SM58 but better

[ore_terra]

The SM 57 is popular amongst Bluegrass guitar players, bothe live and, sometimes, in the studio. But they are pretty loud for an acoustic instrument.

In Nashville TV series is what you see more often in their “live” performances. I don’t know how much of a reference that is

[Hugh Robjohns]

Firstly, the SM58 is not "trusty" it’s awful IMO....I have two of them, ... as they always come in handy when "all else has failed"

You are, as ever, a walking contradiction!

[James Perrett]

Seeing as this thread has veered off at a tangent...

If you want a better SM58 then the only other alternative would be a U87. The SM58 may not be the best mic for the job but it is never the worst - and there are very few mics that you can say that about. Just about every other mic will let you down at some point or another.

While the U87 would rarely be used as a live mic, in the studio it seems more versatile than just about anything else and usually gives 'that' sound - it sounds like a record should (probably because we've heard it so often without realising).

[CS70]

The SM58 may not be the best mic for the job but it is never the worst - and there are very few mics that you can say that about.

Amen!

[Arpangel]

Skeet pre amp? You said you had some you could not get working?
Send one over and I might be able to fix it up for son!

Dave.

Dave, if you visit Mikes obituary here at SOS, you’ll see two boxes featured in the article, one is a live surround panner, and the other is a complex 8.1 surround plus height mixer, preamp "thing"!!! That has eight of his mic amps built into it, I just need to figure out how to acces them, I suppose you could extract the circuits, but I couldn’t do that, as these are reminders of Mike.
He always made his circuits on bread board, I could take one out and try and figure it out, or, if we ever meet up Dave, you could have a go yourself!

[ef37a]

Skeet pre amp? You said you had some you could not get working?
Send one over and I might be able to fix it up for son!

Dave.

Dave, if you visit Mikes obituary here at SOS, you’ll see two boxes featured in the article, one is a live surround panner, and the other is a complex 8.1 surround plus height mixer, preamp "thing"!!! That has eight of his mic amps built into it, I just need to figure out how to acces them, I suppose you could extract the circuits, but I couldn’t do that, as these are reminders of Mike.
He always made his circuits on bread board, I could take one out and try and figure it out, or, if we ever meet up Dave, you could have a go yourself!

Well Tone,' with ALL props to the Great Man I doubt there is anything in his pre amp designs that is not already known. Had I still the eyes and the energy I would love to have a crack at an ultra-low noise design almost certainly using an input transformer*. We are however always limited by Mr Johnson and his blasted noise!

*NOT for any "warmf" or "saturation effects" (they don't) but for the 'free' gain and RF immunity.

Dave.

[N i g e l]

We are however always limited by Mr Johnson and his blasted noise! .

& what of Barkhausen noise ? triggered by the signal but generated from magnetic domains flipping over randomly.
I often wondered if this was significant or had a "dithering" effect.

[ef37a]

We are however always limited by Mr Johnson and his blasted noise! .

& what of Barkhausen noise ? triggered by the signal but generated from magnetic domains flipping over randomly.
I often wondered if this was significant or had a "dithering" effect.

Strewth Nige! I have not seen mention of Barkhausen noise for a good two decades.

I am not sure it would be a problem in audio transformers? Causes modulation noise in tape I think where there are relatively few magnetic domains?

Dave.

[Arpangel]

Well Tone,' with ALL props to the Great Man I doubt there is anything in his pre amp designs that is not already known. Had I still the eyes and the energy I would love to have a crack at an ultra-low noise design almost certainly using an input transformer*. We are however always limited by Mr Johnson and his blasted noise!

*NOT for any "warmf" or "saturation effects" (they don't) but for the 'free' gain and RF immunity.

Dave.

You’re right Dave, about the design, but as I said, he adhered to whatever he was using, and didn’t cut any corners. But, he was always talking about how he used a "virtual earth" circuit in his designs, and how it was essential to some aspects of the performance, he was a big fan of whatever that is.

[Hugh Robjohns]

He was referring to 'virtual earth summing' which is a very useful property of op-amp circuitry (it can be done with other technologies too, but it just happens to be particularly easy and effective with op-amps).

The negative feedback around the op-amp effectively maintains the input terminal at 'earth' potential. Any number of inputs can be connected through mix resistors to that input terminal and, because it is effectively always maintained at earth potential, there is no possibility of any interaction between the different connected inputs, but their signals can be combined.

This is important where the inputs come from channel faders, say, because it ensures that moving one fader wont affect the signal levels received from the other channels.

This is not the case with, for example, a passive mixing setup, or some other topologies! In a passive mixer changing one fader setting will alter the impedances to ground for all the other channels, and thus some interaction between sources becomes inevitable. Hence the significance of the technique, and the particular relevance to Mike's weird and wonderful multi-channel designs where input sources were routinely feeding multiple outputs via multiple faders.

There was nothing magical or advanced in what Mike was doing. He was just using op-amps in the way they were intended to be used.

[Arpangel]

He was referring to 'virtual earth summing' which is a very useful property of op-amp circuitry (it can be done with other technologies too, but it just happens to be particularly easy and effective with op-amps).

The negative feedback around the op-amp effectively maintains the input terminal at 'earth' potential. Any number of inputs can be connected through mix resistors to that input terminal and, because it is effectively always maintained at earth potential, there is no possibility of any interaction between the different connected inputsbut their signals can be combined.

This is important where the inputs come from channel faders, say, because it ensures that moving one fader wont affect the signal levels received from the other channels.

This is not the case with, for example, a passive mixing setup, or some other topologies! In a passive mixer changing one fader setting will alter the impedances to ground for all the other channels, and thus some interaction between sources becomes inevitable. Hence the significance of the technique, and the particular relevance to Mike's weird and wonderful multi-channel designs where input sources were routinely feeding multiple outputs via multiple faders.

There was nothing magical or advanced in what Mike was doing. He was just using op-amps in the way they were intended to be used.

Thanks for that thorough explanation Hugh, I finally "get it"!
Mike did explain it to me a few times, but he always assumed I knew more than I did!
And I’m a bit slow on the uptake regrading these things, so he used to just break off his explanation if he saw my eyes closing!!
What I really liked about Mike was his ability to "improvise" with electronics, I’d say "wouldn’t it be great to do this?" something virtually unheard of or impossible, and he’d disappear into the kitchen (workshop!) and about two hours later he’d have it on a bit of bread board, his knowledge of what would make certain things happen to other things in circuit design was incredible.

[Hugh Robjohns]

...his knowledge of what would make certain things happen to other things in circuit design was incredible.

As Arthur C. Clarke wrote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

[Arpangel]

...his knowledge of what would make certain things happen to other things in circuit design was incredible.

As Arthur C. Clarke wrote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

That’s the problem Hugh, I used to believe in magic when I was a child, then as I grew up I realised it was just an illusion, and technology is all we have.

[Drew Stephenson]

...his knowledge of what would make certain things happen to other things in circuit design was incredible.

As Arthur C. Clarke wrote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

That’s the problem Hugh, I used to believe in magic when I was a child, then as I grew up I realised it was just an illusion, and technology is all we have.

You just need to take it one stage further and appreciate that it's pretty much the same thing and it's all we need.

[Arpangel]

You just need to take it one stage further and appreciate that it's pretty much the same thing and it's all we need.

There are still a lot of things that cannot be explained, scientifically, or technically, where does instinct actually come from? it certainly doesn’t come from evolution, I’m not a Darwinian, why do we want to survive? who instigated that? what is love? we cannot and will not, be able to explain the fundamental questions about life that we all want to know, science is good at the superficial stuff, the utilities, the material would, but the real stuff still goes unanswered, and these are things we can’t touch, see, or feel, but they affect every one of us.

[ef37a]

You just need to take it one stage further and appreciate that it's pretty much the same thing and it's all we need.

There are still a lot of things that cannot be explained, scientifically, or technically, where does instinct actually come from? it certainly doesn’t come from evolution, I’m not a Darwinian, why do we want to survive? who instigated that? what is love? we cannot and will not, be able to explain the fundamental questions about life that we all want to know, science is good at the superficial stuff, the utilities, the material would, but the real stuff still goes unanswered, and these are things we can’t touch, see, or feel, but they affect every one of us.

I prescribe a year's subscription to New Scientist. If you read that honestly and with an open mind you will realize that the world of science is not just a cold, hard purveyor of 'facts' but many scientists are indeed trying to 'unpick' some of the very elusive emotive things you mention.

Altruism, empathy..LOVE if you will certainly do have a survival value! Selfish, psycopathic bastards are quickly discovered and ejected from societies. (yes, I firmly believe "they" will get their comeuppance one day!)

I find the discoveries of science make this wonderful world all the MORE 'magical '. Far more so than the bollox expounded about 'how it all happened' by religious dogma.

We don't NEED to be told to be kind and generous, it is those that are not that are flawed.

Dave.

[Tim Gillett]

...his knowledge of what would make certain things happen to other things in circuit design was incredible.

As Arthur C. Clarke wrote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

Yes to those who dont understand the technology. The person most qualified to judge the abilities of an alleged expert is... another expert in the same field.

[Arpangel]

Selfish, psycopathic bastards are quickly discovered and ejected from societies. (yes, I firmly believe "they" will get their comeuppance one day!)

Dave.

Many years ago I believed that people were basically good, but as I’ve lived my life, I simply cannot believe that, given the things I’ve seen and experienced during my time on this earth, in fact, I now believe completely the opposite.
Very early on I started being drawn to certain philosophers and artists that fall into that way of thinking, William Burroughs, Bukowski, artists like Francis Bacon and Picasso, bands like The Velvet Underground, all people that observed what human life is like on it's underbelly.
Now I find all that way too depressing, and I’m on to another stage of my life, escapism, I no longer want to be reminded of reality, it’s too disturbing, I’ll settle for nice fluffy clouds a seat in my conservatory and a large gin and tonic.

[CS70]

[quote="Arpangel"] it certainly doesn’t come from evolution, I 'm not a Darwinian/quote]

What you decide to believe or not has nothing to do with what is...

[N i g e l]

What you decide to believe or not has nothing to do with what is...

Tell me about it ! ..........

[dfira]

Fascinating conversation. I think you're getting lost in good and bad, which are human defined traits that don't actually exist, in such a way that a 'forest' does not exist... - there are only trees, some closer together than others.

Given that, it is more accurate to describe people as inherently opportunistic, rather than one way or another. We should favour systems that favour good opportunities over the ones that favour the bad; you quickly see systems such as governments/mafias, those that rule by force or threat of violence, rather than systems that seek out reason, are what make this world a dark place.

I voluntarily lend authority to an architect because his method of construction can be reasoned by first principles. I do not accept submission to a state to be anything other than slavery.

[CS70]

...his knowledge of what would make certain things happen to other things in circuit design was incredible.

As Arthur C. Clarke wrote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

Yes to those who dont understand the technology. The person most qualified to judge the abilities of an alleged expert is... another expert in the same field.

Yes, it's definitely a better option but it's important to keep in mind that it's far from perfect. Being human, experts can also biased in some form - and, like anybody else, often unaware of their biases. And whether and expert opinion or not is worth of consideration depends on the methods he/she uses and the form in which he/she communicates that opinion. "expert" alone is, alas, about personal recognition more than factual expertise. There's plenty "experts" on YouTube on all sorts of things.

Which is what leads to the scientific method and the scientific consensus: the method demands a reproducible way to produce an observation, plus a transparent way to use it to reach a conclusion. The consensus demands that the same observation and conclusion be reached independently by the majority of a large number of experts. It's a probability game.

So in a way a judgement is solid only when it's subject to experiment, can be followed and it's agreed upon by a sizable number of people who have done both.

Even that can lead to bad results of course, since it's sometimes hard to ensure to be sure that what you observing is what you're thinking you're observing (see Feynman's "Cargo Cult Science" for a good example), and even independent experts will in the end use similar tools and conceptual frameworks, so group thinking can still creep in. But it's much rarer and since experts die and get replaced with other with different personalities and life situations, there's a very high chance that sooner or later someone will refuse the group thinking.

Sometimes it takes quite a bit. But forward we go, in bounces and leaps and the occasional lunch break.

[ef37a]

Ooo! "Your Biased Brain" New Scientist 29 Aug 2020.

First one to PM me an address gets a free copy!

Dave.

[Arpangel]

it certainly doesn’t come from evolution, I 'm not a Darwinian/quote]

What you decide to believe or not has nothing to do with what is...

But that’s the question, what "is" "it" things don’t just happen, or come from nowhere, the universe is an infinite sea of nothing, and we came out of nothing. It can’t happen.

[Drew Stephenson]

The universe is not a sea of nothing. There's loads of stuff it's just very spread out. But gravity still exists (as do other, smaller forces of attraction) so stuff comes together.
Betting against gravity rarely pays off in the long run.