[Boris Lau]

Hello,

I've made a little recording:
http://www.borislau.de/base/blues-44100.mp3

There's not much work in there, I had the two guys sitting in and
fooling around and threw some mics at them, just to try it out. Next
time I'll try to bug you with something nicer, promised.

The vocal mic is a AT4050 in Fig-Eight, but I realized I was too
careless in placement - the guitar is not really in the null.
Both guitars are mic'd with KM184 pointing somewhere between the hole
and 14th fret, about a foot away.
I applied some EQ to seperate the guitars a bit better.

To my ear it sounds a bit dull, as if highs are missing. Do you think
that too? Is it a problem of bad mic placing, or do you think it's my
room? If have recorded pretty close to my large absorbers, and I could
consider putting paper on them.

Any thoughts?

Boris

--
http://www.borislau.de - computer science, music, photos

[Don Pearce]

On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:59:09 +0100, Boris Lau
wrote:

Hello,

I've made a little recording:
http://www.borislau.de/base/blues-44100.mp3

There's not much work in there, I had the two guys sitting in and
fooling around and threw some mics at them, just to try it out. Next
time I'll try to bug you with something nicer, promised.

The vocal mic is a AT4050 in Fig-Eight, but I realized I was too
careless in placement - the guitar is not really in the null.
Both guitars are mic'd with KM184 pointing somewhere between the hole
and 14th fret, about a foot away.
I applied some EQ to seperate the guitars a bit better.

To my ear it sounds a bit dull, as if highs are missing. Do you think
that too? Is it a problem of bad mic placing, or do you think it's my
room? If have recorded pretty close to my large absorbers, and I could
consider putting paper on them.

Any thoughts?

Boris

No, not dull. Or rather it is dull in comparison with today's
recordings with their unnaturally boosted fizzy highs.

Really very pleasant balance.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

[Peter Larsen[_2_]]

Boris Lau wrote:

Any thoughts?

What Don Pearce said, and the reocrded room sounds plain boring, what mp3
encoder have you used - treble is strangly splatty on s and t sounds -
overall the recording does have some charm to it.

Boris


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Boris Lau]

Peter Larsen wrote:
What Don Pearce said, and the reocrded room sounds plain boring, what mp3
encoder have you used - treble is strangly splatty on s and t sounds -
overall the recording does have some charm to it.

Hi Peter,

thanks for your comment. The room is actually pretty interesting in its
nastyness - it's 4m x 4m, ceiling goes from 2.5m up to 4m, so actually
worse than just square. That's why I have put in a lot of thick
absorbers. I guess that makes it boring, but at least usable.

I have directly exported the mp3 from Cubase, don't know which codec
that exactly is. I will listen to the uncompressed files again.

Thanks,

Boris

[Boris Lau]

Soundhaspriority wrote:
Boris, I used a Studio Projects LSD-2 in figure-8 recently, and what you say
reminds me of this. I would guess that the KM-184 is doing it's job, but
the AT may deaden it with excessive midrange emphasis.

good guess. Without the AT it sounds different, due to the mid-range. I
guess I have to pay more attention to accurate placing of the Nulls.

Also: I have read, and experienced, that Figure-8 mikes tend to remove
the room tone, almost completely. It could be the absence of room
acoustics, rather than the actual depression of the highs, that gives
you this feeling.

Removal of room acoustics? Another good point, especially with my setup
of absorbers this is true. The Nulls point towards the live corners, the
front and back lobe towards my absorbers.

Thanks,

Boris

[Boris Lau]

Don Pearce wrote:
No, not dull. Or rather it is dull in comparison with today's
recordings with their unnaturally boosted fizzy highs.

Really very pleasant balance.

Thanks Don, I'll think about that

Boris

[philicorda[_4_]]

On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:59:09 +0100, Boris Lau wrote:

Hello,

I've made a little recording:
http://www.borislau.de/base/blues-44100.mp3

There's not much work in there, I had the two guys sitting in and
fooling around and threw some mics at them, just to try it out. Next
time I'll try to bug you with something nicer, promised.

The vocal mic is a AT4050 in Fig-Eight, but I realized I was too
careless in placement - the guitar is not really in the null. Both
guitars are mic'd with KM184 pointing somewhere between the hole and
14th fret, about a foot away.
I applied some EQ to seperate the guitars a bit better.

To my ear it sounds a bit dull, as if highs are missing. Do you think
that too? Is it a problem of bad mic placing, or do you think it's my
room? If have recorded pretty close to my large absorbers, and I could
consider putting paper on them.

I don't mind it. I'd probably pull some of the low end out before the
compression if I wanted it to sound more pop.

I think the compression on the guitars might be creating some mud. The
time constants are possibly a bit short so its distorting the sound. It's
mainly the one panned right that seems to get more distorted as the song
goes on. Not a big deal with a blues recording though, perhaps even
desirable.


Any thoughts?

Boris

[Peter Larsen[_2_]]

Boris Lau wrote:

Peter Larsen wrote:

What Don Pearce said, and the reocrded room sounds plain boring,
what mp3 encoder have you used - treble is strangly splatty on s and
t sounds - overall the recording does have some charm to it.

Hi Peter,

thanks for your comment. The room is actually pretty interesting in
its nastyness - it's 4m x 4m, ceiling goes from 2.5m up to 4m, so
actually worse than just square. That's why I have put in a lot of
thick absorbers. I guess that makes it boring, but at least usable.

I default to have the religious conviction that rooms should be allowed to
be rooms and to be imperfect. A room for recording an acoustic guitar should
imo be a room in which the instruement has a pleasant sound. Try suspending
some 4 t0 8 mm laquer coated plywood panels near the walls. Or simply
cutting down on the amount of absorption. Which problem is it that you want
to solve by making it dead?

It is important to understand that the sound of acoustic instruments is
changed by the room they play in because the hear the room and are
influenced by the room sound, as well as - in an ensemble context - the
ensemble sound. That comes with them being acoustic instruments.

Something else may also matter. I tried replicating the KM184 treble boost
on a violin + piano recording made in the glyptotek, it did not give me more
treble detail on the violin, it gave me a steely sound with less perceived
treble detail and messed with the spatial perspective compared to not doing
it and just leaving my default compensation for the used microphone as it
is. Very strange ....

I have directly exported the mp3 from Cubase, don't know which codec
that exactly is. I will listen to the uncompressed files again.

One guy, singing and playing guitar seems to be a stereo pair thing to me
....


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

Thanks,

Boris

[Boris Lau]

philicorda wrote:
I think the compression on the guitars might be creating some mud. The
time constants are possibly a bit short so its distorting the sound. It's
mainly the one panned right that seems to get more distorted as the song
goes on. Not a big deal with a blues recording though, perhaps even
desirable.

Hm, there is no compression involved in that version of the mix, If I'm
not completely mistaken. But I wonder where the distortion is coming
from that you hear.

Boris

[Boris Lau]

Hi Peter,

sorry for the late answer.

Peter Larsen wrote:
I default to have the religious conviction that rooms should be allowed to
be rooms and to be imperfect. A room for recording an acoustic guitar should
imo be a room in which the instruement has a pleasant sound. Try suspending
some 4 t0 8 mm laquer coated plywood panels near the walls. Or simply
cutting down on the amount of absorption. Which problem is it that you want
to solve by making it dead?

The major problems were severe modal issues because of the squareness,
plus flutter, probably also enhanced by the squareness. I thought about
using some diffusors instead of absorbers, but I was given the advice to
not use diffusors in small rooms like mine.

It is important to understand that the sound of acoustic instruments is
changed by the room they play in because the hear the room and are
influenced by the room sound, as well as - in an ensemble context - the
ensemble sound. That comes with them being acoustic instruments.

Yes... Well, mostly I record track by track with close miking, so a bit
less acoustic.

One guy, singing and playing guitar seems to be a stereo pair thing to me

Hm, maybe. I really liked the idea of the Fig.-8, as suggested by Ty and
others.


Boris

[philicorda[_4_]]

On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:15:35 +0100, Boris Lau wrote:

philicorda wrote:
I think the compression on the guitars might be creating some mud. The
time constants are possibly a bit short so its distorting the sound.
It's mainly the one panned right that seems to get more distorted as
the song goes on. Not a big deal with a blues recording though, perhaps
even desirable.

Hm, there is no compression involved in that version of the mix, If I'm
not completely mistaken. But I wonder where the distortion is coming
from that you hear.

How strange. The right guitar does sound compressed to me, as I'm sure I
can hear it gasping a bit while pulling the palm mute stuff to the same
level as the strums in the breakdown (2.32 to 3.13). I think I can also
hear the compressor ducking a bit when there is a low end thump from the
guitar.

I must be imagining things, or else it's the mp3 encoding doing something.
It might just be the sound of that guitar, in which case don't worry, I'm
just over analyzing what is a perfectly good recording.


Boris

[Norbert Hahn[_2_]]

Boris Lau wrote:

Hm, maybe. I really liked the idea of the Fig.-8, as suggested by Ty and
others.

So keep in mind that the frequency response of a directional mics is only
perfect on axis. As I don't own a fig-8-mic I don't know how much the high
end is dropped close to the nulls. The frequency plot published by the
manufacturer (hopefully) consists of two plots: one being the frequency
response on axis and the other plot should be a set of concentric circles
for an omni or a set of concentric 8s in your case. Each 8 describes the
response at a specified frequency depending on the angle. The higher the
frequency the more distorted is the figure 8.

Have you had a look at the frequency plots of your mic?

Norbert

[drichard]

Hi Boris,

I agree with other posters who said they felt the room was somewhat
dead. But I brought the file into Audition and added just a subtle
touch of small, bright room convolution reverb, just for fun. And I
thought the track really came to life.

Dean

On Nov 26, 3:59 pm, Boris Lau wrote:
Hello,

I've made a little recording:http://www.borislau.de/base/blues-44100.mp3

There's not much work in there, I had the two guys sitting in and
fooling around and threw some mics at them, just to try it out. Next
time I'll try to bug you with something nicer, promised.

The vocal mic is a AT4050 in Fig-Eight, but I realized I was too
careless in placement - the guitar is not really in the null.
Both guitars are mic'd with KM184 pointing somewhere between the hole
and 14th fret, about a foot away.
I applied some EQ to seperate the guitars a bit better.

To my ear it sounds a bit dull, as if highs are missing. Do you think
that too? Is it a problem of bad mic placing, or do you think it's my
room? If have recorded pretty close to my large absorbers, and I could
consider putting paper on them.

Any thoughts?

Boris

--http://www.borislau.de- computer science, music, photos

[Peter Larsen[_2_]]

Boris Lau wrote:

Hi Peter,

sorry for the late answer.

That's ok ...

Peter Larsen wrote:
I default to have the religious conviction that rooms should be
allowed to be rooms and to be imperfect. A room for recording an
acoustic guitar should imo be a room in which the instruement has a
pleasant sound. Try suspending some 4 t0 8 mm laquer coated plywood
panels near the walls. Or simply cutting down on the amount of
absorption. Which problem is it that you want to solve by making it
dead?

The major problems were severe modal issues because of the squareness,
plus flutter, probably also enhanced by the squareness. I thought
about using some diffusors instead of absorbers, but I was given the
advice to not use diffusors in small rooms like mine.

Bookshelves with books are excellent. I ended up with my living room being
so deadened that I swapped shelves for glass door vitrines.

It is important to understand that the sound of acoustic instruments
is changed by the room they play in because the hear the room and are
influenced by the room sound, as well as - in an ensemble context -
the ensemble sound. That comes with them being acoustic instruments.

Yes... Well, mostly I record track by track with close miking, so a
bit less acoustic.

One guy, singing and playing guitar seems to be a stereo pair thing
to me

Hm, maybe. I really liked the idea of the Fig.-8, as suggested by Ty
and others.

I didn't say fig 8 ... the Bang and Olufsen ribbon is a fig 8 btw. ... it
seems to have cult status.

Boris


Kind regards

Peter Larsen