[hank alrich]

straightnut wrote:

Considering the acoustical issues of a small room and off-axis
anomalies of cheap microphones, I speculate that if not handled
properly this can be a deadly combination. The usual recommendation of
not recording in a completely dead space appears not to apply when
using microphones that have bad off-axis response. No matter how well
you remove a room's resonance problems, as long as you have
reflections, even pleasant ones, wouldn't it require a mic that is
good off-axis?

I figure that to get decent recordings from a small room, you can
either keep the room somewhat live and use a mic that sounds good both
on and off-axis, or if using a mic that is good on-axis but bad off-
axis, you can deaden the room and rely on a good reverb.

Perhaps a reason budget mic users have trouble making good recordings
is their reliance on reviews of microphones that were reviewed in nice
big rooms or nice dead rooms.

A helpful approach can be the strategic placement of baffles that reduce
the level of off-axis information. But yes, you're onto something here
that is generally overlooked in the "do it all in our bedroom with your
laptop" scenario, and that's the combo of room and mic quality. What
makes a Schoeps worth its asking money? Perhaps that what arrives
off-axis sounds almost exactly like what arrives on-axis, but at reduced
level. The same applies to the Sennheiser MD441, also not cheap.

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam