[Tim Perry]

PZM affectionados will get a kick out of this.

http://www.crownaudio.com/pdf/mics/memo22yr.pdf

[Jay Ts]

Tim Perry wrote:
PZM affectionados will get a kick out of this.

http://www.crownaudio.com/pdf/mics/memo22yr.pdf

Thanks, Tim. That's a goodie. The illustration
of the sound-absorbing jacket made my day.

Jay Ts
--
To contact me, use this web page:
http://www.jayts.com/contact.php

[William Sommerwerck]

I wouldn't call this "bilge", but it's typical of evangelical material from
people who think they've discovered The Final Answer to something. I was
particularly interested with the quote

"“The great end of education is to discipline rather than furnish the mind;
to train it to use its powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of
others.”

from a company that pretty much required require its employees to be
Protestant fundamentalists. (Crown is now owned by Harmon International, so
that requirement has likely ended.) When Crown bought out Barclay Recording
& Electronics, I was not offered a job (which I wouldn't have accepted,
anyway, as I had no desire to live in Elkhart, IN on a $20K salary, which,
even in 1980, was nothing), as Crown did not hire queers. I make it a point
to remind people that, unless there is no other choice, they should not buy
from companies that would not hire them.

I used to have a pair of 28S (or was it 31S?) mics, which I mounted on a 2'
square sheet of Plexiglas and hung from a mic extension arm. The sound was
okay, but had an odd quirk. With your eyes open, center fill was poor, but
improved greatly when I closed my eyes. Weird. I used them for a few
recordings, then went back to conventional miking. Dr. Barclay bought the
mics from me last year.

By the way, the SASS has always struck me as hopelessly overpriced. Why it
costs more than $500 or $600 is beyond me.

It's debatable whether PZM was patentable. The basic principle had been
around for decades, and whether turning the capsule upside-down represents a
real, non-obvious improvement is questionable.

[William Sommerwerck]

PS: The popless on-off switch looks interesting.

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

whether turning the capsule upside-down represents a
real, non-obvious improvement is questionable.

Which explains perhaps why you didn't have to write "..as Crown did
not hire queers (c) City ofSodom, 4004 B.C.

....sorry :-)

[William Sommerwerck]

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
...
whether turning the capsule upside-down represents a
real, non-obvious improvement is questionable.

Which explains perhaps why you didn't have to write "..as Crown did
not hire queers (c) City ofSodom, 4004 B.C.

...sorry :-)

I don't get the joke. e-mail me directly.

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Sat, 1 Nov 2008 05:16:34 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
.. .
whether turning the capsule upside-down represents a
real, non-obvious improvement is questionable.

Which explains perhaps why you didn't have to write "..as Crown did
not hire queers (c) City ofSodom, 4004 B.C.

...sorry :-)

I don't get the joke. e-mail me directly.

Forget it then. No offence intended.

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
I wouldn't call this "bilge", but it's typical of evangelical material from
people who think they've discovered The Final Answer to something.

There was a time back in the seventies when a lot of people really did
believe that the PZM was the Final Answer to recording. Not just a
few people, but it did seem almost like a religious fervor throughout the
industry and _everybody_ had to have a set of them in the cabinet.

I used to have a pair of 28S (or was it 31S?) mics, which I mounted on a 2'
square sheet of Plexiglas and hung from a mic extension arm. The sound was
okay, but had an odd quirk. With your eyes open, center fill was poor, but
improved greatly when I closed my eyes. Weird. I used them for a few
recordings, then went back to conventional miking. Dr. Barclay bought the
mics from me last year.

By the way, the SASS has always struck me as hopelessly overpriced. Why it
costs more than $500 or $600 is beyond me.

The reason why it costs so much is that there isn't anything else like it
on the market so they can charge that much.

It really is a nifty little gadget, and it really does do what it's claimed
to do: it is much more immune to poor placement than most other microphone
configurations.

It's debatable whether PZM was patentable. The basic principle had been
around for decades, and whether turning the capsule upside-down represents a
real, non-obvious improvement is questionable.

There was prior art with the EV Microphone Mouse. However, I dispute your
point. The PZM principle was patentable, as shown by the fact that they
issued a patent for it. Whether that patent would hold up in court I have
no idea, but I have noticed in general that patent fights tend to go in the
direction of the people with better lawyers rather than the people with better
engineers.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[William Sommerwerck]

There was prior art with the EV Microphone Mouse. However, I dispute your
point. The PZM principle was patentable, as shown by the fact that they
issued a patent for it. Whether that patent would hold up in court I have
no idea, but I have noticed in general that patent fights tend to go in
the
direction of the people with better lawyers rather than the people with
better
engineers.

I see your point. I meant really, truly, legitimately patentable.

Note the recent film about the development (I did not say invention) of the
intermittent wiper.

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
There was prior art with the EV Microphone Mouse. However, I dispute your
point. The PZM principle was patentable, as shown by the fact that they
issued a patent for it. Whether that patent would hold up in court I have
no idea, but I have noticed in general that patent fights tend to go in
the
direction of the people with better lawyers rather than the people with
better
engineers.

I see your point. I meant really, truly, legitimately patentable.

Note the recent film about the development (I did not say invention) of the
intermittent wiper.

It's worse in the software patent world, because the patent inspectors there
really have no notion of standard industry practices and what prior art may
exist. This is how Microsoft can manage to patent the ring buffer, more than
35 years after CSC used it in device drivers.

But even the patent inspectors doing mechanical stuff seem very ill-trained.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Crowley]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
William Sommerwerck wrote:
I wouldn't call this "bilge", but it's typical of evangelical material
from
people who think they've discovered The Final Answer to something.

There was a time back in the seventies when a lot of people really did
believe that the PZM was the Final Answer to recording. Not just a
few people, but it did seem almost like a religious fervor throughout the
industry and _everybody_ had to have a set of them in the cabinet.

Writing in the past tense makes it sound like you think the PZM craze
is over. We still get people through here several times a year (IIRC)
who seem to have been caught up in the insanity.

[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
William Sommerwerck wrote:
I wouldn't call this "bilge", but it's typical of evangelical material
from
people who think they've discovered The Final Answer to something.

There was a time back in the seventies when a lot of people really did
believe that the PZM was the Final Answer to recording. Not just a
few people, but it did seem almost like a religious fervor throughout the
industry and _everybody_ had to have a set of them in the cabinet.

Writing in the past tense makes it sound like you think the PZM craze
is over. We still get people through here several times a year (IIRC)
who seem to have been caught up in the insanity.

Do you? I haven't seen one for years for area miking, although I will
occasionally see folks stick them into kick drums or tape them to
drummers' chests.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Neil Gould]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
William Sommerwerck wrote:
There was prior art with the EV Microphone Mouse. However, I
dispute your point. The PZM principle was patentable, as shown by
the fact that they issued a patent for it. Whether that patent
would hold up in court I have no idea, but I have noticed in
general that patent fights tend to go in the direction of the
people with better lawyers rather than the people with better
engineers.

I see your point. I meant really, truly, legitimately patentable.

Note the recent film about the development (I did not say invention)
of the intermittent wiper.

It's worse in the software patent world, because the patent
inspectors there really have no notion of standard industry practices
and what prior art may exist. This is how Microsoft can manage to
patent the ring buffer, more than 35 years after CSC used it in
device drivers.

But even the patent inspectors doing mechanical stuff seem very
ill-trained. --scott

A couple of years ago I did a review for a company that had applied for a
patent. The original designer passed away unexpectedly, so the company
needed someone to answer the technical inquiry before the patent application
could be completed. IMO, the device not only contained no patentable
concepts, but probably couldn't be built as described. I advised the company
of that perspective, but answered the inquiry in the most beneficial way
without impugning the application. The company was granted the patent on the
condition that the device be brought to market within a certain period of
time. That convinced me that the patent inspectors are either indifferent or
completely clueless, preferring to let such matters be settled in the
courts.

--
Neil

[Richard Crowley]

"Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
"Richard Crowley" wrote ...
"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
William Sommerwerck wrote:
I wouldn't call this "bilge", but it's typical of evangelical material
from
people who think they've discovered The Final Answer to something.

There was a time back in the seventies when a lot of people really did
believe that the PZM was the Final Answer to recording. Not just a
few people, but it did seem almost like a religious fervor throughout
the
industry and _everybody_ had to have a set of them in the cabinet.

Writing in the past tense makes it sound like you think the PZM craze
is over. We still get people through here several times a year (IIRC)
who seem to have been caught up in the insanity.

On that note , I'm looking for a highly portable, unobtrusive way of
recording jazz ensembles in club settings. Is it possible for a PZM based
approach to compete with ORTF ?

With PZM, you are limited to putting the mic on a surface (either existing
or added). The location of this surface may not be optimal (or even
reasonable) for decent coverage. Not to mention how you do it for
two mics (for stereo). Just seems overwhelming negative cost/benefit
as I look at it. PZM is perfect (and sometimes irreplaceable) in certain
applications, but those apps are much fewer and farther between than
most PZM fans seem to want to believe.

OTOH, I'm looking at maybe cobbling up a thin-form-factor portable
concert stand (something like the Schoeps booms) for less-obtrusive
use than the big mic stands (5//8, 7/8, 9/8 tubes, etc.) or the big light
stands (Hollywood 5/8 "baby" size).

How important is it for ORTF (et.al) for the mic capsules to be
head-to-head? If one could make a "Y-shape" device that you
could screw two capsules into (at the ORTF angle, etc.), it could
be made relatively small and unobtrusive. And the capsule heads
would be 2 inches apart. Or even 1 inch if the capsules were
stacked instead of planar.

I suppose the easiest way to get the threads the capsules want is
to buy (and gut) a thread-on attenuator, etc. Would need to
locate at least the first impedance-converter FET right at the head
interface and then remote the rest of the electronics and XLR
connector, etc.

[William Sommerwerck]

I'm looking for a highly portable, unobtrusive way of recording jazz
ensembles in club settings. Is it possible for a PZM-based approach
to compete with ORTF ?

I don't know how well it "competes" (because I've never heard it), but the
SASS is (more or less) the PZM equivalent of ORTF.

[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Crowley wrote:

With PZM, you are limited to putting the mic on a surface (either existing
or added). The location of this surface may not be optimal (or even
reasonable) for decent coverage. Not to mention how you do it for
two mics (for stereo). Just seems overwhelming negative cost/benefit
as I look at it. PZM is perfect (and sometimes irreplaceable) in certain
applications, but those apps are much fewer and farther between than
most PZM fans seem to want to believe.

If you have a problem with slap echo from a surface, putting PZMs on that
surface can be a good solution. Otherwise it is nothing but trouble.

OTOH, I'm looking at maybe cobbling up a thin-form-factor portable
concert stand (something like the Schoeps booms) for less-obtrusive
use than the big mic stands (5//8, 7/8, 9/8 tubes, etc.) or the big light
stands (Hollywood 5/8 "baby" size).

How important is it for ORTF (et.al) for the mic capsules to be
head-to-head? If one could make a "Y-shape" device that you
could screw two capsules into (at the ORTF angle, etc.), it could
be made relatively small and unobtrusive. And the capsule heads
would be 2 inches apart. Or even 1 inch if the capsules were
stacked instead of planar.

I'm not sure what you mean.... with ORTF and NOS, the microphone capsules
have to be several inches apart. That is what makes them near-coincident
miking methods instead of coincident.

The problem is that unless you have the FET follower built inside the
capsule (as some microphones do), you can't extend the connection out
because the capacitance will kill you.

I suppose the easiest way to get the threads the capsules want is
to buy (and gut) a thread-on attenuator, etc. Would need to
locate at least the first impedance-converter FET right at the head
interface and then remote the rest of the electronics and XLR
connector, etc.

Right, or you can just call Schoeps and buy an "active cable" all
premade. Some other manufacturers of modular systems do this as well.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
I'm looking for a highly portable, unobtrusive way of recording jazz
ensembles in club settings. Is it possible for a PZM-based approach
to compete with ORTF ?

I don't know how well it "competes" (because I've never heard it), but the
SASS is (more or less) the PZM equivalent of ORTF.

The SASS-P is an interesting box. It's never wonderful, but it works
acceptably well in just about any acoustic and it deals well with
poor placement. If you're going to hand something off to a student
to record his performance with, it's a great choice. I have also liked
it for use in tents.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Crowley]

"Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
John Atkinson has a favorite, a Manfrotto lighting stand. He says,
------------------------------
"Buy a Manfrotto lighting stand modified for mikes by MicSupply.com.
Weighs just 6 lbs and is 3' long folded, but extends up to 12' - more
with a small boom on top.

Yes, I took a similar stand with me to Romania last week. It is a
lighter-weight Lowell stand and I tapped the "baby" stud at the top
with 5/8-27 threads to directly attach mic clips, etc.

Anybody know the chemical formula to "pickle" the aluminum tubes
to get them to take a black dye? It would be a lot less conspicous
if it were black instead of bright aluminum color.

The long, soft-side bag I haul it around in (checked baggage) also
takes my suit or tux, rolled around the stand and the tripod. If unrolled
soon upon arrival, it is virtually as good as a (cumbersome) suit-case.

What results can be achieved with a microphone positioned low,
such as near the floor in the front of the audience area, aimed up?

Excessive audience noise, insufficient HF, some comb filtering
from the close boundary.

Not to mention lousy balance from the rows of a choir. And of
course, unacceptable balance if you have a 12-piece brass and
percussion ensemble in front of the chorus.

But if that is the only option you are given (by the event organizers),
then you take what you can get. Here is a recording of a ~75-voice
mens chorus with my Sony ECM-MS5 stereo mic on the lip of the
stage, ~30 ft from the choir. I store the mic in a thick padded sock,
and I used that sock as a thin vibration pad. The mic head was within
2mm of the stage floor. http://www.oamc.org/RAMC/Sfnt.mp3

The venue was a run-down, smoky (although smoking prohibited)
Communist-era auditorium in Bacau, Romania. All those old
buildings smell from decades of cigarette smoke. (cough, cough :-(

PZM is still interesting to me, because, in a nightclub, it's an
imposition to put a mike stand in front, no matter how skinny. It also
makes it obvious what I'm doing, which in some locales could bring
unwanted attention from undesirables. I've always wanted a setup I can
backpack in. It's a shame there aren't some PZM "success stories."

Perhaps you could disguise some decent mics as a consumer
camcorder on a tripod. Those seem to go unchallenged in
many venues. :-)

[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Crowley wrote:

Anybody know the chemical formula to "pickle" the aluminum tubes
to get them to take a black dye? It would be a lot less conspicous
if it were black instead of bright aluminum color.

It's not just chemical, it requires electrical current too. Ask your
local motorcycle shop if they can recommend a shop in town that does
aluminum anodizing. It's not something you want to do at home if you
can avoid it.

Once anodized, it will be MUCH harder.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Crowley]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
Richard Crowley wrote:

Anybody know the chemical formula to "pickle" the aluminum tubes
to get them to take a black dye? It would be a lot less conspicous
if it were black instead of bright aluminum color.

It's not just chemical, it requires electrical current too. Ask your
local motorcycle shop if they can recommend a shop in town that does
aluminum anodizing. It's not something you want to do at home if you
can avoid it.

Once anodized, it will be MUCH harder.

It is already anodized (clear). I just want to change the color.
I was told that coloring was merely dyeing immediately after
anodizing. They said that for already-anodized aluminum, it
takes some chemical bath to re-open the pores to accept the
new dye. Maybe just stripping and re-anodizing?

[Richard Crowley]

"Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
"Richard Crowley" wrote ...
It is already anodized (clear). I just want to change the color.
I was told that coloring was merely dyeing immediately after
anodizing. They said that for already-anodized aluminum, it
takes some chemical bath to re-open the pores to accept the
new dye. Maybe just stripping and re-anodizing?

You could, but from my experience with an anodizing shop, these small
orders are treated as expensive, custom work.

Right. Which is why I was looking to DIY.

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Richard Crowley wrote:

You could, but from my experience with an anodizing shop, these small
orders are treated as expensive, custom work.

Right. Which is why I was looking to DIY.

I know a guy who has a black 53B from Manfrotto. Works fine as mic stand as
is. I think they have replaced it with one with one less stick.


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Richard Crowley wrote:

You could, but from my experience with an anodizing shop, these small
orders are treated as expensive, custom work.

Right. Which is why I was looking to DIY.

Too discrete a mic stand is too likely to suffer the consequences of
audience walking straight into it. There is yellow&black scotchtape on my
tall 'un as a general precaution. Aluminium stands are highly unlikely to
survive a fall, the tubes tend to bend.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[[email protected]]

On 2008-11-01 (ScottDorsey) said:
Do you? I haven't seen one for years for area miking, although I
will occasionally see folks stick them into kick drums or tape them
to drummers' chests.
THat's because those are about the only apps where they're
not a pita.

FIrst, it's the boundary they need to do their thing. OFten
the floor isn't a good place for other reasons, excessive
pickup of everything you don't want.
ceiling? TOo hard to get to.

A buddy of mine and I tried those plexiglass barriers, and
other materials as well, mounted on a stand and adjustable
for their angle. Unwieldy to set up, negated the advantages
you'd supposed gain with those small mics over conventional
mic techniques.

ON a good substantial wall looking over a meeting room,
something like that, yah I could see them for such an
application. OTherwise, I can't see where they really
provide me any advantages over conventional techniques.

Just my $0.02 worth on them.




Richard webb,
replace anything before at with elspider

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--- Benjamin Franklin, NOvember 1755 from the
Historical review of Pennsylvania

[Scott Dorsey]

In article ,
Richard Crowley wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote ...
Richard Crowley wrote:

Anybody know the chemical formula to "pickle" the aluminum tubes
to get them to take a black dye? It would be a lot less conspicous
if it were black instead of bright aluminum color.

It's not just chemical, it requires electrical current too. Ask your
local motorcycle shop if they can recommend a shop in town that does
aluminum anodizing. It's not something you want to do at home if you
can avoid it.

Once anodized, it will be MUCH harder.

It is already anodized (clear). I just want to change the color.
I was told that coloring was merely dyeing immediately after
anodizing. They said that for already-anodized aluminum, it
takes some chemical bath to re-open the pores to accept the
new dye. Maybe just stripping and re-anodizing?

If you have cut threads, the threaded section is not anodized any more,
which could be a problem. I was thinking you wanted to re-anodize that.

But the dyeing isn't a real problem; muriatic acid is all you really
need. I'd still take it to an anodizing shop because they'll probably
charge next to nothing to just dye it.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Arny Krueger]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message


William Sommerwerck wrote:

I wouldn't call this "bilge", but it's typical of
evangelical material from people who think they've
discovered The Final Answer to something.

Remember that today, "Poduct evangelist" and "Technology Evangelist" have a
very secular meaning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_evangelist


There was a time back in the seventies when a lot of
people really did believe that the PZM was the Final
Answer to recording.

Well, lots of enthusiasm.

Not just a
few people, but it did seem almost like a religious
fervor throughout the industry and _everybody_ had to
have a set of them in the cabinet.

Well, they do have a goodly number of relevant uses.

I used to have a pair of 28S (or was it 31S?) mics,
which I mounted on a 2' square sheet of Plexiglas and
hung from a mic extension arm. The sound was okay, but
had an odd quirk. With your eyes open, center fill was
poor, but improved greatly when I closed my eyes. Weird.
I used them for a few recordings, then went back to
conventional miking. Dr. Barclay bought the mics from me
last year.

By the way, the SASS has always struck me as hopelessly
overpriced. Why it costs more than $500 or $600 is
beyond me.

It's a *name* product.

The reason why it costs so much is that there isn't
anything else like it
on the market so they can charge that much.

Agreed.

It really is a nifty little gadget, and it really does do
what it's claimed to do: it is much more immune to poor
placement than most other microphone configurations.

Maybe.

It's debatable whether PZM was patentable. The basic
principle had been around for decades, and whether
turning the capsule upside-down represents a real,
non-obvious improvement is questionable.

There was prior art with the EV Microphone Mouse.

Which raises the question of which manufacturers are actually paying
royalties to Crown?

However, I dispute your point. The PZM principle was
patentable, as shown by the fact that they issued a
patent for it. Whether that patent would hold up in
court I have no idea, but I have noticed in general that patent fights
tend to go in the direction of the people with better
lawyers rather than the people with better engineers.

IME, people who want to win obtain very credible examples of both.

[Scott Dorsey]

Arny Krueger wrote:
There was prior art with the EV Microphone Mouse.

Which raises the question of which manufacturers are actually paying
royalties to Crown?

None any more since the patent expired.

As far as I know, Radio Shack is the only company that actually licensed
the Crown patent. And you will notice that when the patent expired, Radio
Shack very quickly discontinued their PZM microphone and replaced it with
a much cheaper "Boundary Microphone" of poorer quality.

A bunch of folks, even Schoeps, came out with boundary microphone designs
within weeks after the Crown patent expired. The Schoeps is actually
very popular in the film sound world for dealing with reflections off of
car windshields. Audio-Technica and Beyerdynamic make them too now.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Sun, 2 Nov 2008 12:27:01 -0700, Scott Dorsey wrote
(in article ):

A bunch of folks, even Schoeps, came out with boundary microphone designs
within weeks after the Crown patent expired. The Schoeps is actually
very popular in the film sound world for dealing with reflections off of
car windshields. Audio-Technica and Beyerdynamic make them too now.
------------------------------snip------------------------------

Sanken makes a similar boundary mike, the CUB-01, which I think is the most
popular microphone used near car windshields for current film & TV
production. These mikes are most often placed on the visor, one for each
actor in the front seats.

--MFW

[Arny Krueger]

"Marc Wielage" wrote in message
.com
On Sun, 2 Nov 2008 12:27:01 -0700, Scott Dorsey wrote
(in article ):

A bunch of folks, even Schoeps, came out with boundary
microphone designs within weeks after the Crown patent
expired. The Schoeps is actually very popular in the
film sound world for dealing with reflections off of car
windshields. Audio-Technica and Beyerdynamic make them
too now.
------------------------------snip------------------------------

Sanken makes a similar boundary mike, the CUB-01, which I
think is the most popular microphone used near car
windshields for current film & TV production. These mikes
are most often placed on the visor, one for each actor in
the front seats.


Inside or outside the car? I presume inside, but just checking. ;-)

Seems like a pretty good idea. Cars are generally very dead acoustically, so
the indiscriminate pickup of the PZM probably won't be a problem.

For the record, I'm pretty happy with a Shure PZM inside the grand piano at
church. Gain before feedback is awesome, and while the timbre coming out of
the mic is all wrong, it was easy enough to equalize it into something that
mixes well with the same piano's live sound.