Re: which mic to record a gong?

unita_logica <unita_logica@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Soundhaspriority <nowhere@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"unita_logica" <unita_logica@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1iutjmk.lv3q5z11ud7bqN%unita_logica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Behringer ECM-8000 is a measurement mike, which means that it is
made for flat frequency response at the expense of other characteristics,

what are these other characteristics that you think are missing in the
ECM-8000?

Noise floor, linearity (ie. low level distortion because of the way they bias
the front end), and overload level. But it's still a very useful mike
_because_ the constraints that went into the design are very different than
those that went into other cheap mikes.

1.If the diaphragm is too big, the sound will be distorted by ringing of the
diaphragm, excited by the frequencies you want to reproduce. IMHO, the most
beautiful ones ;)

Is the ringing of the diaphragm caused by bad design of the SE2200 or by
that typology (large diaphragm) of mikes? Or additionally, do they
happen only in certain application circumstances, and if so which ones?

Okay, there are really a bunch of different things going on here. As the
diaphragm gets to be larger, it no longer acts like a piston at high
frequencies but begins to develop breakup modes. This can be a bad thing
but it can also be used to add high-frequency peakiness that a lot of people
like for some things (but which can be bad news on a gong).

Secondly, as the diaphragm gets larger, it becomes more directional at
high frequencies. It's possible to compensate for this in some ways by
using acoustical filters (as some classic large diaphragm mikes have done),
but it's also part of what people like about the microphones for close
miking. In the case of a cardioid microphone, the beaminess due to the
diaphragm size can be part of the pattern control.

BUT.... many of the problems with Chinese mikes don't have to do with the
capsule at all, but have to do with the body and grille design. If you
have flat surfaces inside the grille which reflect sound, you can set up
standing waves at high frequencies inside the mike. If you have metal
parts which are not well supported, they can vibrate when excited at their
resonant frequency, and create huge narrowband spikes in the response.
I can't give you details about particular problems in that mike for legal
reasons but I suggest you look very strongly at the grille basket and the
way the capsule is supported.

2.A smaller diaphragm will be characterized by higher harmonic distortion,
and it will overload at a lower level.

This is not accurate.

Maybe this is less of a problem. I don't plan to strike the gong as hard
as I can, that's not the sound I like. I do like a round big sound
though, just not the most extreme. Like I said my objective is more to
capture the subtleties, and that's probably more difficult because it
also involves dealing with environment noise. Speaking of this, the
ECM-8000 seems more indicated in one way, but probably the SE2200 deals
betters with environment noise by being a cardioid? (if I position it
properly)

In general, it's a lot easier to make a good cheap omni than a good cheap
cardioid. If you want good transient response and you don't want to pay
a lot of money, you probably want an omni. Again, do the key jingle test
and you will see what I mean.

I don't think there's a formula that you can crank for the optimal choice.
But my personal observations were that the ECM-8000 got much better high hat
sound than commercial recordings I've heard that, presumably, used very
expensive Neumanns for the purpose. Here, physics seems to trump quality.

Do you know if it covers bass just as well? I know it has a flat
response, I was wondering if you tried it with a fuller sound source
also.

It does, if you get a good one (ie. not the model ECM-8000 with the
transformer).

The key jingle test will tell you maybe 75% of what you want to know about
a microphone, and it will tell you everything you need to know about the
top octave and the impulse response.

Shameless Plug:
Note that the DIY microphone article in this month's Recording magazine
is a similar design to the ECM-8000... except that it has a higher quality
capsule which costs $3 instead of the $0.30 capsule the ECM-8000 uses.
You can build the whole thing for $15 in a half hour if you're good at fine
soldering. It's not a Schoeps, but for $15 it doesn't have to be.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
.

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