stripped it down to its most basic form for connection to the new Transsound TSB-165 condenser. The were easy to build, cheap, and most importantly, sounded great. 14 components you could hand solder together and add a $5 capsule to and you were off to the races. He even showed how to make the body out of standard parts, most of them from the hardware store or mcmaster-carr (again in Chicago). www.scotthelmke.com/alice-mic.htmlThe micbuilders group got a hold of it and ran with it. We started making minor changes, improving the sound quality and robustness of the circuit. (It has been through 56 revisions over the years, most of mine are still built using the V39 circuit hence the name A39). Along the way many have made quite a good microphone out of them. I have changed (as many did) the the TSB-2555 and the TSB-25AX but there are others out there too that will work. These are basically the same circuits used by Ear Trumpet Labs (you can see them being hand assembled in this video) and they go through the same process developed to make and test the mics that most use.
With the increased sales, he has been able to be a little more picky about capsules (sourcing larger quantities and tossing out the ones that don't pass the muster for his mics). I source mine from a USA supplier now that has a better supply chain and have never gotten a bad one (something I can't say about the CM12 electrets that I have gotten from my Chinese supplier). As of late, I've added some based on a Jules Ryckenbush design that I modified a little. Jules had the idea to dump the discrete FET design and switch to a low power, ultra-low noise FET operational amplifier chip. Originally I was working on one based on the THAT1500 series op amps (I used them in a piezo pickup preamp and had some laying around) when Jules came up with one based on TI's OPA1642 and I went with that instead of re-inventing the whole thing. You can read about Jules design here: www.instructables.com/OPA-Based-Alice-Microphones-a-Cardioid-and-a-Figur/Using that as a basis for my latest stuff I have the OPA microphone and the DUAL, which houses 2 OPA preamps with a dual LDC capsule or dual TSB's for a unique setup that allows you mix together the two sides in and out of phase to create variations in the pattern of the mic. (Another idea from Jules that I ran with as well). I know he did something with it and made a video, I'll try to find it. I need to sell off some of my stuff along with the mics that I make, so if anyone is interested let me know. Or, again, if you'd like to learn to build some, I can help with that too. We are kind of in a microphone heyday right now. There are tons of parts available, kits, built up modules. If you want to use a similar circuit to the op-amp based ones that I build, you can by them pre-assembled from a capsule supplier in Ohio called JLI. Let me know, or ask any other questions on mics here.
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Post by John B on Nov 19, 2022 13:05:16 GMT -5
Before talking with you about proper mic placement (you were so diplomatic and polite despite my obvious wrong-headedness), I was waiting for your version with a built-in switchable HPF.
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Post by amanajoe on Nov 21, 2022 22:15:38 GMT -5
If there aren’t any more questions, I think this is as far as we need to go with this.
Oh, speaking of obsession though, I just ordered a monoprice ltm500 for $115, so I guess I gotta build one more tube mic yet.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,852
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Post by Dub on Nov 21, 2022 22:54:31 GMT -5
I remember, more than 30 years ago, learning about binaural microphones. I thought the idea was really interesting so I fashioned one from electret cartridges.
I used a foam head meant as a wig stand and put a mic stand mount in the base. I fashioned ears using clear silicone bathtub caulk with the mics where the ear canals would be. I cut a shelf in the back of the head for the battery case.
It was crude but the test recordings I made were quite surprising. You could walk around the mic talking or playing music moving the source up and down, near and far. When a listener sat in the same room wearing headphones, they could exactly where the source had been all the time. It was almost eerie.
The mics weren’t suitable for serious music recording but I often wondered if a setup like that, with quality mics, would be useful for recording a performer or small group.
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Post by amanajoe on Nov 21, 2022 23:36:34 GMT -5
I remember, more than 30 years ago, learning about binaural microphones. I thought the idea was really interesting so I fashioned one from electret cartridges. I used a foam head meant as a wig stand and put a mic stand mount in the base. I fashioned ears using clear silicone bathtub caulk with the mics where the ear canals would be. I cut a shelf in the back of the head for the battery case. It was crude but the test recordings I made were quite surprising. You could walk around the mic talking or playing music moving the source up and down, near and far. When a listener sat in the same room wearing headphones, they could exactly where the source had been all the time. It was almost eerie. The mics weren’t suitable for serious music recording but I often wondered if a setup like that, with quality mics, would be useful for recording a performer or small group. There is a similar technique called Ambi-Sonics where the mics are placed just so and you add and subtract the signals to re-create the 3d sound field.
I played around with it briefly years ago, but much like my carver sonic hologram generator, it all became more of a one trick pony instead of something I wanted to use on a regular basis.
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Post by jdd2 on Nov 21, 2022 23:46:11 GMT -5
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Post by gbacklin on Nov 22, 2022 6:16:06 GMT -5
Moderators, whenever it may be proper to unpin this discussion, may I suggest it be moved to the Library for future reference ?
Thank you
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Post by John B on Nov 22, 2022 6:57:21 GMT -5
Interestingly (to me), in the past two days both binaural mics (a new recording by Jamie Stillway) and ambisonics (Sarah Belle Reed) have popped up in my feeds. Arizona State University has a new ambisonic dome and they're inviting musicians to compose for the dome.
Ambisonics Q&A:
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Post by Marshall on Nov 22, 2022 9:40:57 GMT -5
She has a cute nose.
I'm just sayin'
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Post by gbacklin on Nov 22, 2022 10:55:15 GMT -5
Interestingly (to me), in the past two days both binaural mics (a new recording by Jamie Stillway) and ambisonics (Sarah Belle Reed) have popped up in my feeds. Arizona State University has a new ambisonic dome and they're inviting musicians to compose for the dome. Ambisonics Q&A: This reminded me of Laurie Spiegel.
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Post by Village Idiot on Nov 22, 2022 21:04:03 GMT -5
Moderators, whenever it may be proper to unpin this discussion, may I suggest it be moved to the Library for future reference ? Thank you Hi Gene. This thread was posted on yet today. We usually give things two or three days of no posting before unpinning. When that time comes, however, moving it to the library is an excellent suggestion.
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Post by amanajoe on Nov 23, 2022 17:18:07 GMT -5
Interestingly (to me), in the past two days both binaural mics (a new recording by Jamie Stillway) and ambisonics (Sarah Belle Reed) have popped up in my feeds. Arizona State University has a new ambisonic dome and they're inviting musicians to compose for the dome. Ambisonics Q&A: This reminded me of Laurie Spiegel. I almost worked for Bell Labs in Naperville, IL coming out of college, but having my own company kinda got in the way.
She mentions Colossus: The Forbin Project, one of my favorite AI run amok movies.
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