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Post by jazznoise on Feb 16, 2014 15:08:16 GMT -6
Neumann specified the K47 preamp to be used with the K47 capsule, so the capacitance of the capsule would have been fixed. But I see in the schematic I was referring I saw, in error, 1 G's when in fact the values you're describing. The guy on R/E/P says these values give you a nominally flat to 21Hz - so I'm guessing the "modern" values used extend into infra-sonics. Have a read of it here yourself; repforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php?topic=35368.0Regardless: since it's a passive filter, a load resistor shunting to ground (both B+ and ground are ground to an AC signal)with series capacitance can only be taken to mean a standard passive HPF with a 6dB/Octave slope. Q aside, the cutoff is a simple F=1/2piRC equation. Regardless of what C is, halving R doubles F. Inversely, a capacitor shunting to ground with a series resistive load forms a LPF with the same function as before. The more you know...
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 16, 2014 13:29:29 GMT -6
I agree the main problem with auto tune is not so much the tool, but that it tunes to equal temperament. Think how less lively keyboards sound today compared to the time before stable digitally pitched instruments. Vocal harmonies sung live are not equal temperament. The exquisite harmony of K.D. Lang's "Constant Craving" or Gloria Estafan's "Live For Loving You" are not equal temperament. Digital Performer's pitch tools are great for spot fixing pitch. Dragging a selection up or down in a track quantizes pitch, but option dragging lets you use your ear to put the pitch where it sounds good. It's lame to me that heavy auto tuning has become fashionable to the point of expectation to today's listener. But in the '80's I didn't think drum machines would catch on either. It's certainly hilarious to me that people talk of musical tools when quieried about their use of this stuff - but these tools tend to generate music that's "On Paper" correct, rather than the most dramatic/musical version. Things like a quarter tone bend in a persons intonation can be intended to show a blue's bend style inflection - an idiom popular in music for over 100 years. But now it'll get hammered out - and for what end? It's as bad as those "country'd" blues lick where they turned the blue notes into major thirds to make it more digestible for a mainstream White audience. On paper correct, sure, but a rather sickly and unmusical interpretation of the idiom. And unfortunately people tend to unconsciously rely on this software to interpret this stuff. Unless the mix engineer has a musical background - I mean, unless the guy can hear a Minor 9 or a Maj 11#4 chord as clear as a door bell - then he's going to miss the boat. He'll never be able to diagnose the problems because he's thinking solely in timbre and "vibe" when pitch is the issue. I mean, we've all played in a chord sequence we heard in our head note for note right? And on playback it just doesn't sound right. That C is definitely the right note..but it still doesn't seem like the "right" C. Flick through 8 presets of the soundbank you wanted and give up? I'd encourage anyone who experiences these problems to dwell on the issue of pitch. It's not as clear as much music theory implies. The very fact that you can enjoy a filter sweep or a singer adding vibrato should make it clear. That's not that Just Intonation is always right - it's often not. But certain intervals within a piece might work better slightly flat or sharp, depending on whether you want to make it sound rougher or more placid.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 15, 2014 18:52:47 GMT -6
I'm not sure you should load any capsule with that much more resistance. 1G to 150Meg is about 4.5 octaves of a difference, to speak in musical terms. Since we can see B+ as being ground to AC signals, it would follow that the bias resistor + capsule form a hi pass filter, so moving your -3dB point will move up quite a bit. If I'm right, and the U47's internal amplifier was set to -3dB at 21Hz, then your new cut off would be about 400 Hz.
So if R1 and R3 are set much higher than an original U47, then it must be to compensate for capsule differences, bias differences or amplifier differences. The easiest way is to check, of course. You'll know it when you hear it!
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 15, 2014 12:07:53 GMT -6
Anyway from 4 inches to 2 feet back depending where I want the track in the mix, but the mic usually stays around the 12th fret. I'll point it towards the neck if I need less pick attack, closer if I need more. I don't tend to dwell on acoustics, I just stick my headphones on and move the mic around (or move myself around if I'm playing).
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 14, 2014 20:24:25 GMT -6
I like my EV635a or an AKG D160 as dynamics. Positioning away from the sound hole is less critical as proximity effect is less of a problem in Omni dynamic microphones.
M201's will work if the player can stay still. They're very condensery in quality - a classy dynamic to be sure, I want one! SM57's can work if you want something kinda aggressive. Think I used an RE20 before and found it a bit too slow, so I couldn't imagine an SM7 would be much for you either.
Not quite dynamic but ribbons are nice on acoustics - but you need the distance. Set up something like an RM700 or any long ribbon mic, step back 1-2 feet and bash out the chords to The Kink's Summertime. Bit of dirty, fast release compression and you're there!
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 14, 2014 3:35:24 GMT -6
For recording people, or working in live sound with people, who are green I find the easiest way to make them relaxed is to be relaxed. Don't ever make a problem out to be a big deal, have some silly jokes prepared, whatever. If it takes a singer hearing my god awful Bill Cosby impersonation to stop worrying whose judging him, then fine. I just want them to go for it, and I don't want them to worry about embarrassing themselves.
I did a school talent show recently, 30 young acts who couldn't follow our stage order. Needless to say as we went from solo singer + piano to 5 piece band to Vocalist+iPad looper sampling the vocals I was moving my mic stands plenty. 3 acts in with some insanely nervous adolescents hovering around I accidentally trip on the riser and nearly faceplant the stage. I quickly turned around, bowed to the audience and carried on whilst laughing at myself.
Needless to say the 15 year old about to play his favorite song on guitar whilst singing for the first time in public went from shitting himself to laughing at me. I mic'd him up, told him to go for it. The mood for the night was lightened and all of a sudden they were playing in front of their friends again, and not some wall of judgmental executioners.
Of course with more serious artists, playing the goof-ball can be a bad thing. You just gotta read who you're working with.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 13, 2014 19:20:41 GMT -6
popmannI'm aware of the dangers of Equal Temperment. But sometimes if there's lots of big thirds in the arrangement that's ET then using a just major third sounds worse. I prefer just pitching, and I'll also quite often have the pitch bend wheel on my keyboard set to +/- a microtone for some fine adjusting (plus cool quarter tone FX..hey, it works on the string intro to Soft Bulletin..) Also when I think of pop production one of the first things I think of is big manky major 3rds on sawtooth synths. Especially in closed triad voicings - sometimes on those really bright synth sounds it's just earsplitting. But I think it's also on purpose. I'm pretty sure ET is a big part of why root based chord voicings now dominate pop so completely. It can makes walking basslines really clunky. For those reading these posts wondering what we're nitpicking - read How Equal Temperment Ruined Harmony And Why You Should Care.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 13, 2014 18:14:58 GMT -6
But, the argument that it's "just a tool" ignores the negative impact of empowerment. Not unlike "guns don't kill people". It's both 100% true...and completely ineffective and pointless way looking at causal relationships and who gets to wield the tool and how. I'll agree there. I often here people say that drum replacement, quantization etc. is a tool but they're being disingenuous because they slather it on everything to avoid seeming anything less than their peers. I'll never autotune a good singer, it's literally a problem I deal with every possible way before mixdown. Come mix if we could never get a good, well tuned vocal (I say we because a bad engineer contributes to the problem) then I'll have to reach for it. But I've had to mix live gigs where the vocals get summed and the backing singer is just murdering his part, and you can't go putting that out on a pop radio station. It'll ruin that artists attempt at showcasing themselves, so you gotta go for the cop-out and tune em. Not sure why my major third comment made you laugh so hard, but I guess I'm glad!
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 13, 2014 12:31:11 GMT -6
Glad to hear I'm not the only one sneaking a pinch of pitch correction to the bass. Only when it's not my bass
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 13, 2014 8:01:44 GMT -6
I've used it on badly intonate basses. It can work, but the trick is to set fire to those bassists for not hearing it (and the engineer for not hearing it..and the rest of the band for not hearing it).
Melodyne is a useful tool. If the Backing Vox all sang into one mic and the guy on the major third is a little flat - what else are you gonna do?
It's the ultimate audio fix-it-in-post tool. Movies didn't get better when post production advanced, it was unfortunate that audio guys expected otherwise. We can track faster and still get a professional seeming but mediocre/homogenous result, but we can't fix bad performance.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 12, 2014 6:12:53 GMT -6
I use my dad's old Seagull 6 string. Great acoustic guitar tone with medium-heavy gauge strings. Great for big strummy stuff, and the low end projects very well. Ribbons for vintage guitar sounds, probably a large condensers otherwise. Sometimes a standard dynamic, like a 57, works for the context. Adds a little edge they don't have themselves.
Smaller guitars are often very bright and peaky. They can be great for cutting through stuff, but them + sdc's in an XY on the 12 fret is a really popular sound that I hate. Give me a simple mono setup any day. Go mid/side or, better yet, use a wide pickup mic a bit further back (Omni, Fig 8, LDC style cardioid) for real depth. U87, EV635a, ECM 8000 would all be my choices. Omni's don't do proximity which keeps the port noise down, as the body can really get honky on those guitars for aggressive playing..
I also don't like Elixer strings, while I'm bitching, and piezo pickups were invented in Satan's anus. That said I do sort of like the sound of magnetic pickups on acoustic guitars. Nirvana's Unplugged is an acoustic with a magnetic pickup going into a Fender amp, which was cranked.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 9, 2014 19:59:22 GMT -6
If you wan't to hear what an IC shitting itself sounds like, stick a 1K load across a TL074. I'm surprised they're being used here, a 5532 could probably replace them. But now I'm sounding like one of THOSE guys. Svart, you don't have any good literature on filter design you'd recommend? It really is where I fall down on things. I mean, amongst all the other things I fall down on this is the worst. Check out the Active Filter Cookbook by Lancaster. When I get home I'm going to simulate the Harrison filter. I'm kind of curious if the Chop Shop EQ I just released can be set to emulate the Harrison filter shape....sans TL074 grunge of course. Hmmm.... Brad Thanks for the tip! Currently on a guitar FX spree, but hopefully I get back to a point (fiscally) where I can start looking at some of this stuff more earnestly.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 9, 2014 7:07:30 GMT -6
From what I've seen at Pensado is that it's a lot of non-pros But they have all the Waves plugin cracks! I kid, I kid. A lot of them try hard, but I find the focus on dance/pop production over there a bit myopic. Talk about a rate race. As has been said, it's an illusion of dynamics. You're talking a mix that operates as a square wave - hard on, hard off. If you want some of the excitement those mixes have, use of the mute button can be a very good affect. Take something out for 4 bars, or hipass a drum break or whatever. When you bring it bag the affect is that the musical parts are more pronounced. It can be very tiresome, though, with those levels of compression. I've never heard people lie harder than Pensado's Place. ("Oh I usually just kiss the input of an 1176") and the synths sound like they're in a washing machine, brother please. I thought Mixerman and Tony Maserati were pretty cool guys, though, and seemed pretty honest.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 9, 2014 6:39:08 GMT -6
I'm glad you ask, John! Well people often throw up Omnis or other broad pattern mics for ambience for drums, strings or brass. In small spaces you can end up with comb filtering as the rear of the mic is hit by the signal at a different time to the front. If the player is 4 feet from the mic and the mic is 2 foot from a wall (purely reflective, hypothetical) then the reflection is delayed 4mS and is only 6dB quieter than the incoming signal. That's going to sound phasey and thin. A way around this is to put the microphone on the wall, so that there is no rear reflection. Reflections can come from the sides, above, below or behind the source but not behind the mic. So now: 1)The mic is probably as far from the player as you can get it, so most reverb. If it's too much most musicians can simply move forward 2)The ER's are down a reflection (first order reflection/closest) so your pre-delay has now increased 3)Comb filtering has been reduced 4)Because of the boundary effect, you'll find there's a bass boost. Larger surfaces = more bass. Obviously room treatment complicates this and can also mitigate the necessity. I don't advise mounting mics next to diffusers. In a room with heavy treatment, the floor or ceiling are probably the best bets. Or the room outside. I stuck a mic above a toilet cistern in the adjacent room ("Shitter's Perspective") and it gave a super thrashy drum sound. Worked for the more violent sections. I have some 50 buck Omnis I do this with all the time. Including my recent explorations into location shooting. I've done something similar that works well. I take LDCs and put them in corners, but facing the wall, about 2 inches away. this kind of turns them into a PZM type of setup. It gives a pre-compressed sound that doesn't sound quite like anything else. it can work really well, or be totally useless depending on the mix though. Should be much the same, the directional characteristics means that much of the high end phasing shouldn't be present, though the nulls in the 100-500Hz region will. If it's not doing it for you, and you are going with a 2 feet distance, check for nulls around 140 Hz, 280hz, 420 etc. and see if it's an acoustical problem. If you're losing the fundamental of your snare - well, that'd suck. Though sometimes I just don't like resonant the low end can be in some rooms that the boundary affect can bring up. Life's a beach.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 8, 2014 20:32:04 GMT -6
Somebody on here mentioned using an under snare mic also picking up the kick beater. I'd like to hear more about that. Figure 8? Phase issues? Etc. Cheers, Geoff I've done that with an AKG D160. Omni dynamic. Works nice - get the balance between the two, take the sub 100hz stuff out and your phase issues should be nominal.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 8, 2014 20:30:26 GMT -6
I'm glad you ask, John!
Well people often throw up Omnis or other broad pattern mics for ambience for drums, strings or brass. In small spaces you can end up with comb filtering as the rear of the mic is hit by the signal at a different time to the front. If the player is 4 feet from the mic and the mic is 2 foot from a wall (purely reflective, hypothetical) then the reflection is delayed 4mS and is only 6dB quieter than the incoming signal. That's going to sound phasey and thin.
A way around this is to put the microphone on the wall, so that there is no rear reflection. Reflections can come from the sides, above, below or behind the source but not behind the mic. So now:
1)The mic is probably as far from the player as you can get it, so most reverb. If it's too much most musicians can simply move forward 2)The ER's are down a reflection (first order reflection/closest) so your pre-delay has now increased 3)Comb filtering has been reduced 4)Because of the boundary effect, you'll find there's a bass boost. Larger surfaces = more bass.
Obviously room treatment complicates this and can also mitigate the necessity. I don't advise mounting mics next to diffusers. In a room with heavy treatment, the floor or ceiling are probably the best bets. Or the room outside. I stuck a mic above a toilet cistern in the adjacent room ("Shitter's Perspective") and it gave a super thrashy drum sound. Worked for the more violent sections.
I have some 50 buck Omnis I do this with all the time. Including my recent explorations into location shooting.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 8, 2014 19:36:33 GMT -6
I just listen first, then correct as needs be.
I rarely ever reach for a low pass filter. High shelving always sounds more natural to me.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 8, 2014 19:34:48 GMT -6
1. Make your room mics into boundary mics in "hard" rooms to avoid extra comb filtering
2. Delaying your ambience mics can have the same function as adding pre-delay to a reverb. Matching these or separating these delays from the reverb can really alter what the ambiance adds.
3. Avoid solo'ing things for extended periods, or at all, they can throw your perception of a mixes balance.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 7, 2014 19:25:46 GMT -6
Funnily enough, I've been told that processing high frequencies leaves lower ring than LF stuff.
I'd guess then doing a high pass filter would involve summing a low pass with an inverted version of the original to minimize ringing?? Not sure as I think an FFT sort of randomizes phase information.. Anyone with a better understanding could help..I sort of got bored on the Phase Vocoding chapter in my audio programming book...
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 7, 2014 10:27:59 GMT -6
30hz. I'd up the slope if the kick is tuned low enough to lose some of the fundamental to the slope. Usually set it around 30hz.
As was said, better on invididual tracks. Hi-passing rumble on vocal mics, guitar cabs, bass guitars, brass all helps.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 6, 2014 23:15:05 GMT -6
Great beer is known as red ale. And by red I mean preferably closer to black. Though being Irish, I do have a soft spot for some stouts..
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 4, 2014 7:57:14 GMT -6
DMX might look like MIDI from the outside, but they ain't like MIDI at all in terms of structure.
I think you can talk to DMX in a DAW via the OSC protocol. Maybe look into that.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 4, 2014 7:55:04 GMT -6
AT2020 requires phantom power.
Check the cable you're using doesn't have a loose connection. While a dynamic will still work with ground and the hot or cold pin, all 3 are required to operate a condenser microphone.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 2, 2014 9:41:38 GMT -6
So...we're talking about content manipulation? There's a REALLY easy answer to that...I'm sort of standing in disbelief--there's a thread over at GS where someone, who apparently records bands....BANDS...one member/instrument at a time to a click...saw Sound City (movie) and was wondering how normal this is for everyone to play all at once--were they just practicing or actually recording...? Disregard everything I said in this thread. I was talking about the actual sonic production....you know--since you were talking about mix engineer demos. Content Manipulation is a big part of modern mixing. Doubling basslines with subby synths, trigger tones from kicks, sample replacement, pitch and time quantization, re-amping are all attempts to alter the production from a tracking perspective to improve the mix. Most projects the guy tracking is the guy mixing. I think we ended up talking both because they're inseparable. Even the choice of mastering style is still a production decision - to me, at least.
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Post by jazznoise on Feb 2, 2014 5:46:36 GMT -6
src.infinitewave.ca/Oh and DAWs are only as good as the drivers that bridge their software and the audio devices.. ASIO anyone? But I wonder why anyone is talking about this at all.. If you can't make your recording sound good on ANY modern DAW, then the problem isn't software.. This was going to be a part of my reply. Not only aliasing noise and distortion, but also AA filters being made differently. Looking even just at the impulse response difference between Logic and Cubase you see that Logic has longer pre and post ringing which means they'll never match up in the time domain. Logic uses more aggressive filtering, which shows when you look at the sweep - the distortion is reduced in comparison to cubase - meaning you don't have identical harmonic content either. Now by not identical I mean within the 20hz-20Khz rang it's down -100dB or so. It'll never be audible, but it's another reason they wont null. Unless a DAW touts Non-Linear Summing you can expect the mechanics of the DAW's to be trivial in relation to sonics. The way a wav is generated by summing signals is Sample 1= (Channel 1's first sample +....Channel N's first sample)/ Master Fader Gain. The clock can't affect it because it's not a real time thing, and even with an Online Render you're looking at clock drift in the nano-seconds with a 2.5Ghz processor (coupled to a crystal clock with +/0.5% accuracy). Drivers should obviously be working in this decade too - though I've heard a Digi 192 just freak out before..
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