Topic: Microphone "transparency": detail, color, distortion

[poorlyconditioned]

I've been doing a lot of critical listening (read, obsessing) lately with my various mics.

I always took the view, get better mics and/or add soundboard to get better and better sound.  That is true, but what is the *best* sound I can get?

Recently I've been running various omni mics (in binaural configuration) alongside my "working" mics.  After sufficient listening (and consuming various intoxicants ) I can hear some subtle differences between various (mostly low end) mics.  So far, I've noticed at least three different properties:
- detail (like can I hear the people at the other side of the bar, and can I hear their actual conversation)
- color (are the mics flat, or somehow too dull, bright, or whatever)
- distortion

The last one, distortion, was the most surprising.  In particular, some mics like AT853 and AKG Blueline seemed to sound off and generate some simbalence (sp?) that did not appear to be in the PA to begin with.  It could be adding distortion, or maybe they are colored somehow that it highlights the defects.  The point is, listening to an omni recording the simbalence is there, but it does not "pop out" at me.  It does not bother me, whereas it does on the the other mics.

As far as color goes, AT853 and AT822 seem to have more detail than the blueline, but they are somehow colored wrong.  Blueline sound like I am in the room, if I ignore the (subtle) lack of detail and (slight) added distortion.

Finally I tried AKG 480 (CK63 hyper cap).  This was just as balanced as the other AKG, it had way more detail, but it still added a very slight distortion.  FWIW, it also sounded a bit "lifeless" compared to some other recordings I've made.  I can't precisely describe this though.

I also listened to someone elses (Wiggle) SP C4 recordings and liked these a lot, though they seemed slightly colored.  Not bad, but noticeable.

Questions:

- has anyone got some really transparent recordings to send me.  Something that sounds like I'm really in the room.  Something where i can put on headphones and forget I've got them on.  Go ahead, Scheops or DPA users.  Make my day!

- has anyone considered adding EQ to fix the colored mics to sound more natural?  I tried this informally and I was able to improve the AT822 quite a bit.  I should really calibrate this and fix the high frequency "bumps" around 8-10kHz or so.

  Richard

[Brian]

interesting.....nice post.

what kind of "intoxicants" were you on?  I only ask because drugs like alcohol or cannabis can greatly affect how you hear. cannabis does strange things with upper frequencies 7k and up for me lower frequencies are all garbled. with alcohol, that slows down your overall responses and thus i can't deal with dynamics, transients, and the like. mushrooms.....wow....anyway......basically what i am getting at is that if one is going to do some really critical listening, they should be sober and have fresh ears.

i've recently made some b+k 4022 > grace v2 > sd722 recordings and it would be interesting see how transparent they are on critical listens for shows recorded in venues i am familiar with.  schoeps definitely add their own color, as do neumann's, but both are extremely detailed IMHO.  in terms of distortion or harmonic distortion, high end microphones definitely have lower amounts due to using better quality electronics(part of the reason they more expensive).  Self noise and distortion are also big reasons a lot of people modify cheaper gear or opt for more expensive stuff.  People talk about how modifying gear improves the "soundstage" or how more high end stuff gives a more detailed "soundstage". I believe a lot of that has to do with lower noise levels, less harmonic distortion, and cleaner over all signal to pass audio.

edit: for overall clarification

[poorlyconditioned]

interesting.....nice post.

what kind of "intoxicants" were you on?  I only ask because drugs like alcohol or cannabis can greatly affect how you hear. cannabis does strange things with upper frequencies 7k and up for me lower frequencies are all garbled. with alcohol, that slows down your overall responses and thus i can't dynamics, transients, and the like are all messed up for me. mushrooms.....wow....anyway......basically what i am getting at is that if one is going to do some really critical listening, they should be sober and have fresh ears.

i've recently made some b+k 4022 > grace v2 > sd722 recordings and it would be interesting see how transparent they are on critical listens for shows recorded in venues i am familiar with.  schoeps definitely add their own color, as do neumann's, but both are extremely detailed IMHO.  in terms of distortion or harmonic distortion, high end microphones definitely have lower amounts due to using better quality electronics(part of the reason they more expensive).  Self noise and distortion are also big reasons a lot of people modify cheaper gear.  People talk abouit how modifying gear improves the "soundstage" or how more high end stuff gives a more detailed "soundstage". I believe a lot of that has to do with lower noise levels, less harmonic distortion, and cleaner over all signal to pass audio.

edit: for overall clarification

Canibus, if you must ask.

As far as transparency, here is what I'm talking about: I have the headphones on loud, and I stare at my desktop speaker, thinking that is what is making all the noise because that speaker is the direction of the PA in the recording.  I forget that I've got headphones on!  Sounds seem to be coming from everywhere, not just my headphones.  The other thing is I become concious of the ambience of the room and the PA speaker itself, and if/how it is distorting, hissing, buzzing or whatever.   The suprising thing to me, is that when I do hear distortion (simbalence, etc) or boominess or whatever, it is quite minor, and it does not "pop out" or bother me like it does on a distorted recording would.  I can somehow "forgive" the room/PA, but not the mics.  So, obviously I'm getting more expensive ears.

OK, I admit this effect improves with intoxication, but the point is, only perfect recordings (transparent mics, spaced omnis, or binaural) do this for me.  One might say this is just the binaural effect, but when I put other mics, like AT853 over my ears, they do not sound realistic at all.  I can hear the binaural effect separately from the transparency effect (I think).

  Richard

[Church-Audio]

interesting.....nice post.

what kind of "intoxicants" were you on?  I only ask because drugs like alcohol or cannabis can greatly affect how you hear. cannabis does strange things with upper frequencies 7k and up for me lower frequencies are all garbled. with alcohol, that slows down your overall responses and thus i can't deal with dynamics, transients, and the like. mushrooms.....wow....anyway......basically what i am getting at is that if one is going to do some really critical listening, they should be sober and have fresh ears.

i've recently made some b+k 4022 > grace v2 > sd722 recordings and it would be interesting see how transparent they are on critical listens for shows recorded in venues i am familiar with.  schoeps definitely add their own color, as do neumann's, but both are extremely detailed IMHO.  in terms of distortion or harmonic distortion, high end microphones definitely have lower amounts due to using better quality electronics(part of the reason they more expensive).  Self noise and distortion are also big reasons a lot of people modify cheaper gear or opt for more expensive stuff.  People talk about how modifying gear improves the "soundstage" or how more high end stuff gives a more detailed "soundstage". I believe a lot of that has to do with lower noise levels, less harmonic distortion, and cleaner over all signal to pass audio.

edit: for overall clarification

Some of the best studio mics in the world have very high harmonic distortion. Its not about things you can measure. Sometimes I measure a mic or a preamp and go wow this must sound great. Then I listen to it and it sounds like a bag of shit. Some times I measure something and it looks like shit but when I listen to it it sounds amazing. I think that sound is subjective. I know this after 20 years of mixing live sound some people will go wow your show sounded great, some people will go I did not like this or that. I know that a lot of what I am saying is redundant but I feel that if you like the sound of what you have great. At the end of the day its not the brand name on the microphone or preamp that is important its how its used that makes the biggest difference in the end product.

[Brian]

good point chris.  the neumann u47 is probably one of the best microphones ever made and it has all kinds of even harmonic distortion when the tubes are pushed. but, to the human ear, even harmonic distortion sounds, natural, pleasant, or whatever you want to call it.

which brings up the great point of, better specs don't necessarily mean better sound.

[Roving Sign]

A lot of the high-end guys will claim that the human ear likes a little distortion...activates your brains error correction...?

Richard, do you have your playback system set up symmetrically?

[poorlyconditioned]

interesting.....nice post.

what kind of "intoxicants" were you on?  I only ask because drugs like alcohol or cannabis can greatly affect how you hear. cannabis does strange things with upper frequencies 7k and up for me lower frequencies are all garbled. with alcohol, that slows down your overall responses and thus i can't deal with dynamics, transients, and the like. mushrooms.....wow....anyway......basically what i am getting at is that if one is going to do some really critical listening, they should be sober and have fresh ears.

i've recently made some b+k 4022 > grace v2 > sd722 recordings and it would be interesting see how transparent they are on critical listens for shows recorded in venues i am familiar with.  schoeps definitely add their own color, as do neumann's, but both are extremely detailed IMHO.  in terms of distortion or harmonic distortion, high end microphones definitely have lower amounts due to using better quality electronics(part of the reason they more expensive).  Self noise and distortion are also big reasons a lot of people modify cheaper gear or opt for more expensive stuff.  People talk about how modifying gear improves the "soundstage" or how more high end stuff gives a more detailed "soundstage". I believe a lot of that has to do with lower noise levels, less harmonic distortion, and cleaner over all signal to pass audio.

edit: for overall clarification

Some of the best studio mics in the world have very high harmonic distortion. Its not about things you can measure. Sometimes I measure a mic or a preamp and go wow this must sound great. Then I listen to it and it sounds like a bag of shit. Some times I measure something and it looks like shit but when I listen to it it sounds amazing. I think that sound is subjective. I know this after 20 years of mixing live sound some people will go wow your show sounded great, some people will go I did not like this or that. I know that a lot of what I am saying is redundant but I feel that if you like the sound of what you have great. At the end of the day its not the brand name on the microphone or preamp that is important its how its used that makes the biggest difference in the end product.

Hey Chris.

My belief is that mic disortion/color or whatever of the mic is usually a much bigger problem than the actual sound in the room.

If the sound in these places was playback from our recording, people would notice a real degradation in quality compared to what the sound mixer/PA normally produces.

You might hear something that is off, like too much bass, slightly muddy vocals, or whatever.  But in the recording that won't bother you because there are so many other problems due to the mics!!!

  Richard

[it-goes-to-eleven]

I went through a similar phase when I had access to AT853's and owned 4061's and SP C4's. Among those choices, I started preferring the natural sound of the 4061's. I have 'small noisy bar' recordings where I preferred the 4061's. Cards/hypers can't remove everything and if the excess noise ends up unnatural/metallic sounding, that can be worse than what an omni grabs.

There was a point made recently in the cable comp thread about how great SP C4's compared to Schoeps mk4's when close miking a guitar..  and yet further away, the comparison doesn't hold so much.   I once ran the AT853's a couple feet on stage for MMW (split 4') and they were pretty amazing in that location. Comparable to the high dollar mics further back but with better soundstage.  But the AT's could not have competed back where the high end mics were.  I think some of that might be related to the better off-axis performance you get with higher end mics. Omnis don't suffer from those problems nearly as much. Hypers seem even harder than cards to get right.

[RobertNC]

Hey Chris.

My belief is that mic disortion/color or whatever of the mic is usually a much bigger problem than the actual sound in the room.

If the sound in these places was playback from our recording, people would notice a real degradation in quality compared to what the sound mixer/PA normally produces.

You might hear something that is off, like too much bass, slightly muddy vocals, or whatever.  But in the recording that won't bother you because there are so many other problems due to the mics!!!

  Richard

Run the same gear two nights in row for the same band.  One night in the middle of the room.  The next night back under a balcony near the corner.  You'll quickly become a firm believer that the actual sound in the room - in terms of relevance to taping, this should really be the actual sound in the room where your mics are located is probably the biggest single factor in the quality of the recording.

Not saying mics are not important, but I;d rather run in a sweeter spot with lower end mics than run in a bad spot with any mics.

[poorlyconditioned]

Hey Chris.

My belief is that mic disortion/color or whatever of the mic is usually a much bigger problem than the actual sound in the room.

If the sound in these places was playback from our recording, people would notice a real degradation in quality compared to what the sound mixer/PA normally produces.

You might hear something that is off, like too much bass, slightly muddy vocals, or whatever.  But in the recording that won't bother you because there are so many other problems due to the mics!!!

  Richard

Run the same gear two nights in row for the same band.  One night in the middle of the room.  The next night back under a balcony near the corner.  You'll quickly become a frim believer that the actual sound in the room - in terms of relevance to taping, this should really be the actual sound in the room where your mics are located is probably the biggest single factor in the quality of the recording.

Not saying mics are not important, but I;d rather run in a sweeter spot with lower end mics than run in a bad spot with any mics.

I agree completely.  I've got a whole bunch of clamps, tent poles, velcro and whatever it takes to get up close.  And I've made some great recordings this way.  I'm just looking for great as well as realistic.

In my opinion, there is nothing more fun than *feeling* like you're in the room at the sweet spot.  Even if it is on the ceiling!

  Richard

[musicsherlock]

it's the soundstage you are going for, no?  try some more Jdisc samples and M/S samples...

[poorlyconditioned]

it's the soundstage you are going for, no?  try some more Jdisc samples and M/S samples...

I'm actually not that worried about the soundstage.  For example, it seems we can adjust/visualize what is going on in spaced omnis, ORTF, etc.

It is about clarity.  One of the ways I evaluate mics is to listen to more "natural" sounds, like people talking, band souncheck, etc.  Hey, that's my natural environment .

  Richard

[Church-Audio]

Hey Chris.

My belief is that mic disortion/color or whatever of the mic is usually a much bigger problem than the actual sound in the room.

If the sound in these places was playback from our recording, people would notice a real degradation in quality compared to what the sound mixer/PA normally produces.

You might hear something that is off, like too much bass, slightly muddy vocals, or whatever.  But in the recording that won't bother you because there are so many other problems due to the mics!!!

  Richard

Run the same gear two nights in row for the same band.  One night in the middle of the room.  The next night back under a balcony near the corner.  You'll quickly become a frim believer that the actual sound in the room - in terms of relevance to taping, this should really be the actual sound in the room where your mics are located is probably the biggest single factor in the quality of the recording.

Not saying mics are not important, but I;d rather run in a sweeter spot with lower end mics than run in a bad spot with any mics.

I agree completely.  I've got a whole bunch of clamps, tent poles, velcro and whatever it takes to get up close.  And I've made some great recordings this way.  I'm just looking for great as well as realistic.

In my opinion, there is nothing more fun than *feeling* like you're in the room at the sweet spot.  Even if it is on the ceiling!

  Richard

Hey Richard if your really looking for low distortion and high performance check out the DPA 4090 I have purchased one for my sound measurements. Its a sweet mic. Not to expensive as DPA goes. But its considered to be one of the best omni mics in its class. I agree with you omni mics can be great but they are not so good in a big space with lots of reverb, unless thats the sound your going for ( classical recordings ) I think the mic is important but I think a ok mic in a sweet spot will always sound better then a great mic in a bad spot.

I think that's the real challenge of taping live shows to get your mics where they need to be in order to pickup the show with a good balance. For me its always been easy because I always just put my mics in front of my console. But for real tapers out in the audience its a real challenge.

[DSatz]

I agree strongly about the importance of the room and the microphone location. It doesn't negate the importance of good microphones, but a microphone can only convert what it "hears" into electrical signals. Unfortunately it's a lot easier to focus on equipment, so that's what people on this here Interweb thingy seem to do--to the almost total exclusion of everything that matters more.

And I, too, shall now go right back to doing the very same thing myself ...

I'd like to raise a caution flag about distortion in recording equipment--there are myths afoot, I see. It takes rather large amounts of non-linear distortion to affect audio quality in a perceptible manner. The idea that "our ears are more sensitive than the most sensitive measuring instrument" is simply false; we can easily measure 0.001% THD, but more like 3% is where distortion becomes audible on pure tones, while with complex musical signals, even higher levels are easily masked and can be much harder to detect.

Some kinds and amounts of distortion, when added to some signals, can produce interesting and useful results at times. But there are about six different variables in that equation--change any one of them and the result changes. It can take a lot of trial and error to find the exact distortion settings that you want for a certain song or even just one part of a song; it's not something you can calculate in advance, and if you use the same settings all the time, it only shows that you're not paying attention.

But using recording equipment that has distinct coloration is like having all the knobs on a signal processor glued to fixed settings. The stronger the coloration which a piece of equipment has, the more it becomes a special-purpose item. When a piece of recording equipment has a strong "audible signature," you eventually tend to use it for certain types of program material. It becomes a kind of filter--the definition of a successful recording gradually becomes, "whatever will make my microphones (etc.) do their special thing."

A historical note: The U 47's distortion stays well below 1% within its normal operating limits (up to 110 - 115 dB SPL), and the same was true for other "vintage" tube microphones in general. Studio engineers back then were real engineers by and large, and rarely let equipment exceed its specified operating range. So all the rationalizations which one hears nowadays about odd and even harmonics, etc. are mostly irrelevant in terms of studio practice and equipment design in that bygone era. Anyway it isn't a safe assumption that solid-state circuits "hit a brick wall" while tube circuits "clip softly" when they overload--it depends very much on the particular circuit.

--best regards

P.S.: I know that I tend to rant a bit. Could people please not quote back my entire messages in their replies? It only wastes more board space than I just did. Just select the part that pisses you off, OK? Many thanks.

[grider]

obviously Richard the preamp will affect the sound of any microphone heavily, unless run through a very transparent V2 or V3; that said, I too abandon the 390 series for precisely the reason you describe, that of an unnatural distortion created by that mic esp in the low end; I am a flat mic fan, so I will never own a colored mic, and will stick with AKG or DPA in my taping days; a very transparent recording I made with 483s is Sound Tribe Sector 9 from 9-13-06, stream it on archive.org and see what you think of it