Recording kit for sound fx and sound design recommendations

[Tomás Mulcahy]

Cheap ones sound as good as expensive ones, they all have the same element.

Didn't know cheap Contact mics sound as good as expensive ones.

They don't, they don't, and they aren't, in that order...

That said, in non-taxing applications the lower technical performance of cheap electrets may go unnoticed, especially for omni capsules.

Headroom, distortion, self-noise, RFI rejection, and consistency/matching between examples are the usual areas of difference.

I was referring to piezos not electrets.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Doh! I'm awaiting a firmware upgrade and factory reset.

As you were. Nothing to see here....

[tea for two]

That's why I chortled also because the phrase rung a bell I just couldn't recall where I've heard similar before.
I was waiting for Tomás to confirm. It's elcheapo Piezo's I have, purchased a tenner.

[Tomás Mulcahy]

I found a movo blimp that seems to have pretty good reviews. https://www.movophoto.com/products/bws1000-blimp

That looks about the same and as plasticky as the one I bought here:
https://www.proaim.be/collections/blimps
I chose this one because it can hold a full length shotgun mic I use, the Audio Technica AT8015 which is 460mm long.

[tea for two]

Stumbled upon this pic showing partially 4 mics inside Zoom H2n.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bBFtoT ... p=drivesdk

I considered H2n because it has MS recording option which according to 2012 SoS review by Tom Flint is handy.
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/zoom-h2n
"Initially I wondered if the M/S facility would work properly or be a marketing gimmick, given that this is a budget product. I'm happy to report that I found it extremely effective ....and the M/S decoder was joyously simple to use."

I hadn't considered the 4mics inside which has option to record on all 4 by turning the mic selector wheel on top of H2n.
SoS review when recording on all 4 mics
"As this is a combination of the 120-degree and 90-degree stereo setups, there's a degree of rejection at some points in the circle."

"The quality of the mics is about the same as those on similarly-priced products I've tested: sound quality is reasonably good, and certainly usable, but not exceptional. Importantly, handling noise is very low."

[Tomás Mulcahy]

About contact mics (the piezo kind) I just invested in a pair of Triton Audio Big Amp Piezo pre-amps. And now my 5 cheap contact mics sound like "real" mics. Much fuller sound compared to a regular DI input, or even my old Barcus Berry pre amp. You can clearly hear the improved energy transfer with the hi impedance input. Less harsh attack and fuller sustain on percussive sounds. When I have time I will post examples.

It is a cheaper option than the Cortado, but does not sound cheap at all. Really full beautiful sound. I did have to go measure all 5 piezos because their poutput level varies. Luckiy I ended up with two matched pairs.

[Hugh Robjohns]

About contact mics (the piezo kind) I just invested in a pair of Triton Audio Big Amp Piezo pre-amps. And now my 5 cheap contact mics sound like "real" mics. Much fuller sound compared to a regular DI input...

This is not surprising. Piezos are basically capacitive and naturally form a high-pass filter with the input impedance of the preamp.

To get a decent bass response from a piezo mic the preamp needs to present an extremely high input impedance — much higher than a typical instrument input.

Normal DI inputs usually present from 250k up to 1Meg Ohms — most being around the 1M Ohm mark.

In contrast piezo inputs need 7-10M Ohms (or more), and if connected to a standard DI input will tend to sound thin and scratchy.

The Triton presents a 7.5MOhms input impedance, so it's not surprise it has a much fuller low end.

The potential problem with such a high input impedance — especially with mics using an unbalanced connection — is the greatly elevated risk of RF interference pickup, and so the preamp's front end has to be designed and constructed very carefully to prevent that.

[Wonks]

Barcus Berry made various preamps so I can’t speak for all of them, but the specs for one I found had a 2.2Meg input impedance. If this was the case for yours, then the higher impedance of the Triton obviously suits your piezos better.

But not all piezo elements prefer higher impedances for flatter response. My K&K set much prefer a 10k-ish input to avoid excessive bass.

[Tomás Mulcahy]

The Triton presents a 7.5MOhms input impedance, so it's not surprise it has a much fuller low end.

I found I was unable to match the timbre between a 1M and the Barcus Berry (which IIRC is 5M) using eq. So I assumed it was more than the filtering aspect. Nevertheless I will post some examples, or do a user review of the Triton.

[Hugh Robjohns]

As always, the design of the pickup matters a lot, and some specialist music instrument piezo transducers are specifically engineered to work best when feeding ordinary DI inputs or even standard line inputs — which applies to many of the K&K models you mention, Wonks... but I think they are the exception rather than the norm.

More generic and low-cost piezos typically require very high impedance preamp inputs to achieve anything like a flat bass response, and relatively small changes of impedance can have a substantial tonal affect.

So it's important to read the user manual or manufacturer's recommendations to determine what kind of loading is required.