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Post by johneppstein on Mar 27, 2019 18:50:00 GMT -6
Just read the article - not impressed. Who the hell needs 255 polar patterns? And really, being able to choose polar pattern after the fact? Just what everybody needs - another decision to be as deferred as long as possible before committing. Wowie!
Dunno about the ceramic spacer ring - except for the far that ceramic is a hell of a lot more brittle than brass.
I'd feel a lot better about them if they'd just concentrate on just making a standard old fashioned multipattern LDC that sounds great with no other gizmos, geegaws, or bells and whistles.
Just call it a variable polar pattern with steps for easy recall ! You know somebody said we have to do something different at the product meeting. How about doing something REALLY different. likle making a plain 4 pattern mioc with simple, superior sounding electronics and a capsule that isn't engineered to a (low) price point? And no active swithching in the audio path?
How about putting the money into making a great capsule instead of PR and bells and whistles?
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 27, 2019 18:53:34 GMT -6
Also, dual output IS stereo output. It's the same as mid-side with an omni mid. I can't be. If you use the front capsule for an omni mid then the remaining capsule is oriented the wrong way around for mid-side. It would need to be 90 degrees from the front, not 180. That's why Blumlein stereo mics have crossed capsules - you can't do it with back to back.
And I DID read it. I've been reading everything I can find on this.
The problem is that they just don't want to pay precision master machinists to make a great capsule whern they can mass produce something that's "good enough" and then drown it in bells and whistles.
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Post by EmRR on Mar 27, 2019 19:48:51 GMT -6
Also, dual output IS stereo output. It's the same as mid-side with an omni mid. It can't be.
Well, it is. One is left and one is right. You can use it as-is, or you can derive omni and figure 8 from it, put them in a matrix, and it will sound exactly as it does as-is. I have done this experiment to prove it to myself after it was pointed out as possible.
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Post by brenta on Mar 27, 2019 20:49:06 GMT -6
From what I read my understanding is that these capsules are not mass produced, they are being made one at a time by a single person who’s been making capsules for about 3 decades. I’ll wait to hear them but these mics could be a nice blend of great old school craftsmanship with some new cutting-edge technology.
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 27, 2019 23:17:50 GMT -6
Well, it is. One is left and one is right. You can use it as-is, or you can derive omni and figure 8 from it, put them in a matrix, and it will sound exactly as it does as-is. I have done this experiment to prove it to myself after it was pointed out as possible. Please explain how this might be possible or provide a link or two. I don't see how it's possible. At least not without DSP and I don't know of any DSP of that sort that doesn't leave artifacts.
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 27, 2019 23:27:50 GMT -6
From what I read my understanding is that these capsules are not mass produced, they are being made one at a time by a single person who’s been making capsules for about 3 decades. I’ll wait to hear them but these mics could be a nice blend of great old school craftsmanship with some new cutting-edge technology. From what I've read/been told the lady who is doing the assembly has been doing it for 29 years. That may seem like a long time to some people but it doesn't even come close to the days whn they were assembling brass CK12 capsules from 57 individual pieces of (mostly) preciosion machined brass. The new designs are much simplified and do not require the same expertise of assembly.
The new capsules are very different from the old ones.
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Post by brenta on Mar 28, 2019 1:43:47 GMT -6
They’ve been clear and up front that these capsules aren’t going to be like the old brass ck12 and they aren’t trying to be. If one person is making them one at at a time, that by definition isn’t “mass” produced. And yeah, to me, 29 years is a lot of experience. How long have Heiserman, Tim Campbell and Bouchard been building capsules? I’m not vouching for Austrian Audio products one way or another because I haven’t used them or heard them, but I’m excited to hear what they’ve come up with.
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Post by EmRR on Mar 28, 2019 7:42:04 GMT -6
Well, it is. One is left and one is right. You can use it as-is, or you can derive omni and figure 8 from it, put them in a matrix, and it will sound exactly as it does as-is. I have done this experiment to prove it to myself after it was pointed out as possible. Please explain how this might be possible or provide a link or two. I don't see how it's possible. At least not without DSP and I don't know of any DSP of that sort that doesn't leave artifacts. Look at the Wes Dooley mid-side paper, page 4, figure A, 50:50. Then figure 2i page 9 for more blending ratios. If you mult a dual output mic, derive omni from one and figure 8 from the other, and put that into a MS matrix, it comes out exactly as just listening to the two cardioid outputs panned hard L/R.
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 28, 2019 15:07:00 GMT -6
Please explain how this might be possible or provide a link or two. I don't see how it's possible. At least not without DSP and I don't know of any DSP of that sort that doesn't leave artifacts. Look at the Wes Dooley mid-side paper, page 4, figure A, 50:50. Then figure 2i page 9 for more blending ratios. If you mult a dual output mic, derive omni from one and figure 8 from the other, and put that into a MS matrix, it comes out exactly as just listening to the two cardioid outputs panned hard L/R. HMmmm.
That Wes Dooley paper says nothing about using the two cardioid halves of a multipattern condenser mic to create M-S. Wes, as we know, is an expert on traditional bidirectional (figure 8) ribbon microphones; the paper is concerned with using such microphones in an M-S array.
Furthermore there are some other issues.
The "omidirectional" pattern on a typical multipattern condenser mic is not a scalar microphone and does not only respond to (pressure) magnitude. (which is why such microphones do not display the lack of proximity effect typical of a true omni pressure mic.) Each (side of the) capsule is, in fact, affected by the position/polarity of the source, because the pattern of each side is determined by the cancellation ducting in the body of the capsule, which in most dual diaphragms capsules (including the C12 and all its variations and derivatives) are not shared, they are isolated from each other - and in the C12 family are not identical.
Therefore such microphones do not behave like true omni (pressure) mics in all situations.
I've been giving a lot of thought to this and I still don't see how a dual output mic based on a conventional double sided capsule could do M-S. The dual output gives you one side of the capsule on each output - dual cardiod. For M-S you need one output that is figure 8 (both capsules in electrical polarity) and one output that is either cardioid or omni (either one side alone for cardioid or both sides with one reversed (electrically) for omni. (Note the difference made between electrical and acoustical polarity.) However the mic does not give you the option of an omni output on one channel and a figure 8 on the other.
Now, if you treated each side of the capsule as a stereo channel and fed it into a matrix to convert L-R to M-S that should work - but I don't see that as being anything particularly special to this mic - you could do the same with any L-R source - mastering engineers do it all the time to apply processing to only the center of a mix.
Is that what you were talking about?
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Post by sirthought on Mar 28, 2019 15:07:49 GMT -6
Wow. 29 years isn't enough to satisfy him. I think you should move to Austria and apply to work there, just to get this all sorted.
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 28, 2019 15:21:39 GMT -6
Wow. 29 years isn't enough to satisfy him. I think you should move to Austria and apply to work there, just to get this all sorted. Why? I have no experience assembling condenser capsules, my eysight isn't what it used to be, and my hands are not all that steady these days.
But no, it isn't, not when you (no, not YOU) are publicly proclaiming that you have one of the people who assembled the old classic capsules - which just isn't true. The "nylon" versions of the CK12 snap together, they don't even use screws, fer chissake! Where's the skill in that? Did you bother reading the links on the construction of the various versions of the CK12 that I posted? (Don't worry, there are pictures.)
(Don't feel bad, until quite recently I had no idea just how different the new capsules are from the old ones, either.) The fact is that there ARE people around who have the skill to create a reproduction of the brass CK12 capsule. But apparently not at Austrian Audio.
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Post by sirthought on Mar 28, 2019 15:23:37 GMT -6
I think you'd like Vienna. Beautiful in the spring.
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 28, 2019 15:26:47 GMT -6
I think you'd like Vienna. Beautiful in the spring. So's Northern California. And they don't speak a language here that has words as long (and complex) as entire paragraphs.
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Post by EmRR on Mar 28, 2019 15:41:19 GMT -6
Look at the Wes Dooley mid-side paper, page 4, figure A, 50:50. Then figure 2i page 9 for more blending ratios. If you mult a dual output mic, derive omni from one and figure 8 from the other, and put that into a MS matrix, it comes out exactly as just listening to the two cardioid outputs panned hard L/R. HMmmm.
Now, if you treated each side of the capsule as a stereo channel and fed it into a matrix to convert L-R to M-S that should work - but I don't see that as being anything particularly special to this mic - you could do the same with any L-R source - mastering engineers do it all the time to apply processing to only the center of a mix.
Is that what you were talking about?
No, it's not. Reread the bit I wrote about multing the two channels and deriving two different patterns from that. You seem to be ignoring the central fact that I have done it, and proved it for myself. You should try it, that would answer the question. Whether or not it's a pressure or derived omni is a tangential abstraction from the practical application; it's purely a choice within. There are also no wide-band omni ribbon mics that I know of, in a nod to Mr Dooley. Pattern control with LDC's is not outside of the scope of variation, and are not deal-breakers; almost every omni is directional at some frequency. Even the dual output TLM67 does not display an obvious lack of center image treble, which seems to me the only concern. The 50:50 omni/8 equivalent MS pattern is a pair of cardioid capsules facing opposite each other: a dual diaphragm mic! Pattern control variations with respect to frequency are on the scale of what you encounter using a pair of 8's for Blumlein with 45º spacing from 0º, or using them at 0º and 90º in a mid side matrix; both Blumlien pattern, but with differences in the mono summed treble response. Anyway, you grabbed my stereo comment, which was an aside in response to Vincent R. about stereo matrices. Ideally they make a great sounding mic, and these bells and whistles are easy modernizations that won't come at much increased manufacturing cost. It could join the MKH 800 Twin, Lewitt LCT-640-TS, Pearl TL 44 and ELM-A, a Nevaton, and maybe a couple of other 'super control' mics with lots of post options. All of which can be seen as related to the post options ambisonics bring to multichannel sound. I set up a dual mid side ambient capture on a recent remote in a small cottage with some typical small room untreated early reflections. Turned out pointed to the rear in a wide cardioid pattern gave the nicest room sound, and I got to figure that out in post versus dicking with it and second guessing it with the client going comatose.
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Post by brenta on Mar 28, 2019 16:00:52 GMT -6
Wow. 29 years isn't enough to satisfy him. I think you should move to Austria and apply to work there, just to get this all sorted. Why? I have no experience assembling condenser capsules, my eysight isn't what it used to be, and my hands are not all that steady these days.
But no, it isn't, not when you (no, not YOU) are publicly proclaiming that you have one of the people who assembled the old classic capsules - which just isn't true. The "nylon" versions of the CK12 snap together, they don't even use screws, fer chissake! Where's the skill in that? Did you bother reading the links on the construction of the various versions of the CK12 that I posted? (Don't worry, there are pictures.)
(Don't feel bad, until quite recently I had no idea just how different the new capsules are from the old ones, either.) The fact is that there ARE people around who have the skill to create a reproduction of the brass CK12 capsule. But apparently not at Austrian Audio.
Where did they claim that they have someone who made the brass ck12 capsules?
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 28, 2019 20:37:16 GMT -6
Why? I have no experience assembling condenser capsules, my eysight isn't what it used to be, and my hands are not all that steady these days.
But no, it isn't, not when you (no, not YOU) are publicly proclaiming that you have one of the people who assembled the old classic capsules - which just isn't true. The "nylon" versions of the CK12 snap together, they don't even use screws, fer chissake! Where's the skill in that? Did you bother reading the links on the construction of the various versions of the CK12 that I posted? (Don't worry, there are pictures.)
(Don't feel bad, until quite recently I had no idea just how different the new capsules are from the old ones, either.) The fact is that there ARE people around who have the skill to create a reproduction of the brass CK12 capsule. But apparently not at Austrian Audio.
Where did they claim that they have someone who made the brass ck12 capsules? They didn't actually claim it. They did, however, stongly imply it, especially to those who haven't done the research into the history of the capsule design.
As I said, 29 years seems to be a really long time to a lot of people who haven't been around all that long - like about 75% of the people who think of themselves as "audio engineers" or "producers" these days. To me, well, 29 years is approximately 42.65% of my lifetime so far. Seems almost like yesterday.
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Post by timcampbell on Mar 29, 2019 6:35:09 GMT -6
Just speaking for myself I've been producing capsules for more than 20 years now and specifically older CK12 types for more than 15. Their new capsule seems to be a variant of the "nylon" CK12 substituting ceramic for the nylon parts. I certainly wish them success. Everyone I have ever interacted with from AKG over the years have been helpful and all around terrific people.
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Post by miscend on Mar 30, 2019 13:43:44 GMT -6
So where are the original old timers that built the C12 and 251 capsules?
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Post by Guitar on Mar 30, 2019 13:51:09 GMT -6
So where are the original old timers that built the C12 and 251 capsules? They're all dead. Oh wait, was that a rhetorical question?
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Post by miscend on Mar 30, 2019 17:57:20 GMT -6
So where are the original old timers that built the C12 and 251 capsules? They're all dead. Oh wait, was that a rhetorical question? So why do we even bother anymore? Apparently the yields were extremely low with the original brass AKG capsules, the failure rate was so high it is impractical to make them now in that way. All these boutique cats making clones having basically reverse engineered the originals but the quality is not the same because they just know the designs but have no clue what proprietary processes were used to make them. For example how long was the treatment, at what temperatures, speed of temperature changes, what atmosphere(s) were used during processing, etc. Who is the vendor of that specific, difficult-to-make lubricant/bearing/component? And thousands of similar questions.
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 30, 2019 19:21:15 GMT -6
Just speaking for myself I've been producing capsules for more than 20 years now and specifically older CK12 types for more than 15. Their new capsule seems to be a variant of the "nylon" CK12 substituting ceramic for the nylon parts. I certainly wish them success. Everyone I have ever interacted with from AKG over the years have been helpful and all around terrific people. Actually I wish them well too. I just wish that they'd turn down the hype and concentrate on the capsules. And that they'd work on doing products of the quality that they made (as AKG) up through the mid '70s and stop trying to figure out cheaper ways to do stuff.
I fail to see how a capsule that just snaps together and has simplified parts can compete with a capsule made out of 57 hand machined parts. Even if the new stuff can be made with the same precision - which I seriously doubt - how can something that just snaps together maintain that standard of precision? I don't believe it can.
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 30, 2019 20:25:42 GMT -6
HMmmm.
Now, if you treated each side of the capsule as a stereo channel and fed it into a matrix to convert L-R to M-S that should work - but I don't see that as being anything particularly special to this mic - you could do the same with any L-R source - mastering engineers do it all the time to apply processing to only the center of a mix.
Is that what you were talking about?
No, it's not. Reread the bit I wrote about multing the two channels and deriving two different patterns from that. You seem to be ignoring the central fact that I have done it, and proved it for myself. You should try it, that would answer the question. Whether or not it's a pressure or derived omni is a tangential abstraction from the practical application; it's purely a choice within. There are also no wide-band omni ribbon mics that I know of, in a nod to Mr Dooley. Pattern control with LDC's is not outside of the scope of variation, and are not deal-breakers; almost every omni is directional at some frequency. Even the dual output TLM67 does not display an obvious lack of center image treble, which seems to me the only concern. The 50:50 omni/8 equivalent MS pattern is a pair of cardioid capsules facing opposite each other: a dual diaphragm mic! Pattern control variations with respect to frequency are on the scale of what you encounter using a pair of 8's for Blumlein with 45º spacing from 0º, or using them at 0º and 90º in a mid side matrix; both Blumlien pattern, but with differences in the mono summed treble response. Anyway, you grabbed my stereo comment, which was an aside in response to Vincent R. about stereo matrices. Ideally they make a great sounding mic, and these bells and whistles are easy modernizations that won't come at much increased manufacturing cost. It could join the MKH 800 Twin, Lewitt LCT-640-TS, Pearl TL 44 and ELM-A, a Nevaton, and maybe a couple of other 'super control' mics with lots of post options. All of which can be seen as related to the post options ambisonics bring to multichannel sound. I set up a dual mid side ambient capture on a recent remote in a small cottage with some typical small room untreated early reflections. Turned out pointed to the rear in a wide cardioid pattern gave the nicest room sound, and I got to figure that out in post versus dicking with it and second guessing it with the client going comatose.
First, I never said there was such a thing as a wide band omni ribbon . But ribbons aren't pressure mics, they're velocity mics. One assumes that the omnis that Dooley was talking about are either dynamics or pressure omni condensers. Yes?
What you were referring to as "multing" the two channels is what I was referring to as feeding the two channels into a matrix. In your case the "matrix" is formed by the mults on the two channels plus cahnnels of the mixing console. To me when you say "mult" it means you plug a source into a jack that is paralled with two or more other jacks to obtain MULTiple outputs of the one source. Just multing the outputs doesn'r get you M-S - you have to set up a matrix via a mixer or the proper transformers to do that.
That's where your nomenclature lost me.
As it happens I have a Telefunken (Germany) M-S module out of a console, but I haven't been able to use it because I don't have a pinout diagram (or the proper connector, but that could be dealt with.)
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Post by EmRR on Mar 31, 2019 13:37:35 GMT -6
No, it's not. Reread the bit I wrote about multing the two channels and deriving two different patterns from that.
One assumes that the omnis that Dooley was talking about are either dynamics or pressure omni condensers. Yes?
To me when you say "mult" it means you plug a source into a jack that is paralled with two or more other jacks to obtain MULTiple outputs of the one source. Just multing the outputs doesn'r get you M-S - you have to set up a matrix via a mixer or the proper transformers to do that.
That's where your nomenclature lost me.
I don't think that assumption has to be made from what Wes says. You understand multing as I meant it. Mult the two channels into 4. Turn the first pair into omni. Turn the second pair into 8. Put that into a MS matrix. That is a test proof that the result sounds the same as listening to the two outputs of the mic as a stereo signal. Thus, the output of a dual output mic is equivalent to mid side with an omni mid.
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Post by timcampbell on Mar 31, 2019 21:29:15 GMT -6
They're all dead. Oh wait, was that a rhetorical question? So why do we even bother anymore? Apparently the yields were extremely low with the original brass AKG capsules, the failure rate was so high it is impractical to make them now in that way. All these boutique cats making clones having basically reverse engineered the originals but the quality is not the same because they just know the designs but have no clue what proprietary processes were used to make them. For example how long was the treatment, at what temperatures, speed of temperature changes, what atmosphere(s) were used during processing, etc. Who is the vendor of that specific, difficult-to-make lubricant/bearing/component? And thousands of similar questions. Well I don't know about others but I was taught much of what I do by Karl Peschel and Norbert Sobol of AKG and all my membrane material is NOS AKG mylar manufactured in he 60's-70's. AKG never had high failure rates manufacturing these capsules. Their high failure rates came from trying to repair broken capsules. They stopped building "brass" CK12's because they are very labor intensive and so too expensive for their bean counters.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,936
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Post by ericn on Apr 1, 2019 6:36:26 GMT -6
So why do we even bother anymore? Apparently the yields were extremely low with the original brass AKG capsules, the failure rate was so high it is impractical to make them now in that way. All these boutique cats making clones having basically reverse engineered the originals but the quality is not the same because they just know the designs but have no clue what proprietary processes were used to make them. For example how long was the treatment, at what temperatures, speed of temperature changes, what atmosphere(s) were used during processing, etc. Who is the vendor of that specific, difficult-to-make lubricant/bearing/component? And thousands of similar questions. Well I don't know about others but I was taught much of what I do by Karl Peschel and Norbert Sobol of AKG and all my membrane material is NOS AKG mylar manufactured in he 60's-70's. AKG never had high failure rates manufacturing these capsules. Their high failure rates came from trying to repair broken capsules. They stopped building "brass" CK12's because they are very labor intensive and so too expensive for their bean counters. Tim, I don’t think most understand how corporate 1980’s AKG / Edgetech was. Most don’t realize that they were a large by audio standards holding company, they don’t think of AKG as corporate till the Harmon take over. Off the top of my head AKG at the time owned most of Quested, DBX and Amek.
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