Matt Faunce wrote:
A year or so back, I followed a link from here, r.a.p., to a good
article that described why the proximity effect of a cardioid microphone
goes away when the side of the diaphragm is pointed at the sound source
rather than the front, but now I can't find it. The URL was
http://81.174.169.10/odds/mic/ If you know what article I'm talking
about could you tell me if the article has a new URL? Maybe you know or
remember the guy who wrote it.
But... it doesn't. The proximity effect remains no matter what direction
it's pointed in. It has only to do with the pattern of the microphone and
the distance from the source.
In fact, if you turn the microphone to the side so the source is off-axis,
you will lose the high end (since typical cardioid mikes are only cardioid at
higher frequencies and are omni down on the bottom). So the bass boost
seems even more emphasized in comparison.
But if you want to find the original article you can probably go to
archive.org and use the Wayback Machine to see if the article has been
archived.
This is somewhat frivolous, but related. I don't know much about what
makes a radio mike a radio mike. But, someone commented on this picture
(link below) saying the DJ in the pic would be better off using the
right mike type and angle, and I made a simple comment back about the
angle. But I wondered, if a female DJ did in fact want to eliminate the
proximity effect using this technique, would a mike designed for radio
still be the better mike? Why is a radio mike better for radio (or
usually better, if that's the case) when used in the usual way, than a
MIke singers would pick?
pic (link is to my comment, scroll up for the pic)
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/2...ment-470703194
I don't have any graphics, but if the picture is Rush Limbaugh, he
uses an RE-20 which is a microphone with some trickery to greatly reduce
proximity effect. It is popular with broadcasters but it's also a
great PA mike. Tight and even pattern. No "off mike" sound for
people who can't stand still.
In fact, all of the popular broadcast mikes, from the RCA 77 to the
Sennheiser 421, Shure SM-7, EV RE-20, are also great mikes for studio
and PA applications too.
i'm not that interested in commenting back over there, since I have no
experience in this matter, except maybe to point him to this thread if
it illuminates anything.
People are too quick to categorize mikes and say "that is a kick drum mike"
and "that is a studio mike" and "that is a PA mike," when in fact good
clean microphones have a wide variety of applications.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."