Aloha from Hawaii, guys!
I've taken my PT Laptop travel rig for a milk run to my brother's
place in Hawaii. So far, so good, except I've had a few close calls
with salt water abruptly draining from my sinuses after surfing as I
lean over my laptop keyboard. No tragedies yet though.
It's been a fairly steep learning curve with the new G4 laptop,
system 10.3, PT-LE, and SampleTank all being new to me, but I'm
getting a bit more comfortable with it now. But I do have a few
questions to pick your communal brains about, if I may. (Never fear,
I won't ask to pick your communal nose..... :)
My mic is an AKG 451-EB with a CK1 capsule for recording Guitar
and Uke and a BLUE lollipop capsule for Vox. Even with the windows
shut there's a constant low rumble from the large surf outside. I'm
thinking of using the mic's 75Hz roll-off for GTR and Vox and the
150Hz for Uke. I normally never use the roll-offs on mics. For
example, the Neumann U-87's roll-off just kills the sound, to my ears.
But I can't recall ever trying a 451-EB's roll-off, and I might not
hear much difference here, given my current monitoring environment.
Any opinions on whether I should use the 451's roll-off or deal with
the noise later?
This is getting long, so I'll post the other questions in
separate threads. Thanks!

My mic is an AKG 451-EB with a CK1 capsule for recording Guitar
and Uke and a BLUE lollipop capsule for Vox. Even with the windows
shut there's a constant low rumble from the large surf outside. I'm
thinking of using the mic's 75Hz roll-off for GTR and Vox and the
150Hz for Uke. I normally never use the roll-offs on mics. For
example, the Neumann U-87's roll-off just kills the sound, to my ears.
But I can't recall ever trying a 451-EB's roll-off, and I might not
hear much difference here, given my current monitoring environment.
Any opinions on whether I should use the 451's roll-off or deal with
the noise later?

Make sure the noise is acoustic. I took a pair of 451s to a tropical climate &
they had serious issues with the humidity, lots of thumps. They were basically
unuseable. If it really is acoustic surf rumble, you could wait & HPF it later
in PT where you can tweak the corner frequency to deal with it more accurately.
OTOH, if it's wind rumble, you'll eat up all your headroom with useless LF
noise.
Enjoy the surf. Pretty different from my recent remote recording gig, which was
in Fairbanks (again.)


Scott Fraser

(rickymix)

Even with the windows
shut there's a constant low rumble from the large surf outside. I'm
thinking of using the mic's 75Hz roll-off for GTR and Vox and the
150Hz for Uke.

Hey Ricky, the Nats should work nicely if you're working on the Brother's
Cazimero's "The Sound of The Sea Surrounds Me"... Ah that song makes me
homesick. Maybe Spring break, if you're in town let me know...


Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

Hi Scott and Will!
Yeah, it's been windy and there's big storm surf. Should start
to clean up tomorrow, hopefully.
Meanwhile, I tried recording some Uke today. I used the 150 Hz
roll-off on the AKG 451 going to the left track and the Fishman pickup
w/preamp going to the right track of a Stereo track. The slight bleed
through, ("Nats, :), were fine and appropriate. In fact, I was
really happy with the sound until I mono'd the tracks. Big time phase
problem. Doh!
I think there was about a 60 sample delay between the mic and DI
tracks, with the mic being later and the DI earlier. The waveforms
were so different looking it was hard to tell. Sometimes it seemed
the delay was even longer, maybe as much as 200 samples. And then
sometimes it looked like the waveforms were mirror images of each
other, especially at the beginning of sounds, and zoomed way in.
Is this a known problem with using the M-box mic pre and DI
simultaneously?
Hey Will, it's Spring break here already in the local schools!
I'm here until April 1st, the Holiday named after ME! :) When
are you gonna be here? It'd be great to see you. Hey, do you know
Chris Lee? I'm supposed to have a meeting with him tomorrow in town.
Aloha all, Rick.


ospam (WillStG) wrote in message news:
rickymix wrote:
Even with the windows
shut there's a constant low rumble from the large surf outside. I'm
thinking of using the mic's 75Hz roll-off for GTR and Vox and the
150Hz for Uke.

Hey Ricky, the Nats should work nicely if you're working on the Brother's
Cazimero's "The Sound of The Sea Surrounds Me"... Ah that song makes me
homesick. Maybe Spring break, if you're in town let me know...

Will Miho

(rickymix) wrote in message . com...

Rickymix:

Welcome to Hawaii! Yeah, the surf and wind has been up of late. I
agree, do the roll-off when you mix or edit that way you can choose
the frequency and amount unlike the mic's filter which is fixed.

Also, don't leave your mics out when not being used. If possible, keep
them in a sealed case (Pelicans are great) with some fresh desiccant
(Security Equipment Corp. in Honolulu sells it). On humid days like
we've been having, the humidity can cause all kinds of problems with
condenser mics.

Beware of the salt spray also, it gets everywhere and can ruin
electronics. A sealed room with A/C is ideal but minimize the exposure
to the salt and humidity in the air. It's blown all over the island by
the trade winds but worst on the windward sides of the islands. One of
the prices of living in paradise.

451 is a great choice on uke by the way, I've recorded some of the
best here with one.

Aloha!
Audy O

Dealer for Radar 24/Genelec/KRK/Audio Technica/Zaolla etc. in Hawaii

In article writes:

Meanwhile, I tried recording some Uke today. I used the 150 Hz
roll-off on the AKG 451 going to the left track and the Fishman pickup
w/preamp going to the right track of a Stereo track.

really happy with the sound until I mono'd the tracks. Big time phase
problem. Doh!
I think there was about a 60 sample delay between the mic and DI
tracks, with the mic being later and the DI earlier.

That's to be expected. You're seeing the difference in distance
between the string and the pickup or mic. Sound takes some time to
travel, you know. It's to be expected. Adjust delay accordingly and
you'll be fine.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

You're probably right, Mike. But I don't remember having that problem
on bass back in the analog days. On the other hand, I would usually
pick either the direct or the amp, whichever sounded better, and
mostly use that one, and just add a hair of the other for flavor.
Maybe that was why.
I never realized it was enough of a lag to cause phase problems.
The mic was only about 3 or 4 inches from the uke.
Cheers, Rick.

(Mike Rivers) wrote;
Meanwhile, I tried recording some Uke today. I used the 150 Hz
roll-off on the AKG 451 going to the left track and the Fishman pickup
w/preamp going to the right track of a Stereo track. I was
really happy with the sound until I mono'd the tracks. Big time phase
problem. Doh!
I think there was about a 60 sample delay between the mic and DI
tracks, with the mic being later and the DI earlier.

That's to be expected. You're seeing the difference in distance
between the string and the pickup or mic. Sound takes some time to
travel, you know. It's to be expected. Adjust delay accordingly and
you'll be fine.

In article writes:

You're probably right, Mike. But I don't remember having that problem
on bass back in the analog days. On the other hand, I would usually
pick either the direct or the amp, whichever sounded better, and
mostly use that one, and just add a hair of the other for flavor.

The "flavor" was probably cancelling out some frequencies that you
didn't really want.

I never realized it was enough of a lag to cause phase problems.
The mic was only about 3 or 4 inches from the uke.

That's good for a notch at a couple of kHz if you have the levels
pretty much equal. But if there's more than a half a millisecond of
delay between the mic and pickup (60 samples is a little more than a
millisecond at 48 kHz), you might think about the signal path. Does
one go through a digital box or process that the other one doesn't? If
the Fishman preamp is a straight premamp, it's not likely the
problem, but they do have some boxes that do some simulation which I'm
sure add some delay.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

(Mike Rivers) wrote:
....if there's more than a half a millisecond of
delay between the mic and pickup (60 samples is a little more than a
millisecond at 48 kHz), you might think about the signal path. Does
one go through a digital box or process that the other one doesn't? If
the preamp is a straight preamp, it's not likely the
problem, but they do have some boxes that do some simulation which I'm
sure add some delay.

No, that's the weird thing. I'm going straight into the 2 inputs of
an Mbox; the 451 (3 inches from the uke), straight into the ch 1 mic
pre and the Fishman pickup straight into the ch 2 direct in. And the
mic track winds up around 60 samples late.
I'm wondering if maybe the Mbox or USB connection is being pushed
beyond it's capacities. Perhaps due to the phantom power being needed
for only one channel? I guess if you had 2 mics plugged in and they
were both equally late, it wouldn't be so noticable a problem. Or
maybe I've got a malfunctioning Mbox or mic. It sounded great until I
mono'd it though.
It's hard to tell what's up, here on the road. I was just
wondering if anyone else with an Mbox had encountered this dilema.
Thanks again, Rick.

In article writes:

No, that's the weird thing. I'm going straight into the 2 inputs of
an Mbox; the 451 (3 inches from the uke), straight into the ch 1 mic
pre and the Fishman pickup straight into the ch 2 direct in. And the
mic track winds up around 60 samples late.
I'm wondering if maybe the Mbox or USB connection is being pushed
beyond it's capacities.

I don't think it's being pushed beyond its capabilities. This would be
a real ****er for stereo mic recording if that's the way it really
works. Just for yucks, try splitting the same signal into both
channels and see if you still get the delay between them. If you do,
it's worth a trip to the Digidesign forum. Could be something with
your computer setup, I suppose. Those things screw you every chance
they get.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article ,
rickymix wrote:
No, that's the weird thing. I'm going straight into the 2 inputs of
an Mbox; the 451 (3 inches from the uke), straight into the ch 1 mic
pre and the Fishman pickup straight into the ch 2 direct in. And the
mic track winds up around 60 samples late.

Yes, there's air delay between the strings and the mike that you don't
get on the DI channel. What sample rate are you working at? 60
samples sounds sort of high for 44.1KHz, but it's not completely out
of the question. Zoom in closely and make sure it's really 60 samples
late. It might actually be some smaller number of samples if you look
closely at a transient.

BTW, if you slip the DI track back (or the mike track forward) by this
delay, the two channels will add together a little nicer. You get
fewer cancellations and usually the end result sounds nicer. Measure
the delay using the waveform display and tweak the last few samples by
hand/ear.

Of course, if the instrument is moving around relative to the mike,
the delay won't be a constant, so it might not sound good to try and
compensate for the air delay. But, see what you have and give it a
try.


Regards,

Monte McGuire