the problem with a good mic is a bad room...

[forumuser915213]

Dear reader... If anyone is interested, my experiment wasn't a success. The dynamics did not turn out to be greatly tighter and some edge terminated ldcs moved closer seemed to work better.

Gavin

[Sam Spoons]

Makes sense (thanks for reporting back), stage dynamics are designed to be use up close*, <2" so I'm not surprised that the LDCs sounded better.

CS70's suggestion of some treatment on the ceiling is a good one if it is possible, any two untreated parallel surfaces will cause flutter echoes and 'ringing' which degrades the sound getting into the mic.

* Even super cardioid stage mics.

[ConcertinaChap]

We've been running a weekly musical Zoom singaround/turnaround every Sunday evening since March.

You'd think we'd have learned something in that time, and of course we have, but only slowly.

I feel that. We've been doing the same for the same amount of time and it is slow. The reason is simple, of course. You can't hear what you sound like. Everyone else can, and you can hear what they sound like but your own sound is screened out unless you record yourself and analyse it afterwards. With Jamulus, however, you can hear yourself and I've found that working out mic placements and such in Jamulus is transferable to Zoom. Personally I've got my mics on a boom arm just above me, which is not the greatest spot for sound but is very convenient so I've decided to accept that trade off.

CC

[forumuser915213]

Okay yeah, today i was convinced i would get the em 800, but you got me digging, and i found this post which seems to describe me exactly! - although maybe he was a little high at the time of listening, a little bit generous with the praise there!

My heavens!

He may be right about it suiting certain sources.

Looking at the specs, I think the sc600 might be better value still, but I don't need any more ldcs!

Gavin

[forumuser915213]

We've been running a weekly musical Zoom singaround/turnaround every Sunday evening since March.

You'd think we'd have learned something in that time, and of course we have, but only slowly.

I feel that. We've been doing the same for the same amount of time and it is slow. The reason is simple, of course. You can't hear what you sound like. Everyone else can, and you can hear what they sound like but your own sound is screened out unless you record yourself and analyse it afterwards. With Jamulus, however, you can hear yourself and I've found that working out mic placements and such in Jamulus is transferable to Zoom. Personally I've got my mics on a boom arm just above me, which is not the greatest spot for sound but is very convenient so I've decided to accept that trade off.

CC

We tried that, and found the distance made things a bit roomy.

We can get a little closer with mics at the side, but that takes a bit of management.

Gavin

[Sam Spoons]

There can be no denying that the best way of improving the ratio of wanted sound to room sound is to get closer to the mic.

[dfira]

Okay yeah, today i was convinced i would get the em 800, but you got me digging, and i found this post which seems to describe me exactly! - although maybe he was a little high at the time of listening, a little bit generous with the praise there!

My heavens!

He may be right about it suiting certain sources.

Looking at the specs, I think the sc600 might be better value still, but I don't need any more ldcs!

Gavin

What specs make you think it's better? It's a regular cardioid. I'm only interested in super or hyper, and in the 60€ range I'd prefer a second hand AT2020 if regular cardioid is an option.

[forumuser915213]

It's clearly a hypercardioid mic, if you look at the polar diagram. It seems to be a Thomann thing to describe cheapie hypercardioid LDCs as 'cardioid' - they describe the obviously hypercardioid sc1100 the same way.

I seem to remember they also used to describe the sc400 as a cardioid, but I may be mistaken.

I have no idea whether the sc400 would work for you or not - audio heaven seems to be made of magic combinations of mic, source, positioning and room, and I'm not smart enough to predict these things in every situation.

I've also been surprised by poor results from the better mics I own - the combo of source, mic, position and room can catch one out.

But I do say that the sc400 seems to get slammed in a way that it doesn't necessarily deserve at its price.

Gavin

[forumuser915213]

Just for difra, I've made a little comparison of the sc400 and a couple of others that came to hand - the AT4040, the 3U CM1 Black and the sc400 again, high pass filter off and then on.

I've stashed the file online somewhere I use for something else.

https://www.singdanceandplay.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/SC400-test.wav

As usual they all sound different, but the sc400 is not terrible, particularly given the price. But it is just slightly boxy. And I try it with the hpf on and off - it doesn't make much difference to my baritone.

The room btw, is a small book lined study of may 10ft by 10, with a window onto a road and computer whirring away. There's no treatment.

Gavin

[dfira]

That's so nice of you Gavin, thank you! But i just put 2 and 2 together, it's your very video on YouTube that convinced me to go for the 400/super-cardioid idea in the first place... You see how the sc1100 is clearly superior sounding but picked up much more ambience, but as I just want to sound the best in the types of devices that will be used by my listeners, i think it's a better call to go for the one that rejects more ambience, and fix the boxiness you mention with a wide-ish dip in what i am only guessing is around the 400hz.

[forumuser915213]

I'd worked it out. It's a question that's rarely asked.


I don't know what eq tweaks will help, apart from the built-in high pass filter and probably a bit of demudding from around 250Hz on down, which I'd do with most mics on my voice but didn't do here for comparison purposes.

I'd say that my experience is that the manufacturers' engineers generally get their high pass filter right so I use them as a matter of course. (HPFs cut out unwanted sounds like street rumble etc.)

With the HPF in (the final sc400 segment) I think it sounds quite natural and plausible to me so I probably wouldn't change much. Maybe I'd dial in a little 4kHz and dial out a little 3kHz, and see where that got me. But it's probably just playing really, as those two are close.

I think you probably have to pay for a mic that needs no eq... The AT4040 sometimes needs a dip between 6 and 7kHz because of an odd spike, but my se4400a never needs any eq at all. (Unless you count the HPF!)

The sc1100 has a mean old hump around 4kHz that often needs to be tamed, so I wouldn't normally use it for speech - though it's great on my old acoustic guitar, and great also on a soft-voiced singer I work with.

Gavin

[forumuser915213]

.... and if your room/treatment allows you to move back a little, you may well get away without demudding at all. These were all recorded at 6.5in (with the mic set to one side of my mouth) and at this distance an extra inch can change a great deal.

Gavin

[forumuser915213]

But, but, but... As if to add confusion, I'm a bit of a fan of the sE V7X, which, combined with a barrel preamp (there are cheaper ones available now) and a bit of foam, can produce an easy on the ear kind of result for a reasonable price. And it's hypercardioid, if that's what you'd prefer.

I'm asking for trouble here, but here goes with a real life untreated room demo:
https://youtu.be/Mca_hPVhaqA

G

[dfira]

Thanks Gavin once again. Well i just picked up a good deal on an interface and an at2020 second hand, so i snapped it up. But my friend will buy the at2020 off me, and at this point I'm still inclined to go for the sc400. There is just a level of detail that i enjoy in condensers that a dynamic never seems to capture.

Thanks again for your input.

[Sam Spoons]

Why not just keep the 2020 and use it closer?

[Tim Gillett]

Why not just keep the 2020 and use it closer?

Quite, and correct for any proximity effect with EQ.

[dfira]

Because I want it for video conferencing and need my ugly face to be clearly visible.

[CS70]

My $.10 is this thread may have confused you more then you were.

It is very simple: to achieve what say you want, you either need to treat your room well (and keep it very quiet) or work the mic close. All other concerns and properties, which do exist, are pretty insignificant with respect to the goal you describe.

It's like if you had a very heavy wardrobe to lift up and started being concerned about the difference in gravitational pull between the first and the second floor. It's there, it's measurable, it's fascinating but it's also insignificant for the problem at hand.

But by all means buy your hypercardiod and try - no better way to do science than experimenting.

That said, having a microphone visible in the video is far from unusual, and "close" doesn't mean it has to cover your face or you have to kiss the mic. It just means close, like in boom-arm close.

If on top you use a noise gate or even better an efficient noise canceling plugin (like Waves X-Noise for example) you can achieve a more than reasonable compromise between altering the timbre of your voice and removing what ambience is left.

Just sayin'.

[dfira]

You're right. But I think you're missing something. I think you're offering advice from the ideal perspective, but i have a budget and other constraints way below that... I'll never treat my room to the standard where ambience is eliminated, and i just don't want to keep the mic close. After corrective EQ, My listeners probably won't be able to tell difference in tonal characteristics between *any* two mics. But room ambience; yes they do notice; so why not prefer a mic that places a priority on dealing with ambience more than it does faithful sound capture?

I appreciate the pushback though, so say given my budget all in is around 100€ what would you suggest could i even do that would effectively eliminate ambience? Not much, and if i did do something *and* got a mic tuned to avoid ambience, that would be even better, no? Do you see my point?

[Sam Spoons]

You're missing the main point there though, as Hugh said in another thread, the difference between the ambience 'rejection'* of an Omni and a Hypercardioid mic is only 6dB**, the difference between a Cardioid and a Hypercardioid is significantly less.

Would your videoconferencing face tolerate a headset mic? As far as I can see that is the only way you will get a sufficient reduction in ambience if you can't have a conventional mic in shot and are unable to do some room treatment. As Scotty might say "Ye canna beat the laws o'physics Capn".

As CS70 says, buy the hypercardioid mic and you may find the sound improves sufficiently but I'd keep hold of the receipt...

* Strictly the 'directivity index' (you learn something new every day on here )

** Equivalent to halving the distance between the mic and the source.

[dfira]

I'm open to headsets for sure. As long as I don't sound like a sports broadcaster. Any recommendations?

[Drew Stephenson]

Or a lavalier?

[CS70]

If headsets are fine, in many work conferences I use a gaming headset-with-mic I bought for some 50 quid and it works perfectly - as the mic is really close. You do look like an oversized balloon with them on, however

For something more discreet, anything here will work

Code: Select all

https://www.gear4music.com/Microphones/Dynamic_Vocal.html?page=1&filters[42]=2224

(I have zero affiliation, of course)

(edit: you have to select and copy the entire URL manually as the forum does not link it right).

For the best looks, the most invisible are the thin omnis - I've used them many times when presenting stuff on stage and they work fine there. Even if they're picking up slightly more ambience than the others, the great S/N ratio due to them being so near your mouth makes that quite irrelevant (so long you don't have a truck outside your window).

The only minus is that they are fiddly and very light, so prone to change position at the wrong moment. In time I've come to appreciate stability - hence the gaming headset.

[zenguitar]

I had a few attempts to edit the URL to display in full, but restored it to your version using the code tags as that displayed the link clearly.

Andy

[CS70]

I had a few attempts to edit the URL to display in full, but restored it to your version using the code tags as that displayed the link clearly.

Andy

Yeah I think it's the square brackets which trip the site code.

I guess I could try to url-encode it and see if the site translates it better, but it's easy enough to select it like it is.

Thanks anyway for trying, much obliged as always