angore
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Post by angore on Jun 15, 2023 10:34:38 GMT
I have noticed that some youtuber types, who are definitely at home in casual sitatuion, that have started to use the old school huge microphones and some have them mounted on arms like you see at radio stations. I could see this at a professional studio but at home? Is this yet another ego thing?
I use a usb headphone (over the ear) with mic set up.
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Post by khj on Jun 15, 2023 20:33:29 GMT
I was involved in operating and setting up home recording studios (both analog, and then digital) in previous decades. I would agree with you that those mics are overkill unless you are recording music, multiple people in a room, or need an exceptionally high S/N ratio for long-range radio broadcasts (1000++ miles). The latter one of the major projects of our NPO.
It depends on what they want to actually record. If it's just a single person talking, a decent USB headphone+mic is more than sufficient. The extreme low-end, you can usually hear the difference in terms of inconsistent pick-up and very low S/N ratio. I am involved in a lot of Zoom meetings, and they all tell me that my laptop (both retired one and new one) had an exceptional videocam and microphone -- they could all hear/see the difference on their laptops or cellphones. But the question remains, is it necessary for a Zoom meeting or a YouTube video?
When the webcam on my previous laptop went out, I had to get a rather expensive (my opinion) LogiTech conferencing cam. While the mic pick-up was better for large room (2500sqft), the supposed 1080p camera was not better than my laptop videocam!
Oddly enough, the best video/audio so far (and I've actually switched to this for the large 2500sqft room) -- iPhone 11 or higher model! While it's not good enough for a commercial product, I would say it is exceptionally good for private usage, almost comparable to pro audio/video grade quality.
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angore
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Post by angore on Jun 16, 2023 11:21:02 GMT
At work, we use Microsoft teams and for team meetings we had started using a USB microphone called e meet intended for group meeting. Later they upgraded the conference rooms to have a Teams enabled system (room joins meeting with video from projector, in room camera, and sound). It works well.
I could see a need for a microphone that was optimized to only capture sound by speaker and not ambient noise.
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Post by khj on Jun 16, 2023 20:17:01 GMT
Isolating the speaker and/or removing ambient noise can now be done completely in software. Gone are the days when we had to swap between omni-directional and uni-directional mics. Mic choice will be based on sensitivity, S/N ratio, frequency response... For recording studio, we will still opt for chosing omni/uni-directional just to reduce an errors introduced by the software.
We've sort of avoided MS Teams, opting for Zoom for all the NPOs I'm associated with. Businesses tend to use Teams, I think primarily because it is bundled with their software purchase and a lot of other businesses use it.
In one of the major updates this year, Zoom made major changes to their audio filtering software routines. Whether this made things much better or much worse, is a matter of application. My wife was caught by surprise (as was I). Normally we use basic filtering to remove background noise. My wife was surprised one day when she was leading a music meeting, singing while playing the piano. The participants told her they could hear her singing, but could not hear the piano at all! We never had that problem before using basic filtering. I had the same thing happen during a group meeting but had heads up from my wife's experience so I tested first. During testing, we could hear the speaker and even audience participation, but we could not hear the music playing in background!
In a nutshell, we ended up turning off filtering completely and use the "original sound" option. Bad for us, but probably good for a lot of other people with a different need.
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Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Jun 16, 2023 22:42:54 GMT
Getting back specifically to Al’s original questions, yes, I do believe most of it is an ego thing (it makes you look “professional”), and the part of it that is not strictly ego has to do with the feeling that if you spend enough money on the equipment you will have a wildly successful YT channel and make a million dollars a year.
A lavalier (lapel mic), is of suitable quality for 95% of the content you see. R2D2 on a boom arm is overkill and a waste of money, doubly so if one feels they need a condenser mic over a dynamic mic.
Of course, this is all just my opinion, but it has been formed through my own trial and error and watching comparison videos.
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Post by khj on Jun 16, 2023 23:32:28 GMT
Nobody can tell the difference between a condenser mic and a good dynamic mic on a Youtube talk video listening/watching on a mobile device or a basic laptop/computer, especially after you run it through an effects processor, even indoors. Some people just feel more upscale speaking into a giant oblong-pill-shaped microphone.
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Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Jun 18, 2023 3:05:30 GMT
Are you familiar with the magazine, The Absolute Sound? It was a magazine that reviewed the really high-end stereo equipment and vinyl albums. All these guys on staff had golden ears that could detect infinitesimal amounts of 2nd and 3rd-order harmonic distortion, and even tell you the source of it (I mention all this with a good measure of eye roll thrown in).
In one review of a record album the author even detected some noise on the recording which he confidently explained was, no doubt, due to running some microphone cables along the baseboard of studio wall.
I read this magazine back in the 70s (occasionally buying a copy, $7 a pop if I recall correctly) sometimes borrowing a friend’s copy) only to learn about what the latest and greatest electronics were being released, and read the reviews strictly for comic relief. I suspect many of today’s YouTubers would eat it all up. LOL
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angore
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Post by angore on Jun 18, 2023 12:21:09 GMT
I remember The Absolute Sound and read it years back.
I still have turntable, cassette deck, and a reel to reel.
Didn't a lot of "high end" audio types get exposed when it was discovered that some direct to records they praised for audio quality because it was supposedly analog and found out they were not.
What I would like to have back is my original Kenwood tube amplifier...It ate tubes. It was a heater. My college roommate was a tube fanatic.
The company is totally all in for Microsoft 365, Teams, SharePoint, etc. We do not use skype. Teams is used for instant messahing, conference call, and integrated with Outllok (calendar, etc.
There was a cute cartoon about a stereo salesman who says "If you want something better than state of the aet, consider this"
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Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Jun 18, 2023 16:48:52 GMT
I don’t recall a direct to disc scandal, but it does not surprise me. LOL
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angore
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Post by angore on Jun 19, 2023 12:42:29 GMT
Here is one link. www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/mobile-fidelity-scandalAs I recall, in a true analog (old music from reel to reel) to analog (record), you can only get so many record pressings from one pass from the original tape. Studios only allow so many reads from a tape to prevent degradation of tapes. Yet this company was producing thousands of records and selling as direct to record. The purists reviewers were surprised that there were steps that they thought were not used (part of touting why the albums were superior in audio quality compared to music that has some A/D aspect). I personally like some older music is because how it was recorded (how mics were used)....I like to hear some ambience in the voice and instruments rather than a sterile mix.
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Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Jun 19, 2023 15:08:17 GMT
Some of the most highly sought after vintage classical music albums are those in the stereo Mercury Living Presence line, from Mercury Records. Begun in 1958, it was an outgrowth of their mono MLP records, using only 3 omnidirectional mics, with the center mic performing the same function as the single mono recording mic (and providing the signal for the mono versions of the stereo albums), and the 2 L/R mics providing the the wide soundstage and the depth. The recordings are renowned for their natural sound and presence. In fact it was a record reviewer’s writeup of a mono album years before the stereo line began, about the living presence of the sound, that prompted Mercury to name the line Mercury Living Presence. At the same time, RCA started their RCA Living Stereo line of recordings, using the same recording technique as Mercury. These albums are just as highly sought by collectors ad MLPs. Today, for classical recordings, typically every instrument section is mic’d, with soloists also getting their own mic. The audio engineers then balance everything to sound good to them, though it no longer sounds like a natural soundstage. I guess, getting back to the original subject of this thread, if one bothers to understand the workings of and the possibilities available with your equipment and how it works within your recording environment, you don’t have to waste money on equipment that adds nothing to what you can achieve with the cheaper equipment. I found an article by Thomas Fine, son of Mercury’s husband/wife, engineer/producer team of Robert Fine/Wilma Cozart Fine on the Mercury method, you might find interesting. tapeop.com/tutorials/90/wilma-cozart-fine-c-robert-fine/
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