DPA 4061 grid/eq question

[Nate Najar]

I'm going to post this in a few forums.

The mount I've decided I like the most for the DPA 4061 only works if
you leave the grid on the mic. with the grid on, the diameter of the
mic is such that it snaps into the center of this one mount. It puts
it in a reasonable height and easy to place situation for me with the
guitar.

But I prefer the sound without the grid for close miking. Is there a
reasonable way to try to eq it like that? quite kind of filter/slope/
db etc would on use to do that?

or not? grow up and find a better way to mount it without the grid?

I love how thick my schoeps mk41's sound. I wish i had a mic like
this little dpa that had the thickness of that schoeps. it's much
better without the grid, and a good sound, but nowhere near as huge
sounding for sure!

N

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Nate Najar wrote:

> I'm going to post this in a few forums.

I'll type the reply here.

> The mount I've decided I like the most for the DPA 4061 only works if
> you leave the grid on the mic. with the grid on, the diameter of the
> mic is such that it snaps into the center of this one mount. It puts
> it in a reasonable height and easy to place situation for me with the
> guitar.

A mic grid has two purposes in life, the first - in this mic class - is to
linearize the treble response, the second to protect the membrane. All mic
grids have at least one side effect: multiple possible paths for the sound,
thereby spreading it slightly in time. In this mic class that would annoy a
bat or a cat, in other mic class'es - the SM58 or LDC types - it "adds to
their characteristic colouration of the sound". Size matters, the larger the
mic the poorer the temporal qualities in the treble. Most also have another
sideeffect: internal resonance. The DPA nosecone is a great example, because
it has one one - a cavity resonance in front of the membrane - that it uses
to linearize the frequency response. Yes, it would be better not to do it
like that, but with that design there is no avoiding the resonance, only
using it wisely and some people prefer their mics not needed electrical eq.
Imo some of the time you're better off with simpler acoustic transfer
function that needs electical compensation than with a more commplex
acoustic transfer function that doesn't. The point could be made that the
DPA nosecone version should be avalailable with a linearizing preamp and a
simpler acoustic transfer function, but I digress.

> But I prefer the sound without the grid for close miking. Is there a
> reasonable way to try to eq it like that? quite kind of filter/slope/
> db etc would on use to do that?

try +4 dB Q 1.2 or 1.4 or 2.0 centered at 22 kHz.

> or not? grow up and find a better way to mount it without the grid?

I think you should send email to Ole Broested at DPA, they just might want
to redesign the mount.

> I love how thick my schoeps mk41's sound. I wish i had a mic like
> this little dpa that had the thickness of that schoeps. it's much
> better without the grid, and a good sound, but nowhere near as huge
> sounding for sure!

This is just another version of whether to keep the fronts on the
loudspeakers. It might well be that the nonsense reason - the better
temporal response audible only for bats and cats - really is why it sounds
better. The reasoning is that to my foggy way of thinking it makes more
sense to understand the human hearing from a concept of natively being able
to hear up to 32 kHz and then not being able to so do because of noise
induced hearing damage. Some newspaper item way many years ago mentioned
that upper frequency extension of human hearing did go above 20 kHz for
djungle dwelling natives .... a finding by some expedition to a south
american or african jungle.

> N

Kind regards

Peter Larsen