57's are just ducky for anything that doesn't have info over 15K or that you want to lo pass @15K. duh cymbals, hats, acoustic guitars do not fall into this category.

if your application is broadcast, tv am / fm the best you have is 6K to 15K so i could understand a person leaning in that direction for that application. but a capacitor mic is what you want when recording.

i watched Jeff Lynnes Mr. Blue Sky twice now on the toob and almost every mic in his studio is a U 87 / U67 or a 421 .... his drum set is miced up with nothing but Neumanns except perhaps the snare an imo he makes some of the best records i have heard.

i'm not crazy either. i know everyone is out to get me ....i read somewhere it's ok for people to talk to themselves .. but it's not good when they argue with themselves.

Everyone knows I go off about 57, 58's, 421's on drums. Obviously I primarily because of the live location work that I do.

When I'm in the studio, I'm still quite comfortable and accustomed to using 57 & 421's and other microphones on the drums. But it wasn't unusual for me in the studio to instead use mostly condenser microphones on the drums. I even used my pair of AKG 451's, both with their 20 DB pads screwed on, on snare drum top and/or bottom and high hat, tom-toms along with my KM-84/86's instead of the dynamic microphones. It really doesn't make any difference. It's whatever you're going for. How about just a single ribbon above and in front of and nothing else? No? I'm going to still gate my drums. I'm still going to compress them. I'm still going to EQ before and/or after dynamic processing. Or sometimes I'll do absolutely nothing.

Some of those latest tiny little SHURE, SM-98? They sound great on drums. I like a drum set with nothing but 421's as the primary microphones on them except for the overheads as my preference. But I really don't care what gets used as long as it suits the purpose and works. And where you can never go wrong with just a bag full of 57's even on a high hat and overheads. They absolutely passed beyond 17 kHz. They're just down at 20 kHz lower than you would find a condenser microphone but still passing 20 kHz just the same. You're still going to screw around with it in the mix. You can even remove the presence peak if ya don't like it. And they'll still work great as overhead microphones on a drum set. I mean really who is trying to reinvent the wheel? Like rock 'n roll is not been recorded before? Like not before digital? So don't be ridiculous, everything and anything will work.

And no one needs more than 50 DB gain in any microphone preamp unless you are recording a symphony orchestra and your microphones are 30 feet away from the nearest instrument. Then ya might want a preamp that delivers 70-80 DB of gain, especially when you're using mostly passive low output ribbon microphones going up hundreds of feet of microphone cable but that's about it. So Cloud Lifters and complains about not enough gain for popular music recording purposes, is laughable. Or the microphone is noisy without the extra 20 DB Cloud Lifter. That's also BS. What noise? Air-conditioning noise? Not getting enough of that HVAC? The buzz and the hum coming from the guitar amplifier when the guitar isn't playing isn't enough? Why is it that everyone else seems to have these problems and I never have? It's really only because people don't know what they're doing with what they have. It's all operator error every single last bit of it.

And then today, our software can do things than a one half million dollar control room couldn't do a few years ago. So no one should be having any problems anymore. Does every microphone and every bees of equipment sound different? You bet it does. Even the neutral stuff is not neutral. It has a neutral sound. Which means it has a sound that is not neutral but might be perceived by others as neutral. That does not make it neutral. It just makes it another tool in our big-box of tools. I mean how many times have we used a straight slot screwdriver on a Phillips head screw? Yeah... you're all guilty just like me. And making good recordings ain't any different. I mean who is listening to anything beyond 15 kHz other than those few folks that want to hear beyond 15 kHz? And who do you know over 40 years of age that can hear flat to 20 kHz? And could you show me the Audiology from the doctor's office?

I will say that at 57 years of age I really cannot perceive sine waves beyond 15 kHz anymore. However, I can still hear the difference between the difference between frequency limited recordings at 15 kHz and those that go up to 20 kHz. Which to me either indicates I'm still perceiving something beyond 15 kHz or that I am merely hearing the effect of brickwall filtering on the signal? But I do hear a difference in the high end and then the lack thereof. So does my hearing stop at 15 kHz at 57 years of age? And that is something that a doctor that deals with hearing for a living cannot even explain. Yet in blind listening tests, I still keep picking out the full band pass recordings over the ones limited to 15 kHz. And even as an audio professional I'm rather baffled without any baffles. Maybe it's getting sensed through my skin? I am rather thin-skinned LOL.

Altschuler engineer
Mx. Remy Ann David

RemyRAD, post: 402916 wrote: Ya see what I'm talking about Chris? It's magical. There's a reason why that sound is so popular. It just works. And I would imagine anything patterned after 57 & 58's probably aren't bad either? But I stick with what I know and what works as a given. But then again, I really don't care what microphone might be in use. I recorded this guy on his Heil that had blue LEDs that lit up from phantom power that wasn't necessary because it was a passive dynamic microphone not an active dynamic microphone. And it never once pop without an additional pop filter. It had a darker quality than a 58. Made this guy sound exactly like he should have. And I had never used a Heil. It was one of those real retro looking things resembling a 1953 Buick Grill.

See I'm not crazy.
Mx. Remy Ann David

Ya, popular for live work, and situations where close proximity is the focus. For choirs and overheads, you are out to lunch. However, on a budget, I suppose we use what we have. Another great head scratcher for the newbie. But no newbie is using a $3000 pre either. So once again, what are we talking about here. The $3000 pre is killer on a cheap mic or the cheap mic is killer with any pre?

I loved what the M1 sounded like close up with that $3000 pre but that doesn't mean I would use a 58 or M1 on an acoustic guitar, piano, cymbals, violins, etc. if I have some Royers or DPA's here.
You are killing me Remy.

RemyRAD, post: 402922 wrote: Everyone knows I go off about 57, 58's, 421's on drums. Obviously I primarily because of the live location work that I do.

I will say that at 57 years of age I really cannot perceive sine waves beyond 15 kHz anymore. However, I can still hear the difference between the difference between frequency limited recordings at 15 kHz and those that go up to 20 kHz. Which to me either indicates I'm still perceiving something beyond 15 kHz or that I am merely hearing the effect of brickwall filtering on the signal? But I do hear a difference in the high end and then the lack thereof. So does my hearing stop at 15 kHz at 57 years of age? And that is something that a doctor that deals with hearing for a living cannot even explain. Yet in blind listening tests, I still keep picking out the full band pass recordings over the ones limited to 15 kHz. And even as an audio professional I'm rather baffled without any baffles. Maybe it's getting sensed through my skin? I am rather thin-skinned LOL.

Altschuler engineer
Mx. Remy Ann David

Remy,

When you reconstruct a square wave, high frequency components (those above 15kHz as you claim you don't hear anymore) are required. So although you don't hear the sine waves at that frequency, they are necessary to make the complex waveforms with fast rise times etc. Which you evidently do hear. This phenomenon is probably also partly responsible for why some people claim records (vinyl) is so much better than CDs, the higher frequencies above 20K help them to hear the timbre of an instrument. (Though there are other reasons 44.1kHz CDs sound worse, like the filters, and reasons CDs sound better like no surface noise etc.).

But I rejected Oktava MK-012 mics right away because the roll off immediately at 15kHz in a way Audio Technical AT4021s or AT4022s don't. Probably for the same reason as you as I too am 57, but I can still hear that mics that go beyond 15k sound better to me than those that don't.

Jerry

don't forget that we feel audio as much as hear it. so even though we may not hear a sine wave over 15K we do sense a difference when everything is rolled off above that point.

From one of my posts to a thread in these forums last October, relating to hearing limits and hearing tests:

...The thing about hearing tests showing that you can hear only to a certain number of KHz is that they are performed under pseudo steady-state conditions using sinewaves, and don't take any account of the hearing system's response to transients and non-sinusoidal waveforms. I have a theory that these last two not only go up to higher frequencies but also fall off less rapidly with age. My last audiometric tests gave a figure for my ears of around 15KHz, yet I can easily tell the difference between a 7KHz sinewave and a 7KHz squarewave, where all the differences between these two are at 21KHz and higher. I can also tell the difference between the same transient waveform sampled at 44.1KHz and 96KHz, particularly where the source is something like a pair of Tingsha bells. Spectral analysis of the 96KHz waveform of this type of bell shows energy going up to 30KHz, with the limit probably being due to the microphone and not the bell. If I can hear these differences on a single demonstration sound source, I argue that they must also be present when my ears are presented with a complex dynamic source such as an orchestra.

I've posted before in these forums about the improvement in quality of a 2-bus mix when using high-rate multitrack sources and re-sampling the 2-bus at 44.1KHz as opposed to using 44.1KHz sources and mixing at that rate. The effect of mixing many standard-bandwidth channels is to re-inforce phase and bandwidth deficiencies that fall within the human auditory response, and by "response" I don't mean the single-number figure measured by an audiometer.

Chris what do you mean I'm killing you over 57 over top of choirs? It really doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it's going into the Neve or API preamps. This is valid, excuse the pun, across-the-boards even with a Mackie 1604. Ya have to use the right tools and that doesn't always mean condenser thingies that go out to 20 kHz. I mean what's your contract for? Broadcast? Album production? Both? It still doesn't matter. You guys are all screwy like little programmed munchkins? You can't hear with your ears. You can only hear with your eyes and books. Honest to God already. Ya use what ya need to use where you need to use it when you need to use it why you need to use it and how you use it. It has nothing to do with specifications, types or manufacturing techniques. It only has to do with what the recording calls for.

I'm not fair to impress anybody with cool pretty looking microphones. I'm there to do a job. Even when I have all of the best microphones at my disposal there are times when you use those 57's even where you wouldn't normally use them. I know what experts everybody are here. And you're not wrong. But then neither am I. I'd really like to know who the hell has the kind of background here that I have? Anyone? Anywhere? I don't think so. And you want to learn how to do things right don't ya? Well this is from real world recordings and broadcasts and major music awards nominations. So I'm not screwing around. I am the real deal. I do the real stuff. I don't sit around and read magazine advertisements as gospel. And I don't have to defend my technique and expertise to anyone. I am just offering up what works and why it works. People can take it from there and glean what they can. I represent the professional side of the business. Not the home enthusiast side of the business with a bunch of equipment they purchased. So come on guys? Y'all know this is 100% subjective. How can you make these kinds of comments? Because of specifications and frequency response curve plots? What the hell does that have to do with your hearing? You're not listening. Y'all only think you're listening. And so must everything extend out to 20 kHz? No it does not have to. It's a different coloration. It's a different color. And that's all it is I wish how we choose what tools were going to use.

I didn't need to go to school for this. This is not necessary. This is the arts. I am practicing the art of the art in a good state of mind which is still it waits to state of the art. In case nobody has really evaluated what that sentence means beyond the printed vernacular? Some of us are atheists. So I'm into my own religion or so to speak. Others are followers. I'm a leader. I don't follow anyone. I'm not interested in following others. I stand apart. I'm a soloist. I'm an independent. I believe in both Republican and Democratic concepts. I don't fully subscribe to either and I'm not a libertarian. I'm a moderate. I'm down the middle and I don't go to extremes. Only extremists go to extremes. I'm not an extremist. And all of this gets involved in the creation of art of any kind.

I wonder if somebody told Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci that they were using the wrong kinds of paints or brushes? We'll never know will we? What kind of budgets did they work with? What kind of budget did Mozart have, Brahms, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky? Maybe nothing? And what did they come up with, with nothing? What sophisticated tools did they have at their disposal? Certainly nothing from China. Probably from the backyard? Like some goat meat and grog? And the rest was up to them. And being an audio engineer is no different. You get to deal with the sciences in the current state we have them. Which has nothing to do with art. They're just tools in the hands of artists. And what you can't do with your paint colors and brushes I can. What's so hard to understand about that? I would do nothing different with the Mackie and I have used the Mackie just that way with the same kind of results I get with API and Neve. Meanwhile you're all arguing about something in which there is no argument about or for. It's certainly counterproductive if anything at all.

Ya don't know until you try and nobody seems to be willing to try based upon knowledge of magazine advertisements and their rigid resistance to imagine anything that could not possibly be. And that's ridiculous folks. It's all ridiculous. Ya really have to figure out what all of these tools actually sound like. And you can't figure that out until you use them, fully, often on everything and everywhere. And in the end all of the results may still be so similar it becomes moot as it usually becomes.

In another example of how to incorrectly use the incorrect microphone tools... I will cite this example from NBC-TV network State of the Union address from the Capitol of the USA. One of the big problems was the acoustic signature regardless of the types of microphones that had been utilized forever before. I realized that what would really work well would be some Pressure Zone Microphones. Oh... but NBC had no PZM's. No problem... I'll just make a couple. And from what? From Sennheiser MKE2's, Omni directional condenser lav microphones. With gaffer's tape turning the wall into the plate of the pressure zone microphone and with only a couple of sheets of paper, used as a separator between the capsule of the lav microphone and the wall. And suddenly... no more boxy tubular sound and voilà. And that's where real audio engineer that knows something about microphone technologies can do. So I used the wrong microphone for the right application in the right way it needed to be used for that application. So don't give me this nonsense. Constant nonsense and then everybody tells me I'm the one not making sense. I come here for a good laugh to be sure. And that's all very laughable. How could it be adequate if the equipment is not up to snuff? Well it is sorry to tell you guys that. Try it sometime you'll thank me. It's embarrassing it works so well. Everybody will think you are a schlep for using cheap microphones. Let them think that. If they want to do it better... let them. It won't be better, guaranteed. I've done this for too many years to know better.

Why don't I write a book to make money with? Because on the giving and loving person and I want everybody to make good recordings they can be proud of. And you need to know what actually works when you need something to actually work. And I am freely providing real-life, major music award nominated knowledge and experience. And if people don't want to accept that, that's perfectly fine. Because it is 100% subjective. Apparently there has been plenty of people that have thought that my recordings warranted major music awards? And they would be correct in spite of the fact that I didn't hit the lottery. And this is only another lottery that we all play where some of us actually make a living doing it. Or at least we used to. Ya know... when we were the only guys in town, in a major market, that had the equipment to do the job on a professional level starting back in the early 1970s. And ya learn a few things over a period of time. Especially when you've done it in the major markets at the highest broadcast and recording studios, levels. And that's all you've done for a living for over 40 years. And it wasn't PA! Rotten horrible hearing destroying, loud brash, awful, PA. I didn't play in rock bands and blow my earring out either. I'm a professional listener. And that goes beyond schooling, magazine reading, rock 'n roll recording and knob twiddling.

Now sit down and design a custom 24 track console and large control room and adjoining studio. Your budget is $10,000 for a console that has to sound and function just like the ones that cost 45,000-$85,000 you can't afford. But you have to have that console that sounds like an API, Neve, Sphere, Electro-dyne, Fairchild. How are you going to do that, in 1978 at 22 years of age without any schooling? Try it sometime. See how ya do? See if your console sounds like any of those I mentioned and if it works flawlessly, needing no maintenance or upgrades for nearly 20 years. And I'm not George Massenburg or am I? I've only worked in real radio stations since I was 15 at the college NPR FM radio stations. I worked for the largest studio south of New York City where George Massenburg came from as I was hired after he left. I was offered the chief maintenance engineer position at 16! And I declined because I'm smarter than that. Sure I could have done it. It's too much responsibility for a 16-year-old no matter how capable. It was certainly quite flattering to be offered that position and likewise years later from Sir George Martin. So I think I know what I'm talking about and so did Sir George Martin. And I declined him for other reasons. He wanted me but he told me he could not pay me what he knew I was making as an NBC engineer. I was also quite in love and funding my partners fast-track operatic career moves manager was Pavarotti's manager. So if ya couldn't pay me what I was worth and so I could continue to fund my significant other's career, I declined his offer and have been kicking myself in the ass over that for nearly 30 years now. No good read goes unpunished, believe it. Not even when you love someone that deeply to give up that kind of an opportunity you've always dreamed about. My heroes all of them! And I've always wanted to be on a tropical island paradise and that's where he was going to send me to his AIR STUDIOS MONTSERRAT the Caribbean as the chief maintenance engineer. But damn it all... I'm a music person not a maintenance person, not a design person even though I am. That is not my direction. Music is my direction and I follow my directions from the music. And that's easy to do if ya have the knowledge to do it. And most of y'all don't. Though there are those that do and I have high professional regards for. But that's only a few of y'all hear I mean here. LOL in my best southern drawl as a guy from Detroit can produce. Because I can adapt to different surroundings and situations. And we're acoustics only for fine arts recordings really makes any damn difference. Because it doesn't make any difference in the pop idiom. Why do you think they call it an idiom if it wasn't for idiots? I even flunked my Latin in high school but I tried, Lord knows I tried. But there's something about idiom and idiot that just seems a little too close for comfort LOL? Ya think?

And then there's books... what can you learn about audio from books? Books only make that flapping sound when you breezed by the pages. What's to be learned from that? Nothing until you read between the lines. And nobody knows how to do that because they were raised with Bibles. I wasn't. My Bible is built within my brain, what's left of it and that's no joke. I wrote my own Bible. And who here has done that may I ask? No one. That's who. See... I already know the answers. I've already lived through the answers. And that's what teaching the art of recording is all about, it's an art. It's not a science. Science is used no doubt and necessary no doubt. But it's art. And everybody keeps forgetting about that. There is no right or wrong. There is only what is. It's something that cannot be substantiated except through personal interpretations. Because it's art. It's not specifications. It's not equipment types. It has nothing to do with that overall. Though it does require that. And it requires that which is not perceivable on a printed plot.

In the end... it only matters if people like the way the recording sounds and that's all. You don't need mommy and daddy and everybody's approval of your engineering prowess to make a good recording. I mean do they really care whether the violinist is using a $200 Asian built violin or a $2 million Stradivarius? No. No they don't. They only want that performance from that performer and they get it. It was proved with Heifetz back in the 1950s and it still holds true today regardless of the technologies we have. And for those that don't know who Heifetz was? He was considered to be the world's greatest violinist in the first half of the 20th century. Recordings were made with a cheap toy violin, a cheap school violin and his Stradivarius. And no one could tell from the recordings which violin was being played. And our tools we use for recordings work out the same way. It can be a toy and in the right hands you have a professional recording. It can be the world's best equipment and in the inexperienced hands of a nonprofessional, you get dreck, garbage in, garbage out and no need for computers. Because a computer won't fix what ya don't know how to do right to begin with.

It only matters how good you are.
Mx. Remy Ann David