Topic: Good rig for bad rooms?

[Ray76]

I'm considering putting together a mid-upper level rig for open taping mostly in rooms with bad acoustics.  Would just like some suggestions of mics that perform better than average in unforgiving circumstances or some mic>power/processing combos that might be good for this environment.  Lets stamp the budget at around $850 total (assuming I can get a good deal on new or used gear).  I'd mostly be using these for taping local jazz acts or the bassy open acts like Pfunk or Claypool.  Should I just invest in more processing for my 4061 to excell in an open taping situation and forget about getting some high end cards altogether?  Lets assume I have an oade sbm-1 already.  Thanks for any opinions but please try to not be a fluffy fanboy.

Im going to pair mine with my other brick, to warm up the sound a bit. THey are clean as a whistle on their own..i just like punch and warmth.
Well....I think my 4050s sound really great in bad rooms...i can send you a sample too. and they are pretty clean..which you like. 3 pattern, LD mics...800 bucks for a pair on ebay. audio technica 4050s.

two recordings i made with them were in rooms that sounded like echo chambers...and full of loud people...you wouldnt know it..pm me your email address. ill send you samples.

What pre do you like to pair the AT's with Ray?  A warmer pre? 

Im going to pair mine with my other brick, to warm up the sound a bit. THey are clean as a whistle on their own..i just like punch and warmth. I tried the v2, but no dice..

[Ray76]

the V2 just passed the voice of the mics downstream.

yeah, .the mics are clean..very clean..as is the v2. its just a sound that I dont really like with PA music.

but when I paired the mics with the brick..man, that combo sounded great...

[Sloan Simpson]

AKG 483s DIN
sounds good in any room.  even outside.

Agreed.  I have a friend who pretty much points his 483's at the side walls in bad rooms, and they still sound great.

[muj]

I'm considering putting together a mid-upper level rig for open taping mostly in rooms with bad acoustics.  Would just like some suggestions of mics that perform better than average in unforgiving circumstances or some mic>power/processing combos that might be good for this environment.  Lets stamp the budget at around $850 total (assuming I can get a good deal on new or used gear).  I'd mostly be using these for taping local jazz acts or the bassy open acts like Pfunk or Claypool.  Should I just invest in more processing for my 4061 to excell in an open taping situation and forget about getting some high end cards altogether?  Lets assume I have an oade sbm-1 already.  Thanks for any opinions but please try to not be a fluffy fanboy.

definately not 850 ..but if you can get the $$ check out pearl elm-c.

 

you come up with some of the most off the wall names for stuff that ive ever heard. where do you hear about these mics???can you get them in the US??

hey..those are swedish mikes!

Line source loudspeakers are well known in professional audio: they give a good spread of sound laterally but have tightly controlled directivity in a vertical sense. The Pearl linear microphone capsule has some similar properties, though this is not its only advantage. Conventional microphone capsules are round. It's an easy shape to make consistently, but it has one significant disadvantage in that its high degree of symmetry makes the primary resonance quite pronounced. Damping can reduce some of the ills caused by that resonance, but it is still there and most often well within the audio band.
The size of round capsules is also a problem. Large is good for signal/noise ratio, but leads not only to a lower (hence more noticeable) resonance but also to a more marked increase in directivity at high frequencies. Very small capsules suffer from a reduced signal/noise ratio.
Pearl has made rectangular capsules for many years now, but never before with such an extreme (7:1) length/width ratio. The new linear capsule has more than twice the surface area of large-diameter round capsules, giving excellent signal/noise ratio, but avoids their high levels of in-band resonance (the resonance due to end-to-end vibration modes is very weak). In addition, at high frequencies the small width dimension makes for very good uniformity of directional pattern in the lateral sense, while usefully attenuating reflections from floor and ceilings - high frequency signals from above and below the 'line of sight' are almost never of any use!

This means that Pearl's new microphone can deliver a very accurate, uniform and consistent response pattern, with very flat response, low noise and useful attenuation of 'nuisance' reflections. The capsule is used in the new models ELM-B (figure-of-eight) and ELM-C (cardioid) and is highly recommended for stereo recording. The result: exceptional sonic neutrality. Hear it for yourself!

Finished in black chromium.
The ELM comes in aluminium case AC01

www.pearl.se

independent audio is the u.s rep.


unfortunately they ar not wellknown due to poor marketing, the company has existed in 50-60 years or so

the stack tapers are gonna love this mike!

[Ray76]

I'm considering putting together a mid-upper level rig for open taping mostly in rooms with bad acoustics.  Would just like some suggestions of mics that perform better than average in unforgiving circumstances or some mic>power/processing combos that might be good for this environment.  Lets stamp the budget at around $850 total (assuming I can get a good deal on new or used gear).  I'd mostly be using these for taping local jazz acts or the bassy open acts like Pfunk or Claypool.  Should I just invest in more processing for my 4061 to excell in an open taping situation and forget about getting some high end cards altogether?  Lets assume I have an oade sbm-1 already.  Thanks for any opinions but please try to not be a fluffy fanboy.

definately not 850 ..but if you can get the $$ check out pearl elm-c.

 

you come up with some of the most off the wall names for stuff that ive ever heard. where do you hear about these mics???can you get them in the US??

hey..those are swedish mikes!

Line source loudspeakers are well known in professional audio: they give a good spread of sound laterally but have tightly controlled directivity in a vertical sense. The Pearl linear microphone capsule has some similar properties, though this is not its only advantage. Conventional microphone capsules are round. It's an easy shape to make consistently, but it has one significant disadvantage in that its high degree of symmetry makes the primary resonance quite pronounced. Damping can reduce some of the ills caused by that resonance, but it is still there and most often well within the audio band.
The size of round capsules is also a problem. Large is good for signal/noise ratio, but leads not only to a lower (hence more noticeable) resonance but also to a more marked increase in directivity at high frequencies. Very small capsules suffer from a reduced signal/noise ratio.
Pearl has made rectangular capsules for many years now, but never before with such an extreme (7:1) length/width ratio. The new linear capsule has more than twice the surface area of large-diameter round capsules, giving excellent signal/noise ratio, but avoids their high levels of in-band resonance (the resonance due to end-to-end vibration modes is very weak). In addition, at high frequencies the small width dimension makes for very good uniformity of directional pattern in the lateral sense, while usefully attenuating reflections from floor and ceilings - high frequency signals from above and below the 'line of sight' are almost never of any use!

This means that Pearl's new microphone can deliver a very accurate, uniform and consistent response pattern, with very flat response, low noise and useful attenuation of 'nuisance' reflections. The capsule is used in the new models ELM-B (figure-of-eight) and ELM-C (cardioid) and is highly recommended for stereo recording. The result: exceptional sonic neutrality. Hear it for yourself!

Finished in black chromium.
The ELM comes in aluminium case AC01

www.pearl.se

independent audio is the u.s rep.


unfortunately they ar not wellknown due to poor marketing, the company has existed in 50-60 years or so

the stack tapers are gonna love this mike!

Interesting, Thanks Muj..

So you say "neutrality" as in transparency?

[muj]

yeah they lean to the transparnt side....kind of like cleaner schoeps.

[Massive Dynamic]

definately not 850 ..but if you can get the $$ check out pearl elm-c.
 

A quick google brought up this review. About $2,000 for the card, more for the fig 8.

[muj]

they probably are little less when they hit street price.still doubt there are focused mics like these anywhere..

[BC]

if you want to go the hyper route as your antidote to bad rooms, my personal faves are the schoeps MK41 and gefell M210. 

Might be out of your price range. though. Could consider some lower priced hypers like AKG (460, 480, 39x series) AT and others.

Plus those mics muj pointed out look like a nice choice too, never seen those before, +t for pointing them out muj! Just when I thought there were no mics out there that I had not heard of before...     

Another option for bad rooms is to change the way you think about the recording.     Your DPA's are pulling a great representation of how the actual show sounded, crappy sound or not. To me there is something neat about a realistic sounding recording, even when the place sounds like crap. You listen to the tape on little computer speakers or a boombox and sure, it sounds like crap. But listening on good speakers or decent headphones can give you a whole different sounding perspective on your "crappy" recording, when you close your eyes and can picture exactly how it sounded when you were at the show.

[pfife]

Evil, I think before you spend any money, you should try tossing your 4061's up on a stand or something and give them a spin... maybe a jecklin disk or something - check out what Moke made for the 4060s.

This is just my personal opinion, and I'm sure that many will disagree, but in the shitty sounding, crappy local bars that I've taped in, I really don't notice the hypers making better recordings than omnis.  I've made some tapes I've been really happy with in crappy sounding venues with the 4061s (like the May Masto I sent you...  that venue TOTALLY blows).  I've also made a couple nice recordings splitting them suckaz about 5-6 ft apart, taped to a rail on a balcony (did I send you QOTSA?).

But, once again, that's just me... and I love omnis.

[Evil Taper]

Evil, I think before you spend any money, you should try tossing your 4061's up on a stand or something and give them a spin... maybe a jecklin disk or something - check out what Moke made for the 4060s.

This is just my personal opinion, and I'm sure that many will disagree, but in the shitty sounding, crappy local bars that I've taped in, I really don't notice the hypers making better recordings than omnis.  I've made some tapes I've been really happy with in crappy sounding venues with the 4061s (like the May Masto I sent you...  that venue TOTALLY blows).  I've also made a couple nice recordings splitting them suckaz about 5-6 ft apart, taped to a rail on a balcony (did I send you QOTSA?).

But, once again, that's just me... and I love omnis.

That Mastodon show is creamy!  I'll have to give your QOTSA set a spin, haven't listened to that one yet.  You should check out the Static-X set I sent you, that's the room I'm concerned about open taping in because it usually sounds WORSE than that night even.

[pfife]

Evil, I think before you spend any money, you should try tossing your 4061's up on a stand or something and give them a spin... maybe a jecklin disk or something - check out what Moke made for the 4060s.

This is just my personal opinion, and I'm sure that many will disagree, but in the shitty sounding, crappy local bars that I've taped in, I really don't notice the hypers making better recordings than omnis.  I've made some tapes I've been really happy with in crappy sounding venues with the 4061s (like the May Masto I sent you...  that venue TOTALLY blows).  I've also made a couple nice recordings splitting them suckaz about 5-6 ft apart, taped to a rail on a balcony (did I send you QOTSA?).

But, once again, that's just me... and I love omnis.

That Mastodon show is creamy!  I'll have to give your QOTSA set a spin, haven't listened to that one yet.  You should check out the Static-X set I sent you, that's the room I'm concerned about open taping in because it usually sounds WORSE than that night even.

Yeah, I'll give 'er a spin!   I'm not sure that the mics would work well for you, but I think it might be worth a shot just to go through them up and see how it turns out, before you drop the cash for something else.  I mean, the worst that can happen is that you learn that you still need to purchase mics.  You could end up saving yourself money!

[Evil Taper]

Good point.  I think I'm gonna go tape this Claypool gig if I have an sbm-1 by then and see how I like it.

[Nick's Picks]

here is a spaced omni rig I made from $5 worth of radio shack stuff and a sabra mount.
I made several very nice recordings w/my DPAs this way.  I could get a 5' spread w/this.  but usualy though 3-4' sounded better.

[Evil Taper]

What about just putting them at normal placement on a standard stereo bar?