[hank alrich]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

Thanks for the considered reply, but I am not a novice. I am a 30 year
member of the AES. I know you don't agree with my audio theories on
reproduction, and that will have to be until you understand what I am
talking about.

I am not likely to understand what you are talking about until you know
what you are talking about, and we're not getting close to that yet.

Being an AES member does not make one a recordist, or a mix engineer,
nor a mastering engineer.

This is the essence of your delusion. Reading the pamphlet is not the
same as doing the work.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[hank alrich]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

"hank alrich" wrote in message ...

A solid and sensible response from Hank. I concur.

I used to do live recording, and enjoyed it very much. My basic problem was
that I was never to make recordings, day-in and day-out, to learn the basics.
* I made a lot of decent recordings, but -- with one exception, an Ambisonic
recording -- never a great one. Theory is fine -- and you absolutely /have/ to
have it -- but it is the grounding point for practical knowledge.

* The suggestion that you learn how to make a good /mono/ recording is
excellent.

Being able to get a good mono recording proves one is able to figure out
where to put a mic.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[hank alrich]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

I know the mike response
isn't as simplistic as the graphs depict, but I wonder if there isn't a way
to do some sort of waterfuall graphs that give this 3D picture?

David Josephson and his peers are so far beyond you on this stuff at
this point that you might as well give that up and get back trying to
learn how to figure out where to put mics.

We're trying to help you learn how to tie your shoes and you're
distracted by a passing chicken, thinking maybe you could put a saddle
on it and invent a new form of transportation.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

that distance and angle. But how do you test a microphone in the
first place? What is the source?

You need items:

sound dead room

reference microphone

compressor with side-band input

device under test

poweramp

data-recording device

As alternative sound source I vaguely remember something about a spark being
used because its real world response tends to mimic the theoretic reasonably
well.

Gary Eickmeier

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

Thanks for the considered reply, but I am not a novice. I am a 30 year
member of the AES.

That is plonkable.

I don't really think that learning recording is going to be as
difficult as you describe. Nor is placing microphones that big a
mystery.

I have learned a great deal in this last year about
coincident vs spaced, omni vs directional, all of the various
microphone positioning patterns such as MS and XY and ORT-F and NOS.
Just when I thought I had narrowed down my list of acceptable
techniques I observe a recording engineer friend of mine putting his
DPA omnis on a stand with a spacing of about 18 inches! And the sound
he gets is so rich, precise, and great stereo, that is the method
that I copied last season for the concerts, except I spaced mine more
like 3 feet.

Search term "The Stereophonic Zoom".

That's a long way of saying, simply, that I am not going to try
monophonic recording for a while until I learn what sound is.

First you learn to record mono, I by design started with that back when I
taught myself to record, next that using a spaced cardioids I needed to also
deploy a center omni. I got something right with those first recordings and
got seriously stung by an incompetent engineer who failed to grasp
Sennheisers diagrams for wiring a -N and a -HL so that I ended up recording
with one microphone out of phase.

Eventually I joined a tape recordists club and found out about how to deploy
closely spaced cardioids. Sat in on a lot of recordings and learned what
happens when you do what with the main pair and eventually also learned to
trust only myself. While I do think that you need to listen more, to your
setup and to suggestions, I also kinda think it is right that you do what
you durn well want. What I mean is that you need to learn what is good about
what other folks here advocate before you settle on your style of sound
reocrding.

Nuff' said.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[George Graves]

In article ,
Marc Wielage wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 13:44:44 -0700, Scott Dorsey wrote
(in article ):

The same reason most folks buy them; they are cheap and disposable, great
for applications where that's needed. They are a lifesaver for reporters
and sound effects guys can keep one in the glove compartment if they are
needed. You can't beat it for that sort of thing.
------------------------------snip------------------------------

I agree -- the Zoom would be a perfect small recorder for emergency
situations. But for serious music? Nope.

I have used an H2 for that purpose for years.

I don't think it'd be a terrible backup recorder if you fed it line level
from a real console and used real microphones placed in optimum positions..
But that's a lotta if's.

That's the way I usually use it. It even saved my butt once when I failed to properly configure the laptop computer I was using as a capture device. By the time I noticed the problem, the concert I was recording was close to half over! The H2 recorder captured it all, though in 24/96 stereo. When I substituted the H2 recording for the first half of the concert and used the (now fixed) laptop recording for the second half, nobody could tell the difference because the same mikes and console were used for both.

I notice Mr. Eickmeier is ignoring the suggestion to try a Sound Devices
recorder before he dismisses it. Sad.

I've known Gary for some time. He's a good guy and an interesting one, but he is somewhat stubborn and generally goes his own way. Once he latches on to an idea that he likes, he cannot be easily dissuaded. For instance, he loves spaced omnis for some reason and doesn't like X-Y. Why, I don't know. The stereo is obviously much better with X-Y, but for some reason, he doesn't agree. It might be because of his monitor speakers (Bose 901's !) and the way he has them configured. Your guess is as good as mine


George Graves

[Ron C[_2_]]

On 10/1/2013 12:06 PM, Peter Larsen wrote:
Gary Eickmeier wrote:

...snip...

That's a long way of saying, simply, that I am not going to try
monophonic recording for a while until I learn what sound is.

First you learn to record mono, I by design started with that back when I
taught myself to record, next that using a spaced cardioids I needed to also
deploy a center omni. I got something right with those first recordings and
got seriously stung by an incompetent engineer who failed to grasp
Sennheisers diagrams for wiring a -N and a -HL so that I ended up recording
with one microphone out of phase.

Eventually I joined a tape recordists club and found out about how to deploy
closely spaced cardioids. Sat in on a lot of recordings and learned what
happens when you do what with the main pair and eventually also learned to
trust only myself. While I do think that you need to listen more, to your
setup and to suggestions, I also kinda think it is right that you do what
you durn well want. What I mean is that you need to learn what is good about
what other folks here advocate before you settle on your style of sound
reocrding.

Nuff' said.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

I totally agree that one should learn to walk first. However, keep in
mind that
Mr. Eickmeier is totally enamored, infatuated, captivated, enchanted,
fascinated,
and beguiled by the spatial aspect of sound, perhaps to the exclusion of
many
other aspects. When you're that deeply in love it's hard to step back
and see the
full picture.

==
Later...
Ron Capik
--

[William Sommerwerck]

"Ron C" wrote in message
...

I totally agree that one should learn to walk first. However,
keep in mind that Mr. Eickmeier is totally enamored, infatuated,
captivated, enchanted, fascinated, and beguiled by the spatial
aspect of sound, perhaps to the exclusion of many other aspects.
When you're that deeply in love it's hard to step back and see the
full picture.

I can't agree. One should try to understand things in terms of basic
principles. Personal taste should not be an important factor.

[hank alrich]

George Graves wrote:

It might be because of his monitor speakers (Bose 901's !)

Yep, the foundation of his work is built of marshmallows, so he thinks
it all sounds pretty sweet.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[hank alrich]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

"Ron C" wrote in message
...

I totally agree that one should learn to walk first. However,
keep in mind that Mr. Eickmeier is totally enamored, infatuated,
captivated, enchanted, fascinated, and beguiled by the spatial
aspect of sound, perhaps to the exclusion of many other aspects.
When you're that deeply in love it's hard to step back and see the
full picture.

I can't agree. One should try to understand things in terms of basic
principles. Personal taste should not be an important factor.

While I may agree, in this situation Gary hangs all established
principles on his own thornbush of personal taste.

Sucessful recordists for the most part can set aside their personal
taste to deliver work that translates nicely for both a wide range of
playback systems and a broad spectrum of personal tastes.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[George Graves]

On Tuesday, October 1, 2013 7:29:35 AM UTC-7, hank alrich wrote:
Gary Eickmeier wrote:



Thanks for the considered reply, but I am not a novice. I am a 30 year

member of the AES. I know you don't agree with my audio theories on

reproduction, and that will have to be until you understand what I am

talking about.



I am not likely to understand what you are talking about until you know

what you are talking about, and we're not getting close to that yet.



Being an AES member does not make one a recordist, or a mix engineer,

nor a mastering engineer.



This is the essence of your delusion. Reading the pamphlet is not the
same as doing the work.


Your comments reminded me of a guy I used to know. I was recording a well known, and well respected symphony orchestra with a world-renown conductor then. This guy (let's call him Bob) used to come back stage and watch me hang microphones, set up equipment, align and bias my (then) Otari 2-track/15ips MX-5050s, etc. while I was recording, he would sit next to me back-stage and write down everything I did! He'd make little drawings of all the switch and fader positions on my mixing console, ask me about things like the distance of my mikes from the stage, from the conductor, from the orchestra, etc. I wondered why. He didn't have the same TAPCO mixer I had, he didn't use Sony C-37p or C-500 microphones like I did. So, I wondered at the purpose of it all.

Now, Bob was eat-up with recording. It was his main hobby. He even bought a panel van to carry all of his gear and he recorded constantly. Anyway, after a number of years of recording this symphony, my REAL job started to require me to travel a lot and I could no longer count on being in town for the symphony performances. Bob begged me to recommend him to replace me. He had the gear and the enthusiasm, so I suggested to the symphony management that they hire him.

Occasionally, when I was in town, I would drop by the concert hall and hang-out with Bob. He used the exact-same microphone configurations that I used, except he used Neumann U-87s instead of Sony C-37Ps as his principle microphone pair and he had a Yamaha mixer, instead of a TAPCO. All fine and good. Then I noticed his pan-pot positions for the Neumanns. They were at 10:30 and 1:30 positions. Why? I asked him. His answer was that with the mikes panned fully left and right he got a "hole-in-the-middle". I couldn't imagine why this would be so until he invited me to his house. His speakers were located in the corners of his living room across the wide dimension of the room! They must have been 17 feet apart. He gave me a dub of one of the recordings and on my stereo, where the speakers were about 7 feel apart, there was essentially dead mono. After getting to know Bob a bit better, I realized that he had no "feel" for what he was doing. He copied what others did in similar situations, but he didn't understand the basics of recording and simply could not visualize microphone pickup patterns and he had no sense of how to properly use his microphones.

In other words, he had the experience (he recorded a lot), the equipment, and the enthusiasm. What he lacked was TALENT and therefore couldn't grasp what it was he was doing on almost any level. He couldn't understand, for instance, that pan-potting a stereo pair of mikes to fill-in the "hole-in-the-middle" of his playback speakers, ruined the recording for everybody. Talent is REQUIRED to be a successful recordist. Having the enthusiasm is wonderful, and all, but it's simply not enough. If you don't have the basic understanding of your tools and how to apply them, you'll never get anywhere.

[Ron C[_2_]]

On 10/1/2013 12:47 PM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
"Ron C" wrote in message
...

I totally agree that one should learn to walk first. However,
keep in mind that Mr. Eickmeier is totally enamored, infatuated,
captivated, enchanted, fascinated, and beguiled by the spatial
aspect of sound, perhaps to the exclusion of many other aspects.
When you're that deeply in love it's hard to step back and see the
full picture.

I can't agree. One should try to understand things in terms of basic
principles. Personal taste should not be an important factor.

Wait, are you saying that you don't agree that Mr. Eickmeier is
so infatuated with the spacial aspects that he can't see the forest
for the trees?

==
Later...
Ron Capik
--

[Scott Dorsey]

Ron C wrote:
I totally agree that one should learn to walk first. However, keep in
mind that
Mr. Eickmeier is totally enamored, infatuated, captivated, enchanted,
fascinated,
and beguiled by the spatial aspect of sound, perhaps to the exclusion of
many
other aspects. When you're that deeply in love it's hard to step back
and see the
full picture.

Unfortunately it's not just Mr. Eickmeier. I think the obsession with
imaging is very common in the high end community and that the marketing
of high end products goes far to feed that obsession.

And it's interesting in part because very small changes in tonality can
wind up causing huge imaging changes; if you can't get tonality right,
you won't ever get good imaging.

Also, there are a lot of individual cues that can fool you into thinking
you're hearing real imaging even with a mono recording, which goes to
confound issues that much more.

This summer I heard a speaker system that employed two huge fibreglass
exponential horns with old Altec compression drivers. The manufacturer
kept raving about how wonderful the imaging was, but it was hard to notice
anything beyond the massive narrowband horn resonances.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[John Williamson]

Mike Rivers wrote:
On 9/28/2013 10:49 PM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:

Did you note the simultaneous -12 dB track just in case you went
overboard on the gain? Like, brilliant.

That's a fairly common feature of handheld recorders these days.
Brilliant is how the Sony PCM-D50 handles "overs." It's always recording
a backup stereo track 10 dB or so below the primary recording.. When it
detects an overload, it automatically replaces the overloaded portion
with the backup track and normalizes it so that it goes to full scale,
but not clipped. It's the perfect limiter. I wish they could put it in a
box with analog inputs and outputs.


Just out of interest, does it do the trick by just reducing the digital
output from the ADC or does it have an analogue signal path with levels
10dB below the one in use? From your phrasing, I'd guess the latter, but
my cynic's hat says otherwise.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Tobiah]

On 10/01/2013 11:44 AM, John Williamson wrote:
Mike Rivers wrote:
On 9/28/2013 10:49 PM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:

Did you note the simultaneous -12 dB track just in case you went
overboard on the gain? Like, brilliant.

Just out of interest, does it do the trick by just reducing the digital output from the ADC or does it have an analogue signal path
with levels 10dB below the one in use? From your phrasing, I'd guess the latter, but my cynic's hat says otherwise.



If it only digitally cut the ADC output, then it would reproduce the clipping.
It seems that there must be two ADC's.

Tobiah

[George Graves]

In article ,
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Ron C wrote:
I totally agree that one should learn to walk first. However, keep in
mind that
Mr. Eickmeier is totally enamored, infatuated, captivated, enchanted,
fascinated,
and beguiled by the spatial aspect of sound, perhaps to the exclusion of
many
other aspects. When you're that deeply in love it's hard to step back
and see the
full picture.

Unfortunately it's not just Mr. Eickmeier. I think the obsession with
imaging is very common in the high end community and that the marketing
of high end products goes far to feed that obsession.

And it's interesting in part because very small changes in tonality can
wind up causing huge imaging changes; if you can't get tonality right,
you won't ever get good imaging.

Also, there are a lot of individual cues that can fool you into thinking
you're hearing real imaging even with a mono recording, which goes to
confound issues that much more.

This summer I heard a speaker system that employed two huge fibreglass
exponential horns with old Altec compression drivers. The manufacturer
kept raving about how wonderful the imaging was, but it was hard to notice
anything beyond the massive narrowband horn resonances.
--scott

Funny thing about imaging. It has to exist in the recording. Often, in modern recordings, especially commercial pop/rock recordings it's not. It also doesn't exist in multimiked/multi-channel classical recordings or in most commercial jazz recordings. True stereo (the only way to get real image specificity, image height and imaging front-to-back layering) just isn't done that much, commercially

[William Sommerwerck]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message ...

I think the obsession with imaging is very common in the
high-end community and that the marketing of high-end
products goes far to feed that obsession.

This obsession might go back to the DQ-10.

One aspect of "imaging" is that a good recording contains directional cues --
both gross and subtle -- and reproducing them not only adds to the sense of
realism, but indicates that the speaker is generally accurate.

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Ron C wrote:

I totally agree that one should learn to walk first. However, keep in
mind that
Mr. Eickmeier is totally enamored, infatuated, captivated, enchanted,
fascinated,
and beguiled

I don't want to comment so that it can be read as commenting on Mr.
Eckmeier. However I check imaging on a very different stereo setups, one
needs at least three in at least two rooms or to bother friends and family
with "can we hear this on your fine system, please".

by the spatial aspect of sound, perhaps to the exclusion
of many other aspects. When you're that deeply in love it's
hard to step back and see the full picture.

At a surround sound event of some kind in the Danish AES chapter two
interesting things happened, one was that it dawned on me that the term
correlation/decorrelation not only applies to a 5.1 mic rig, but that it is
the only relevant distinction also between stereo setups.

That was the positive outcome, the negative outcome was that a lecturer said
that with 5.1 it is so much easier to hear everything that the mix matters a
lot less. It is a longhanded way of actually saying that "ya can't record if
ya can't record mono", the gruesome part being that he didn't realized it
and thought that he was better at recording and mixing now that he worked in
5.1.

Well recorded mono has perspective and layering and working in mono shows
how critical other parameters, like level and tonality/eq are as tools to
control it. What the good rock mixers I have met have taught me, especially
Henrik Steen Nielsen of Alrune Rod, is that "it is all about center image",
it is the cake, left and right are just the icing.

Oh, the R44 offers mono monitoring as well as pairing of two machines btw.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

George Graves wrote:

Funny thing about imaging. It has to exist in the recording. Often,
in modern recordings, especially commercial pop/rock recordings it's
not. It also doesn't exist in multimiked/multi-channel classical
recordings or in most commercial jazz recordings. True stereo (the
only way to get real image specificity, image height and imaging
front-to-back layering) just isn't done that much, commercially

Yes, height information! - it is probably an illusion, but it is when the
image leaves the monofilament between the loudspeakers and happen above and
outside them and you hear the room behind you that you got stereo right and
then you sit and wonder what 5.1 is all about

Of course the Carlson bins made it happen all the time ...

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 10/1/2013 1:54 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:

the TASCAM DR-680

Looks like a nice little recorder for $300 more. Doesn't seem as easy to
mount on a stand and use as a video dual system recorder. Oops - doesn't
have any built in mikes anyway.

No, it's not intended to be mounted on a stand. Microphones are intended
to be mounted on a stand.

You didn't say you wanted a microphone, too. I thoght you wanted to
experiment with real microphones, and that's why you wanted those
external inputs. If you can live with the built-in microphones plus two
external ones, consider the TASCAM DR-40.




--
For a good time, call http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 10/1/2013 2:44 PM, John Williamson wrote:

Brilliant is how the Sony PCM-D50 handles "overs." It's always
recording a backup stereo track 10 dB or so below the primary
recording.. When it detects an overload, it automatically replaces the
overloaded portion with the backup track and normalizes it so that it
goes to full scale, but not clipped.

Just out of interest, does it do the trick by just reducing the digital
output from the ADC or does it have an analogue signal path with levels
10dB below the one in use?

I don't know, but I screamed really close to the mics with the input
gain up full and what came out wasn't clipped. I suspect that it's
possible to overload the front end feeding the "emergency" track at some
point - it's not absolutely foolproof, but the record level control
appears to work right at the input stage, or else it has a phenomenal
amount of headroom. I could put +28 dBu or so into the external line
inputs, turn the input level control so that the meters were below full
scale, and not have clipping.


--
For a good time, call http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[George Graves]

In article ,
"Peter Larsen" wrote:

George Graves wrote:

Funny thing about imaging. It has to exist in the recording. Often,
in modern recordings, especially commercial pop/rock recordings it's
not. It also doesn't exist in multimiked/multi-channel classical
recordings or in most commercial jazz recordings. True stereo (the
only way to get real image specificity, image height and imaging
front-to-back layering) just isn't done that much, commercially

Yes, height information! - it is probably an illusion, but it is when the
image leaves the monofilament between the loudspeakers and happen above and
outside them and you hear the room behind you that you got stereo right and
then you sit and wonder what 5.1 is all about

Of course the Carlson bins made it happen all the time ...

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

To be honest, all stereo is an illusion. but I'm continually amazed at what an impressive illusion is possible with just a couple of good, well placed microphones. Image height is captured, One can close their eyes and pick out, in space, each instrument in the ensemble even when many instruments are playing together. One can hear that the brasses are behind the woodwinds, and the triangle "floats" over the left side of the orchestra, just like it does in the concert hall. Sure it's an illusion, but it can be a damned good one!

George Graves

[Scott Dorsey]

George Graves wrote:

Funny thing about imaging. It has to exist in the recording. Often, in mode=
rn recordings, especially commercial pop/rock recordings it's not. It also =
doesn't exist in multimiked/multi-channel classical recordings or in most c=
ommercial jazz recordings. True stereo (the only way to get real image spec=
ificity, image height and imaging front-to-back layering) just isn't done t=
hat much, commercially

And that, in short, is why people use things like the Bose 901s, which add
artificial phase cues in there.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Gary Eickmeier]

Mike Rivers wrote:
On 10/1/2013 1:54 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:

the TASCAM DR-680

Looks like a nice little recorder for $300 more. Doesn't seem as
easy to mount on a stand and use as a video dual system recorder.
Oops - doesn't have any built in mikes anyway.

No, it's not intended to be mounted on a stand. Microphones are
intended to be mounted on a stand.

You didn't say you wanted a microphone, too. I thoght you wanted to
experiment with real microphones, and that's why you wanted those
external inputs. If you can live with the built-in microphones plus
two external ones, consider the TASCAM DR-40.

OK fellers, see if you can absorb all of this information at once.

1. I am not a professional recording engineer and don't want or need an
$8000 recorder. This is not because I am stubborn.

2. I have been able to coax great performance out of small, inexpensive
digital recorders. I don't think spending a lot more would yield a lot
better results, any more than an expensive DAC would sound that much better
than a reasonable one, or a CD player, or any of a number of examples that
we are all familiar with.

3. I do two things with these little recorders: Audio and video. In audio I
am experimenting with and recording for their purposes, a local band. For
this I need a good recorder with multiple powered XLR inputs for good
microphones. In video I record the sound for double system sound tracks for
video production. Think of plays, music events etc. For this use I need a
small recorder on a mike stand that has its own built-in microphones.

4. I have experimented with spaced omni both widely spaced 3 mikes and 1
meter spaced two mikes, MS, NOS, ORT-F, and of late my own configuration
with 3 cardioids.

5. I use Bose 901s in my home system because of a life-long study of the
spatial nature of sound. My paper is called An Image Model Theory for
Stereophonic Sound. The 901s do not sound mushy, poopy, overly diffuse or
misguided if used properly. Quite the opposite, they are the only correctly
designed speaker in the world at present. My prototype speakers are designed
along those lines ( a shaped radiation pattern designed around image
modeling the typical live sound presentation) and the latest ones beat the
Behringers and Linkwitz Orions in the Linkwitz Challenge at the AES. Long
story shorter, you haven't heard my system so take your own advice and
withhold judgement until you do.

Gary Eickmeier

[hank alrich]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

5. I use Bose 901s in my home system because of a life-long study of the
spatial nature of sound. My paper is called An Image Model Theory for
Stereophonic Sound. The 901s do not sound mushy, poopy, overly diffuse or
misguided if used properly. Quite the opposite, they are the only correctly
designed speaker in the world at present. My prototype speakers are designed
along those lines ( a shaped radiation pattern designed around image
modeling the typical live sound presentation) and the latest ones beat the
Behringers and Linkwitz Orions in the Linkwitz Challenge at the AES. Long
story shorter, you haven't heard my system so take your own advice and
withhold judgement until you do.

Okay, I get it. You're a troll. ****ing ridiculous crap you're spouting.

Have at it.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[Gary Eickmeier]

Peter Larsen wrote:
Gary Eickmeier wrote:

that distance and angle. But how do you test a microphone in the
first place? What is the source?

You need items:

sound dead room

reference microphone

compressor with side-band input

device under test

poweramp

data-recording device

As alternative sound source I vaguely remember something about a
spark being used because its real world response tends to mimic the
theoretic reasonably well.

Well, that's almost an explanation! But seriously, does anyone know exactly
how they measure microphones? Is it this convolution thing on a spark
discharge, or do they take measurements all around like with a loudspeaker
and get some sort of 3D plot? Or both?

I know that it's just as important to measure the pattern of the microphone
as the axial response. I don't "need" to know, just curious. I do most of
this stuff by ear anyway. But Scott has me all concerned about the off axis
response of cardioids because I am using two side facing ones. Then I mix in
a front facing one just right, to fill in the center.

I used to equalize my AT-2050s, but they sound better left alone.

Gary Eickmeier

[Gary Eickmeier]

George Graves wrote:
In article ,
"Peter Larsen" wrote:

George Graves wrote:

Funny thing about imaging. It has to exist in the recording. Often,
in modern recordings, especially commercial pop/rock recordings it's
not. It also doesn't exist in multimiked/multi-channel classical
recordings or in most commercial jazz recordings. True stereo (the
only way to get real image specificity, image height and imaging
front-to-back layering) just isn't done that much, commercially

Yes, height information! - it is probably an illusion, but it is
when the image leaves the monofilament between the loudspeakers and
happen above and outside them and you hear the room behind you that
you got stereo right and then you sit and wonder what 5.1 is all
about

Of course the Carlson bins made it happen all the time ...

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

To be honest, all stereo is an illusion. but I'm continually amazed
at what an impressive illusion is possible with just a couple of
good, well placed microphones. Image height is captured, One can
close their eyes and pick out, in space, each instrument in the
ensemble even when many instruments are playing together. One can
hear that the brasses are behind the woodwinds, and the triangle
"floats" over the left side of the orchestra, just like it does in
the concert hall. Sure it's an illusion, but it can be a damned good
one!

No, image height is not "captured." Neither the ears nor the microphones
have any mechanism to detect height. It is strictly a pinna effect wherein
certain frequencies seem to sound above where they should be. At the live
event you don't hear this because your eyes override the effect. On
playback, it often sems like the horns are higher than the rest of the
instruments.

Someone made a test record that was supposed to test your system's height
imaging ability. The test tone was supposed to rise up and go over the top
and back down to the other speaker. Something like that. If your speakers
couldn't do it you weren't doing it right.

I was never real concerned about it.

Another great one is a flamenco recording where the foot stomping is heard
unmistakably to be coming from the floor of your listening room. I have
heard it many times, but I know it is a psychoacoustic effect. Still,
enjoyable.

If you have some stereo test records with outdoor scenes, you hear the birds
as coming from above. Same for airplanes. Trains stay level, but it sure is
hard to get them to pass in a straight line as they go off into the
distance.

Gary

[Gary Eickmeier]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
George Graves wrote:

Funny thing about imaging. It has to exist in the recording. Often,
in mode= rn recordings, especially commercial pop/rock recordings
it's not. It also = doesn't exist in multimiked/multi-channel
classical recordings or in most c= ommercial jazz recordings. True
stereo (the only way to get real image spec= ificity, image height
and imaging front-to-back layering) just isn't done t= hat much,
commercially

And that, in short, is why people use things like the Bose 901s,
which add artificial phase cues in there.
--scott

No, I have tried to explain to you that there is more to speaker sound and
imaging than frequency response. Most engineers have a hard time thinking in
spatial terms, but the effects of the 901's radiation pattern are spatial,
not "phase" or "comb filtering" or any other nonsense that you can measure
with a microphone. They are spatial effects, caused by the radiation pattern
and its interacction with the room surfaces.

The easiest way to understand the spatial nature of sound is to make an
image model drawing. This is a technique from architectural acoustics in
which you draw the reflected sound as virtual sources on the other side of
the rerlecting surfaces, rather than ray tracing. It gives you a bird's eye
view of the entire horizontal early reflection situation. Using this
technique you can more easily see the effects of speaker positioning,
especially for multi-directional speakers. Very instructive.

Gary Eickmeier

[Gary Eickmeier]

hank alrich wrote:
William Sommerwerck wrote:

"Ron C" wrote in message
...

I totally agree that one should learn to walk first. However,
keep in mind that Mr. Eickmeier is totally enamored, infatuated,
captivated, enchanted, fascinated, and beguiled by the spatial
aspect of sound, perhaps to the exclusion of many other aspects.
When you're that deeply in love it's hard to step back and see the
full picture.

I can't agree. One should try to understand things in terms of basic
principles. Personal taste should not be an important factor.

While I may agree, in this situation Gary hangs all established
principles on his own thornbush of personal taste.

Sucessful recordists for the most part can set aside their personal
taste to deliver work that translates nicely for both a wide range of
playback systems and a broad spectrum of personal tastes.

Are you guys saying that you do your work in a sort of paint by numbers
textbook manner, rather than using your ears and judgement and feedback?

Gary Eickmeier

[Gary Eickmeier]

George Graves wrote:

Your comments reminded me of a guy I used to know. I was recording a
well known, and well respected symphony orchestra with a world-renown
conductor then. This guy (let's call him Bob) used to come back stage
and watch me hang microphones, set up equipment, align and bias my
(then) Otari 2-track/15ips MX-5050s, etc. while I was recording, he
would sit next to me back-stage and write down everything I did! He'd
make little drawings of all the switch and fader positions on my
mixing console, ask me about things like the distance of my mikes
from the stage, from the conductor, from the orchestra, etc. I
wondered why. He didn't have the same TAPCO mixer I had, he didn't
use Sony C-37p or C-500 microphones like I did. So, I wondered at the
purpose of it all.

Now, Bob was eat-up with recording. It was his main hobby. He even
bought a panel van to carry all of his gear and he recorded
constantly. Anyway, after a number of years of recording this
symphony, my REAL job started to require me to travel a lot and I
could no longer count on being in town for the symphony performances.
Bob begged me to recommend him to replace me. He had the gear and the
enthusiasm, so I suggested to the symphony management that they hire
him.

Occasionally, when I was in town, I would drop by the concert hall
and hang-out with Bob. He used the exact-same microphone
configurations that I used, except he used Neumann U-87s instead of
Sony C-37Ps as his principle microphone pair and he had a Yamaha
mixer, instead of a TAPCO. All fine and good. Then I noticed his
pan-pot positions for the Neumanns. They were at 10:30 and 1:30
positions. Why? I asked him. His answer was that with the mikes
panned fully left and right he got a "hole-in-the-middle". I couldn't
imagine why this would be so until he invited me to his house. His
speakers were located in the corners of his living room across the
wide dimension of the room! They must have been 17 feet apart. He
gave me a dub of one of the recordings and on my stereo, where the
speakers were about 7 feel apart, there was essentially dead mono.
After getting to know Bob a bit better, I realized that he had no
"feel" for what he was doing. He copied what others did in similar
situations, but he didn't understand the basics of recording and
simply could not visualize microphone pickup patterns and he had no
sense of how to properly use his microphones.

In other words, he had the experience (he recorded a lot), the
equipment, and the enthusiasm. What he lacked was TALENT and
therefore couldn't grasp what it was he was doing on almost any
level. He couldn't understand, for instance, that pan-potting a
stereo pair of mikes to fill-in the "hole-in-the-middle" of his
playback speakers, ruined the recording for everybody. Talent is
REQUIRED to be a successful recordist. Having the enthusiasm is
wonderful, and all, but it's simply not enough. If you don't have the
basic understanding of your tools and how to apply them, you'll never
get anywhere.

I have a friend who used to do video transfers of 8mm film to videotape. He
had some fairly good equipment in his little film chain, stuff that was
meant for that purpose, but his results were terrible. I had him do one of
mine one time, and it was so bad I decided to do it myself by projecting
onto a white screen and shooting it with a camera. Much better.

So I went over to his place and had him set up a session and show me what he
was doing. You guessed it, the monitor was not even attempted to be
calibrated, and he was making adjustments to color and brighness and
contrast based on this horrid picture. I told him about it, but he just blew
it off. And people were constantly sending him work, I guess because they
didn't know what was possible either.

Gary

[Gary Eickmeier]

hank alrich wrote:
Gary Eickmeier wrote:

Thanks for the considered reply, but I am not a novice. I am a 30
year member of the AES. I know you don't agree with my audio
theories on reproduction, and that will have to be until you
understand what I am talking about.

I am not likely to understand what you are talking about until you
know what you are talking about, and we're not getting close to that
yet.

Being an AES member does not make one a recordist, or a mix engineer,
nor a mastering engineer.

This is the essence of your delusion. Reading the pamphlet is not the
same as doing the work.

Ha ha - good one. I should go out and record something.

Gary

[Gary Eickmeier]

Peter Larsen wrote:
Gary Eickmeier wrote:

Thanks for the considered reply, but I am not a novice. I am a 30
year member of the AES.

That is plonkable.

Well, I mean I actually did stuff there.

I don't really think that learning recording is going to be as
difficult as you describe. Nor is placing microphones that big a
mystery.

I have learned a great deal in this last year about
coincident vs spaced, omni vs directional, all of the various
microphone positioning patterns such as MS and XY and ORT-F and NOS.
Just when I thought I had narrowed down my list of acceptable
techniques I observe a recording engineer friend of mine putting his
DPA omnis on a stand with a spacing of about 18 inches! And the sound
he gets is so rich, precise, and great stereo, that is the method
that I copied last season for the concerts, except I spaced mine more
like 3 feet.

Search term "The Stereophonic Zoom".

That's a long way of saying, simply, that I am not going to try
monophonic recording for a while until I learn what sound is.

First you learn to record mono, I by design started with that back
when I taught myself to record, next that using a spaced cardioids I
needed to also deploy a center omni. I got something right with those
first recordings and got seriously stung by an incompetent engineer
who failed to grasp Sennheisers diagrams for wiring a -N and a -HL so
that I ended up recording with one microphone out of phase.

Eventually I joined a tape recordists club and found out about how to
deploy closely spaced cardioids. Sat in on a lot of recordings and
learned what happens when you do what with the main pair and
eventually also learned to trust only myself. While I do think that
you need to listen more, to your setup and to suggestions, I also
kinda think it is right that you do what you durn well want. What I
mean is that you need to learn what is good about what other folks
here advocate before you settle on your style of sound reocrding.

Nuff' said.

That's pretty much the process here Peter. But thanks for confirming.

Gary

[Gary Eickmeier]

George Graves wrote:
In article ,
Marc Wielage wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 13:44:44 -0700, Scott Dorsey wrote
(in article ):

The same reason most folks buy them; they are cheap and disposable,
great for applications where that's needed. They are a lifesaver
for reporters and sound effects guys can keep one in the glove
compartment if they are needed. You can't beat it for that sort of
thing.
------------------------------snip------------------------------

I agree -- the Zoom would be a perfect small recorder for emergency
situations. But for serious music? Nope.

I have used an H2 for that purpose for years.

I don't think it'd be a terrible backup recorder if you fed it line
level from a real console and used real microphones placed in
optimum positions. But that's a lotta if's.

That's the way I usually use it. It even saved my butt once when I
failed to properly configure the laptop computer I was using as a
capture device. By the time I noticed the problem, the concert I was
recording was close to half over! The H2 recorder captured it all,
though in 24/96 stereo. When I substituted the H2 recording for the
first half of the concert and used the (now fixed) laptop recording
for the second half, nobody could tell the difference because the
same mikes and console were used for both.

I notice Mr. Eickmeier is ignoring the suggestion to try a Sound
Devices recorder before he dismisses it. Sad.

I've known Gary for some time. He's a good guy and an interesting
one, but he is somewhat stubborn and generally goes his own way. Once
he latches on to an idea that he likes, he cannot be easily
dissuaded. For instance, he loves spaced omnis for some reason and
doesn't like X-Y. Why, I don't know. The stereo is obviously much
better with X-Y, but for some reason, he doesn't agree. It might be
because of his monitor speakers (Bose 901's !) and the way he has
them configured. Your guess is as good as mine

Your confusion is understandable George. You are coming into this thread a
little late. Please read on through.

George and I exchange recordings occasionally, and he has sent me some great
ones, naturally recorded (i.e. not multimiked) at live events. I actually
have conversed with him on many occasions in Emails and really do find his
advice good and worth considering. He is a little hard headed on multimiking
and accent mikes, but he has not done solo vocalists (apparently).

All of this high minded stereo purist talk is fine until you come up against
your first amplified rock or jazz group. That is a whole nuther ball of wax,
and worth discussing in some other thread. I have tried it twice now in
conjunction with video work, and the problems are monumental.

One last general comment. The truest truism we can state about all of this
recording and playback of live sounds is that you can't tell what your
recordings sound like until they are played back. This sounds like a
triviality, but what it means is, when I send George a recording or when he
sends me one, we don't really know what the other will hear from it! It's
kind of like Floyd Toole's circle of confusion. We make recordings that will
sound good on our systems, then we make judgements about the recording based
on that system and judgements about our systems based on our recordings.

So how do we know which is correct? My answer is the same way I know how to
adjust my color TV or projector by eye, which is to play a lot of good
material on it and make it look (or sound) good on most of them, or the best
of them. Then, when I play my own videos on that monitor, or my own
recordings on my system, I know that the standard is what the best
recordings sound like and that I can differentiate the good from the bad on
my system. For example, I can tell the qualities of George's recordings by
listening on my system, and I can hear the spatial qualities of all
recordings and differentiate among them. I have more faith in my system's
ability to do this than other systems that I have heard in a long history of
listening for imaging, timbre, soundstaging, the ability of the speakers to
disappear, and my personal ultimate standard of realism. To me most other
systems have a sameness that bespeaks a number that they are doing to the
spatial qualities that is not natural, i.e. changing the lifelike qualities
of live sound to "speakery" sound, as in "Hey mofo, listen to these
tweeters," or "Hey, you want honky, wait till you hear this."

Bottom line, all I can do is restate that I can hear all of these things, I
can judge my own recordings and those of others using my sound system in a
room that I designed that may even be better than most of yours, that it is
calibrated correctly and that I am not an idiot reading pamphlets, not doing
the work, and not using everything I know and can hear for myself. I am a
lifelong photographer, filmmaker, videographer, audiophile and graduate
industrial designer. Learning recording is instructive because it finishes
this feedback loop that starts from listening to others' work and constantly
refining, recalibrating if you will, based on all factors of the circle of
confusion.

If I am to be faulted because I have my own ideas about audio, then join the
crowd because very few audio engineers agree about anything, much less
recording or playback technology. We are all on our own, but I do indeed
listen.

Gary Eickmeier

[Trevor]

"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in message
...
Poor dumb Gary, thinking you can get a good digital recorder for $399.
Probably thinks you can get a good car for under 30 thou, or DSLR for
$900. Poor *******.

Yep, being poor does place a limit on your desire for the best regardless of
cost. :-(
Of course being rich doesn't necessarily make you appreciate it though.
And being poor or rich has no direct correlation with being smart or dumb.

Trevor.

[John Williamson]

Mike Rivers wrote:
On 10/1/2013 2:44 PM, John Williamson wrote:

Brilliant is how the Sony PCM-D50 handles "overs." It's always
recording a backup stereo track 10 dB or so below the primary
recording.. When it detects an overload, it automatically replaces the
overloaded portion with the backup track and normalizes it so that it
goes to full scale, but not clipped.

Just out of interest, does it do the trick by just reducing the digital
output from the ADC or does it have an analogue signal path with levels
10dB below the one in use?

I don't know, but I screamed really close to the mics with the input
gain up full and what came out wasn't clipped. I suspect that it's
possible to overload the front end feeding the "emergency" track at some
point - it's not absolutely foolproof, but the record level control
appears to work right at the input stage, or else it has a phenomenal
amount of headroom. I could put +28 dBu or so into the external line
inputs, turn the input level control so that the meters were below full
scale, and not have clipping.


Sounds like a facility worth having, then.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Tue, 1 Oct 2013 09:21:07 -0700, George Graves wrote
(in article ):

It might be because of his monitor speakers (Bose 901's !) and the way
he has them configured. Your guess is as good as mine
------------------------------snip------------------------------

Say no more!


--MFW

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 10/2/2013 12:28 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:

OK fellers, see if you can absorb all of this information at once.

1. I am not a professional recording engineer and don't want or need an
$8000 recorder. This is not because I am stubborn.

Fair enough. I don't have an $8,000 portable recorder, but if I wanted
to record live with six mics, I don't mind toting a couple of devices
and cables to put them together on site. Takes maybe 10 minutes more
than pulling a Zoom H6 out of your trench coat pocket.

2. I have been able to coax great performance out of small, inexpensive
digital recorders.

You don't have to coax great performance out of these things, you just
have to put the mics in the right place. The signal path isn't nearly as
bad as some people here are making it out to be.

3. I do two things with these little recorders: Audio and video. In audio I
am experimenting with and recording for their purposes, a local band. For
this I need a good recorder with multiple powered XLR inputs for good
microphones. In video I record the sound for double system sound tracks for
video production. Think of plays, music events etc. For this use I need a
small recorder on a mike stand that has its own built-in microphones.

Why do you need a small recorder on a mic stand for this? What's wrong
with a mic on a mic stand connected to a recorder? Or, do you need
another one? You already have a Zoom H2 don't you? What's wrong with
using that when that's the appropriate tool for your job? You don't
expect to sell the H2 for enough money to make it worth selling, do you?

I"m sure you'll do fine with the H6. I'd just make a different choice
myself. I like to be able to use the right tool for every job, not have
one tool that I can make work for any job. That would be nice, but I
haven't found it yet, and I've been around this business for more than
50 years.


--
For a good time, call http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[Scott Dorsey]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

Well, that's almost an explanation! But seriously, does anyone know exactly
how they measure microphones? Is it this convolution thing on a spark
discharge, or do they take measurements all around like with a loudspeaker
and get some sort of 3D plot? Or both?

There are several papers on the subject in the AES Microphone Compendium.
For the most part, since it's impossible to get a reference source that has
flat diffuse-field response, folks employ a reference microphone that has
flat diffuse-field response as checked by measuring the pressure response
in a tube.

I'd start with Wente's BSTJ paper from the late thirties on designing a
pressure-response reference mike and go on.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

One last general comment. The truest truism we can state about all of this
recording and playback of live sounds is that you can't tell what your
recordings sound like until they are played back. This sounds like a
triviality, but what it means is, when I send George a recording or when he
sends me one, we don't really know what the other will hear from it! It's
kind of like Floyd Toole's circle of confusion. We make recordings that will
sound good on our systems, then we make judgements about the recording based
on that system and judgements about our systems based on our recordings.

No, this isn't a truism at all. If it were, we'd all be out of a job.
It's the job of the engineer to make a good prediction about what things
will sound like coming out of the microphone before they even hit the tape
machine. Yes, listening on reference monitors might make you change a
few things, but using your ears and some smarts will be enough to make good
predictions about the sound. Just because YOU can't do it yet doesn't mean
it's not possible.

Secondly, recordings made should translate well between reference systems
and sound similar between reference systems, as long as those systems are
more or less designed with the same set of rules. Yes, if you're using
the 901 ****tifiers they will sound different than they do through a normal
playback chain, but that's very much an outlier. Engineers doing pop and
rock music will often use multiple degraded "check mix" monitoring system
as well as the standardized monitors in order to tell what recordings will
sound like with degraded playback, and _that_ is something that can be hard
to tell even with a lot of experience.

Still, all of these things that you keep citings as truisms and absolutes
are actually just the result of your lack of experience and improper
monitoring system. I hate to break it to you.

If I am to be faulted because I have my own ideas about audio, then join the
crowd because very few audio engineers agree about anything, much less
recording or playback technology. We are all on our own, but I do indeed
listen.

No, you can be faulted because you really don't know what you're doing,
you have no experience in a normal studio environment, and you are telling
people who have worked thirty years in professional studios that they are
doing their job wrong.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

John Williamson wrote:
Mike Rivers wrote:
On 10/1/2013 2:44 PM, John Williamson wrote:

Brilliant is how the Sony PCM-D50 handles "overs." It's always
recording a backup stereo track 10 dB or so below the primary
recording.. When it detects an overload, it automatically replaces the
overloaded portion with the backup track and normalizes it so that it
goes to full scale, but not clipped.

Just out of interest, does it do the trick by just reducing the digital
output from the ADC or does it have an analogue signal path with levels
10dB below the one in use?

I don't know, but I screamed really close to the mics with the input
gain up full and what came out wasn't clipped. I suspect that it's
possible to overload the front end feeding the "emergency" track at some
point - it's not absolutely foolproof, but the record level control
appears to work right at the input stage, or else it has a phenomenal
amount of headroom. I could put +28 dBu or so into the external line
inputs, turn the input level control so that the meters were below full
scale, and not have clipping.


Sounds like a facility worth having, then.

If you don't, there is always the old reporter's trick of recording two
channels with 20 dB of gain between them, then picking the right one on
playback. Very common back in the day when radio reporters would use
cassette machines of very limited dynamic range and often have to leave
them unattended at a lectern where they could not ride gains during a
speech.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."