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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: OhioHead on April 02, 2021, 03:50:51 PM

Title: Mic bars......
Post by: OhioHead on April 02, 2021, 03:50:51 PM
I have not logged in a couple of years, I recall a member or two selling 3D printed mic bars, is anybody still selling these?

Has any tried the Gravity MS STB 01 pro?  Looks like a nice bar for $50, B & H, an outfit out of Chicago & Amazon are all out of stock, would like to get a dedicated bar or two before the Goose shows in June @ Buckeye Lake.

Thanks,
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: Twenty8 on April 02, 2021, 04:12:50 PM
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/srsrecordingservices

Scott will custom make anything you do not see there as long as you can provide measurements for him.
Worth an email before ordering, especially to discuss what you are mounting the bar to (Shure donut or Rycote lyres).
High level of recommendation; used by many board members.
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: jdwtyl on April 02, 2021, 06:40:44 PM
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/srsrecordingservices

Scott will custom make anything you do not see there as long as you can provide measurements for him.
Worth an email before ordering, especially to discuss what you are mounting the bar to (Shure donut or Rycote lyres).
High level of recommendation; used by many board members.
Scott was great to deal with and made me a few custom mounts. I would recommend him to anyone.
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: voltronic on April 03, 2021, 07:41:05 AM
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/srsrecordingservices

Scott will custom make anything you do not see there as long as you can provide measurements for him.
Worth an email before ordering, especially to discuss what you are mounting the bar to (Shure donut or Rycote lyres).
High level of recommendation; used by many board members.
Scott was great to deal with and made me a few custom mounts. I would recommend him to anyone.

Another satisfied SRS customer here. Well worth it.

I found that Gravity bar a few weeks ago, and it looks interesting. Here is another in the same price range that is wider and has 4 mic mounts.
https://www.thomannmusic.com/the_t.bone_stereobar_1_pro.htm (https://www.thomannmusic.com/the_t.bone_stereobar_1_pro.htm)

I also own one of the 24 in bars made by followinbob:
https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=162285.0 (https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=162285.0)
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: OhioHead on April 04, 2021, 07:51:28 AM
Thank you everyone for the feedback, the Thomman bar looks like it would fit my needs, I will reach out to custom folks mentioned.

I have not had good luck using a shock mount (Shure) directly to my light stand when I first go into taping w/ a custom bar for my Church’s (mic bar was not 100% level) when I moved up to Tele’s ELA’s, I would mount my bar to the light stand & place my mic’s in shock mounts.

My goal of a new mic bar is consistent mic placement & angles.
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: voltronic on April 05, 2021, 06:21:43 AM
I have not had good luck using a shock mount (Shure) directly to my light stand when I first go into taping w/ a custom bar for my Church’s (mic bar was not 100% level) when I moved up to Tele’s ELA’s, I would mount my bar to the light stand & place my mic’s in shock mounts.

My goal of a new mic bar is consistent mic placement & angles.

The likely reason you did not have good luck with your first setup was because it was far too low mass for your Shure mount to effectively damp vibrations. There has been recent discussion of the mass / compliance issue in this thread (http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=180990.msg2217624#msg2217624).

If your goal is consistency, you should take caution with the Thomman bar even though I recommended it. I'm reading through the reviews, and some people are complaining about the angle and distance markings being inconsistent.

For absolute consistency of setup, the SRS mounts are the easiest, although you need a separate mount for each spacing and angle.
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: OhioHead on April 05, 2021, 10:46:22 AM
Thank you Voltronic for your feedback, I own 1 Rycote shock mount so
going the SRS route would not be hard (just have to figure out the adopters needed to attach directly to my light stand).
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: Gutbucket on April 05, 2021, 04:36:51 PM
Following on the above-
When attempting to shock-mount light-weight microphones it can be advantageous to use a single shockmount isolating the entire mic-bar with mics attached to it as one monolithic assembly, rather than shock-mounting each microphone individually on a rigidly mounted bar.  Doing so increases the suspended mass and uses a single shock-mount rather than two of them - both things which tend to be beneficial in appropriately matching the mass being suspended to the suspension's compliance, as necessary for a sockmount to effectively isolate vibration as intended.  If a the suspension isn't loaded sufficiently such that it tends to wiggle easily under the weight of the microphone, it's not doing its job isolating effectively against solid-born vibration being transmitted through the stand.

It also makes it easier to confirm angles and spacing between microphones if they are rigidly mounted to the bar. ..and whenever the compliant suspension wiggles, the microphone pair moves together as a monolithic unit instead of independently, 'though admittedly that's a minor issue and usually not anything to get overly concerned about.
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: OhioHead on April 05, 2021, 05:08:27 PM
Thank you gutbucket for your response, I appreciate you taking the time to write out your answer that makes sense to me!
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: rigpimp on April 05, 2021, 05:39:29 PM
Big SRS fan here too. 

Scott made me a custom ORTF + M/S for my Schoeps actives.  It was EXACTLY what I needed EVERY time. 

When it broke Scott replaced it no questions asked.  When it broke again I noticed he had removed it from his site.  LOL :facepalm:
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: Gutbucket on April 05, 2021, 08:21:17 PM
Glad to help.  The key to effective shock-mounting is achieving a reasonable match between the springiness/compliance of the suspension and the weight/mass of whatever is being suspended.  For very light microphones that are shock-mounted individually, one can add weight which is suspended along with the microphone to load the suspension so that the decoupling becomes is effective.  That helps in a pinch, but is unwieldy so it generally works better to shift to suspending the mic-bar along with a pair of lightweight mics.

With a large bar such as the nice looking t.bone StereoBar 1 Pro Voltronic linked above supporting micrphones of typical weight (not super small and lightweight) typical individual suspensions along the bar for each microphone are the most straight forward and easiest approach.  If trying to shock mount such a large and relatively heavy mic bar along with microphones rigidly attached to it, a larger and relatively more stiff suspension would need to be used.  This is the opposite problem from trying to individually shock-mount tiny lightweight microphones that don't have enough mass to effectively load the suspension on their own. AEA used to make a big heavy-duty stand decoupler for use with large arrays like a Decca tree that they referred to as a "floater".  I searched for but can no longer find it nor a photo of one.  I'm in search of something like it myself for use between my multichannel microphone array contraption and its mounting stud that fits into the top of a mic-stand, clamp or support arm.  I don't need something as heavy duty as the big HD AEA Floater, so I'm thinking something like this: The Hook Studios Large Size MD-175-70 Mechanical Decoupler - https://thehookstudios.com/filters.html (https://thehookstudios.com/filters.html), or this Neumann decoupler -https://en-de.neumann.com/z-26-mt (https://en-de.neumann.com/z-26-mt) might work effectively while being sufficiently compact and streamlined aloft for me.  Otherwise I might build something myself using some Sorbathane samples I have on hand.  Of the 8 microphones I have in the array, 6 will benefit from improved decoupling, but they are tiny and weigh almost nothing, plus I'd much rather achieve it using a single compliant element.

^This information should actually be over in the shock mount thread. I'll double post it there for posterity.

I'm reading through the reviews, and some people are complaining about the angle and distance markings being inconsistent.

If that's not a quality control issue, it may be due to this- The spacing indicated on the bar will no longer reflect the exact spacing between microphones if they are angled away from (or towards) each other unless the microphone diaphragms are positioned directly above the pivot point of the mounts,  More typically the microphone bodies extend forward of the pivots so that as the mics are angled the actual spacing between diaphragms is increased (or decreased) somewhat by that offset.  Same applies to the Grace Spacebar, of which the t.bone StereoBar appears to be a clone, and another bars that includes spacing indications.
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: OhioHead on April 12, 2021, 05:38:30 PM
Can someone please PM me the contact information for Steve of SRS so I can contact him directly with some questions?

The Shapeway forum is not allowing me to direct contact Steve via messages, would like to get a custom mic bar on order, thanks.
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: dactylus on April 16, 2021, 10:26:19 AM
Can someone please PM me the contact information for Steve of SRS so I can contact him directly with some questions?

The Shapeway forum is not allowing me to direct contact Steve via messages, would like to get a custom mic bar on order, thanks.

You can PM Scott here, he is a TS supporting member!

https://taperssection.com/index.php?action=profile;u=21787

https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=170480.0
Title: Re: Mic bars......
Post by: OhioHead on April 16, 2021, 12:43:37 PM
Thank you!