Klas Strandberg wrote:
>
> No way, Walt!! Not possible! Both me and my friends have been spending
> months on trying to compensate, analog and digital, for bad mic behaviour.
> No way!
You certainly can't get that. The software I saw would move your sound
between various high end studio mics. It would change the sound so it
sounded like the other mic had recorded. It used a set of custom mic
profiles to do it. I don't think it could change between mic types in
the sense that would have to stick to changing between omni's for
instance. It was working on the differences between the mics when in the
same location, on the tiny differences in how each mic would put it's
characteristic stamp on any sound it recorded.
I saw it a couple years back. I've hunted through my bookmarks and it
looks like I did not bookmark it. Probably because it was very
expensive. And you had to have at least one of the mics on it's list to
do anything with it. And, of course I've never tried it, I did read a
couple reviews by studio folks who were impressed that it did,
apparently, work for them. Whatever it is that they hear to know it's a
particular model of mic was changed for their ears.
If I manage to run across it again, I'll post a link. Because of it's
very high cost, and that it's built for studio mics, I don't think it
would be much use for nature recording.
> You can filter soft and smooth frequency behavior - on axis - but when off
> axis response look like a vertical map of Rocky Mountains, (which is the
> most common) - that design is lost for ever. It can measure "flat" on-axis,
> but still sound terrible - which means that it "colors" also the on-axis
> sound. The on-axis sound is not free from reflections, you know. I am sure
> you are aware of this.
This, I'm sure the software I mentioned did not fix. That's a whole
nother thing from mic coloring.
Yes, I'm all too well aware that the environment a mic is in has a huge
effect on what it gets.
> The terrible truth: A big microphone maker has spent months and months on
> designing a very fancy microphone, based on a very creative and promissing
> idea. Spent lots of dollars. Investors get impatient and want their money
> back. But it doesn't measure flat, in the lab...? Therefore, after many
> sleepless nights it is decided that there must be something wrong with the
> lab! After adjusting it, which means moving walls, loudspeaker and reference
> mics etc. - a number of times - the mic measures "flat" Voila! Everyone
> pleased! Also the customers!
>
> Why such fraud? Because when the customers trust figures more than their
> ears, and when one manufacturer starts telling lies, everybody else has to
> follow.
>
> Not even the most respected mic makers are free from this trap. Think a
> while: How could Sennheiser sell a 1500 dollar mic, when a Korean 150 dollar
> mic shows a "better" frequency response diagram?
So much hangs on name in mics. Some brands I don't even bother looking
because the mere mention of the name doubles the price. And that's why
they do it, because each company has to survive, and if the only way
they can is fudging the figures, they do that. And slowly it builds
round and round between companies until it's really hard to separate
fact from fiction.
I read the figures, but I also read reviews, and try to find things
recorded with a mic. The real proof is how the mic performs in my hands.
Little of the information out there about the mics is even about using
them in nature recording. It's a very scary game selecting mics. So much
money you can waste if you get it wrong. You do need the figures in
deciding on mics. I don't think it's a case of the figures vs going out
and recording with a mic. You use the figures to try and decide if you
should get the mic, and until you have it, you can't record with it.
Once I've got a mic, I hardly ever look at the figures, except maybe the
polar pattern chart. I can find out so much easier just using it.
I should tell you about a certain very large shopping center, a
environmental impact study, and how you can get the official US air
pollution computer model for vehicle pollution to not "see" the
pollution coming from nearby roads (from a few feet downwind, even).
Something I did in a former part of my life. I know how to fudge numbers
big time, though in that round I was hired to catch them at it instead.
It's fun being a consultant, I made money off that shopping center 5
times over several years as it was fought over. And, not always on the
same side. I seemed to alternate which side hired me for the next round.
I was by the site last fall, it's still not built, though the entire
area is a sea of stores except for the site. It was not fought over for
environmental reasons, though that was the weapons used, the site is on
the boundary between two small cities. They were actually fighting over
who would collect the business taxes, though they did not say that. So,
depending on how the boundary fight was going one or the other of them
would be for or against.
Walt
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