Hi. I’m trying to figure out when to use the low pass and high pass filters on a microphone. Can anyone help me please
Mike
Mics. Low pass / high pass
Re: Mics. Low pass / high pass
Very few mics have low-pass filters. If they do, it's typically because the mic itself is inherently quite bright and the manufacturer wants to offer a more mellow, vintage voicing as an option. So you might engage the filter if what you were capturing was sounding harsh, scratchy or overly sibilant for example.
High-pass filters are much more common and much more useful. They all cut low end from the signal that's captured, but there are two basic use cases for this, which typically suit slightly different settings.
Sometimes you find yourself recording something that just naturally doesn't have a lot of very low end. Examples might include female vocals, violin, ukulele and so on. In this case you can be pretty confident that anything you capture below 80Hz or so is going to be from an unwanted noise element such as traffic going by or someone tapping their foot on the floor. So you might was well eliminate it at source using a high-pass filter. Hence a lot of small-diaphragm mics for example have relatively steep filters rolling off below 75 or 80 Hz.
Other times, you find yourself miking sources quite close with a directional mic in such a way that the proximity effect is causing an unnatural or unwanted build-up of low end. In this case what's typically needed is a more gentle high-pass filter with a much higher corner frequency. The filter on the Neumann U87 for example is designed to compensate for proximity effect and I think turns over at 500Hz.
High-pass filters are much more common and much more useful. They all cut low end from the signal that's captured, but there are two basic use cases for this, which typically suit slightly different settings.
Sometimes you find yourself recording something that just naturally doesn't have a lot of very low end. Examples might include female vocals, violin, ukulele and so on. In this case you can be pretty confident that anything you capture below 80Hz or so is going to be from an unwanted noise element such as traffic going by or someone tapping their foot on the floor. So you might was well eliminate it at source using a high-pass filter. Hence a lot of small-diaphragm mics for example have relatively steep filters rolling off below 75 or 80 Hz.
Other times, you find yourself miking sources quite close with a directional mic in such a way that the proximity effect is causing an unnatural or unwanted build-up of low end. In this case what's typically needed is a more gentle high-pass filter with a much higher corner frequency. The filter on the Neumann U87 for example is designed to compensate for proximity effect and I think turns over at 500Hz.
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- Sam Inglis
Moderator - Posts: 3228 Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2000 12:00 am
Re: Mics. Low pass / high pass
You use a low pass filter if you feel the sound is too bright.
Much more commonly, you use a high pass filter to reduce 'bass boost' caused by proximity effect in a close-miked vocal. Or, possibly, to reduce unwanted thumps, hums etc. from a variety of sources.
But, like anything else, don't just dial it in as a 'standard' setting. Use them if your ear tells you the recording needs it.
Much more commonly, you use a high pass filter to reduce 'bass boost' caused by proximity effect in a close-miked vocal. Or, possibly, to reduce unwanted thumps, hums etc. from a variety of sources.
But, like anything else, don't just dial it in as a 'standard' setting. Use them if your ear tells you the recording needs it.
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- Exalted Wombat
Longtime Poster - Posts: 5846 Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2010 12:00 am Location: London UK
You don't have to write songs. The world doesn't want you to write songs. It would probably prefer it if you didn't. So write songs if you want to. Otherwise, please don't bore us with beefing about it. Go fishing instead.