King Ghidora

The Sony ECM-MS907 is not a sensitive mic. And it does have a miniplug instead of an XLR connector. But I wouldn't suggest using it as a handheld mic. You would get a considerable amount of handling noise. It's best to go with a mic that is designed to be handheld. The AT804 is a balanced output mic according to the Users Manual so you would need an adapter or possibly a mixer like the XLR-Pro to make it work with the MD you have. Adapters of this type generally cost about $50 and the mixer is well over $100. If you're good with a soldering iron you might wire up your own adapter for around $15 using parts you might find on this web site. The user's manual at the link above has a layout of how the mic is wired so it would just be a matter of making the connections work. IMO you would be much better off finding an unbalanced mic that will work as a handheld mic. There are many available but I have no idea which ones are particularly good. If anyone knows a good example I'd like to find out myself.

The stereo imaging is definitely there when played through lsp but there were some of the problems I remember being associated with binaurals too. For example the jazz band in the church sounded excellent through my phones (original Sony MDR-V6 - not the second release version) but the bass got muddy and so did the vocals when played through lsp (Cerwin Vegas DX-9's). The highs weren't nearly as crisp either. It sounded like a lot of phase problems going on IMO or maybe crosstalk. Through the phones I got that fabulous binaural 3D feeling of standing in the room instead of that over the head imaging normally seen with phones and a stereo signal. They are really quite impressive through phones. Binaural is an impressive technology. That was always the story with binaurals AFAIK. I did hear that Neumann was working on correcting the phase problems somehow but I don't know the details on that. I'm sure if it's Neumann it will be quite expensive. Even with the phase problems removed the sweet spot for hearing binaural through lsp is very small or that's what I've heard. I do remember people talking about pointing their speakers in at a 45 degree angle to deal with some of the phase problems. A lot of this stuff is from what I heard many years ago so I'm sure I'm forgetting some details. I just know I heard a definite problem with phase in your recordings. They sound great through phones but not so great through lsp. Listen to the jazz band in the church through a set of phones then listen to the same clip through lsp. You'll hear pretty quick what I'm talking about. Notice how the bass doesn't sound tight at all through the lsp. Notice how the voice sounds muffled and how the highs aren't as crisp as they should be.

The clips were much louder on the left because the mandolin is usually much louder than the guitars so I get the mandolin player to sit at the extreme left so I can attempt to turn the mic away from him to keep the volume down but it still sometimes sounds much louder. The guitar player was even further to the left that night and essentially he just played very loud on the song he sang. The other guitar players essentially didn't know the song so they barely played at all. The mandolin player played louder because the guitar was playing louder. So basically I just had two guys playing loud on the left side and practically no one but the bass player on the right side and I couldn't get her to turn up the bass despite my asking her several times. These are recordings of a practice session and one where a new guy (the singer and guitar player on the left) has just started playing with the band. The songs he has been practicing are not the same songs the other guys have been practicing so they play louder on some songs and he plays louder on others. This isn't exactly ready for prime time stuff. It's just some friends practicing around the living room of the mandolin player's house. Getting a perfect recording isn't the primary reason I'm recording the group right now. It's basically so they can have a copy of each other's stuff to practice with at home so when they come back together they know each other's songs better. We did get some decent recordings about a year ago but since then they lost their banjo player and that made them play different songs and they just sorta drifted along for a while. Mainly they are just about getting together to play right now anyway. They've all been very successful at times in the past and they really don't care if they go down that road again. They just like to play. I basically just posted the clips to show the sound field ability of the single point stereo mics I've been using but it became about the quality of the Nady. I knew this wasn't a perfect setup by any stretch. Like I said elsewhere I tried to get the guys to shift positions that night and they wouldn't even do that mainly because the new guy didn't want his guitar to be heard on the songs he hadn't practiced. The bottom line is that the mic does a decent job with a sound field and it does have some problems with picking up too much echo. I've known that from the time I got the mic. But it isn't a deal breaker IMO. In the right setting it can do very well. All mics need to be setup and positioned well to work well. Sitting on a coffee table in the middle of a living room with no adjustments made to limit echo really isn't the way to pass final judgement on the mic. I do know it picks up too much sound from out of the pickup range which is why it gets a lot of echo. Still I think I could adjust most of that problem out if I needed a perfect recording. I made what adjustments I could that night of the recording but you do the best you can in the situation you're in AFAIK. Again I wouldn't pass this mic off as a top quality mic. It isn't one. It's just a good mic and a good price. Personally I've never seen any perfect equipment but there's some mighty good stuff around. I am glad to get other opinions about this mic and they pretty much have agreed with what I have already thought except maybe for the nasal part. I think that's more a characteristic of the singers than the mic especially the one singer. I think you'll notice that the singer sounds nasal in the Sony mic clip too. So anyway thanks for the help. I'll listen to your clips and get back with you on that soon.

Nero also recognizes cue points from wav's edited with Goldwave as index positions.

In my samples the bass is definitely limited by the original sound. The bass is played over a not too spectacular amp and is played lower than it should be IMO. I think it's a reflection of the bass players lack of confidence though I think she plays pretty well. You might check out the other clip I posted to see if you still think the vocals sound nasal. IMO most of what you're hearing is a result of the singer's style. The other singer doesn't sound that way. You can hear the other clip here. I believe the links are working now. I don't doubt that a binaural setup will just about always sound more natural through headphones. In the past it was always considered a trade off to go one way or the other though. I can see where using directional mics in a binaural setting could give the best of both setups.

With high ceilings like that you should probably check for echoes in the location you pick to record. Position can make a big difference in a room like that. The MS907 isn't bad about picking up echo though. It does a good job of rejecting any noise outside of it's pickup range. I agree with A440 that the 120 degree setting is probably the best being that close to 25 people.

I actually think the MS907 sounds a little thin compared to the Nady. As I said in the other thread I believe the singer was getting some room echo because of sitting near a corner and he always sings with a nasal tone to his voice. He's a decent singer but he has an unusual style. The Nady will pick up some echo in a bright room but I believe a lot of that is due to it being a very sensitive mic. I have to keep the sound level adjusted a little low to keep it from picking up too much reflected sound but I think I've learned to keep it in check for the most part. I don't believe there's too much echo in the guitars in that recording which also covers the same frequencies that a male singer covers. It may be that it has too much echo in certain ranges. I wouldn't say for sure it doesn't. I have a recording of another guy singing the same night. I can post a clip of that and maybe you can check if you hear echo in his voice. If you're interested check out this clip and see what you think.

I seem to only be able to find the email address for the place that quoted me that price A440. I'll send it to you in a PM so I won't feed any spam bot crawlers.

The only thing that was amped was the bass guitar. I tried to get the bass player to turn up the volume all night which would have given it more deep bass. She mainly plays in the upper registers of the bass so there still wouldn't be a lot of deep bass but what was there would have been picked up better. Essentially I couldn't hear the deep bass sitting there while they played so it's no surprise that it didn't show up on the recording. The singer has a definite nasal quality to his voice. That's just his style. The mic does tend to pick up some echo in a bright room but it isn't real bad as long as the level is set correctly. Of course the room acoustics plays a big role in how much echo you get in a recording. This was just an informal practice session so I don't get picky about setting up to avoid such problems. The room really isn't that bright either but the singer is basically setup close to a corner so there is going to be some echo. That's likely why the singer had an echo and the various instruments didn't. I try to set up to compensate for the acoustics as best I can but I have to deal with the fact that the mandolin is a much louder instrument than a guitar and dealing with that has to be my first priority. The setup is pretty goood for creating an interesting sound field. I actually tried to get the mandolin player to swap places with one of the guitar players so I could get more volume from the guitar. I pretty much aim the mic to keep the mandolin just out of the pickup area just so I can keep the volume of it down. It's not a perfect situation but it keeps the mandolin from dominating the recording. Again there are some other changes I could make to get a better setup but the guys really care more about just being able to hear how they sound. They feel like they aren't ready to try for a high quality recording. Yeah there's a lot of that "I bought it..." kind of thinking that goes around. I like to buy mics from Musician's Friend because they give you 45 days to try out what you buy. You can send anything back for any reason during that time. I think I would have sent the mic back if it wasn't up to my expectations but I'm human too. I could have talked myself into thinking the Nady sounded better than it does. But I think it's definitely worth the $119 I paid for it. I didn't think twice about sending it back. I've heard it in direct comparison with the AT822 (because it was made to mimic the 822) and I thought it stood up very well when compared with that mic (which costs about double the price). It's good to hear someone else with knowledge of good equipment say that it sounds good though.

Yeah it comes with 2 XLR to miniplug adapters. One has about a foot of cable and the other is a 12 foot cable. It isn't a balanced mic though so no special conversion cables are needed. Just a direct connection from the XLR connectors. I have a better XLR cable that I use for long runs and then just connect the short adapter so I can connect to my MD. You can't use these handheld AFAIK. I have a variety of mic stands that I use with it and sometimes I mount it to one of my video cameras. In the sample I had it mounted to a desktop type mic stand which I place on a coffee table pretty much in the center of the room where the band is playing. I use a shock mount with it to avoid any vibraration issues. It's my understanding that one of the primary reasons to have a bass roll off switch is to reduce wind noise problems. You'd be surprised how much of the noise you get from wind is below 100 hz. Dealing with the proximity effect is another big reason for having a bass roll off switch but of course that can be avoided by just not getting too close to the mic. I found an explanation for the use of roll off filters on this web site. They said, "Roll-off filter: a circuit that attenuates a signal that is above (lowpass filter) or below (highpass filter) a specified frequency. For example, microphones frequently have a bass roll-off filter to remove wind noise and/or excessive breath pops." I've seen this said several times actually. I'm sure we could find other examples on the net. BTW what did you think of the quality of the Nady mic? I know it's just one sample but I like to get other opinions so I can avoid the "I bought it so it must be good" kind of thinking. Feel free to tell me what you think.

I don't think we're very far apart at all A440. I didn't know that there was a different setup that is similar to the original version of binaural but not quite the same. Like I said before I haven't heard why the conventional wisdom changed. I assume this is the reason (because they use a slightly different version of the separated mics setup - using omni mics). I knew there was something I was missing. As for the mics I have been using I have samples online from both of them which might give you an idea of how they create imaging. I record a bluegrass band with a single mic which naturally gives a good example of how a mic creates a sound field. You can judge for yourself if you like. The first is recorded with my Sony ECM-MS907 which has the M/S design and IMO creates an excellent sound field. The circuitry used to interpret the stereo imaging in the Sony M/S mics is very good IMO even though it isn't an expensive mic. It has it's shortcomings for sure. You can hear a MP3 sample of it here. I also have a sample from my XY design Nady CM-2S available. It's a shorter sample and it's in wav format. Overall the Nady is a better mic but the imaging isn't quite as good as the Sony but it still has decent imaging IMO. Your opinion might be different from mine but I think both of these mics do well in the imaging department. Neither is an expensive mic but I think both are good bang for the buck mics. Let me know if you think I'm wrong. I'm always open to learning something new.

I like my Nady CM-2S mic which is very similar to the AT822 but at about half the price. You can hear a small sample recording of it here if you're interested. It sells for $119 so it isn't something you have to mortgage your house for. I think it does pretty well with stereo imaging too BTW. We're having a discussion about that in another thread if you're interested in what others think of it in that regard. BTW A440 I always understood that one of the main purposes of having a bass rolloff switch is that most wind noise shows up in the lower frequencies. So recording with the rolloff on reduces wind noise. BTW the Nady CM-2S also has a bass rolloff switch. Essentially it was built as a copy of the AT822. It even looks almost identical the the AT.

That's pretty much how it's used today in reference to sound but the true definition has to do with creating a mood instead of recreating sound as it's heard. I don't want to be splitting hairs or anything but a few years back people thought binaural recordings really didn't work well when played through a set of speakers. That was the point I was trying to make. Most people today either don't know about that aspect of binaural recording or they ignore it or they think it isn't true now. So I'm not so sure that binaurals always produce a better sound field when the resulting recording is played through speakers. I just don't know why the conventional wisdom changed in the past decade or so. Binaural recording has been around for a long time. I am basically listing what the conventional wisdom was when it first became popular. This issue has just sort of evolved over the years and it's become accepted that binaural recordings do produce a better sound field in all situations. I've really never heard it explained why this became the conventional wisdom when it wasn't considered true a few years ago. I really don't have enough experience with binaurals to be able to say one way or another. I just know that some single point mics produce excellent imaging and I think that it gets said that they don't too often. I do have experience with various single point stereo mics. They do produce what I would think is the traditional stereo sound field that has been the norm since the beginnings of stereo (yes I remember those days ). Binaurals do produce a better soundfield if the playback is done with headphones or at least that has always been the conventional wisdom with them. Whether they produce a better sound field through speakers is something I'd like to test for myself some day. I just don't believe that anyone looking for the traditional stereo field sound that they are used to hearing on CD's etc. is going to be disappointed with the imaging they get from modern single point stereo mics. I think some of them work very well in that regard. All of my single point stereo mics do a decent job and some of them do an excellent job.

Isn't the deal with binaural type setups that they produce a stereo image that more closely resembles what you would hear if you were at the site of the recording A440? That's what I've always understood. It used to be said that you really only get the full effect of binaurals if you listen through headphones but more people use them with speaker setups now. Binaurals can be great if you have a good setup. The only hassle with them is getting a good mount that won't be hard to deal with especially if you're doing stealth recording. I think I get good stereo imaging with the single point stereo mics that I own. The Sony ECM-MS907 does an excellent job with imaging IMO. That's probably due to the M/S design they employ (same design as the ECM-MS957). But my XY style Nady mic seems to do ok in the imaging department too. Both of these mics are much cheaper than the $300-$500 listed price though. You can certainly get better mics than either of the two I own. Rode NT3's and NT5's are good mic setups for separates in the range you list boojum. At least a lot of people say they are. I haven't owned a set of either myself.

I also use a NHF800 Nathan. All HIMD recorders will have the same sound quality so unless you want the new features there's really no reason to buy a newer model. Personally I like the fact you can use AA batteries with the first generation models (the two mentioned by greenmachine). Newer models use a gumstick battery though some can use AA batteries with an add on battery module. You should be able to get a first gen HIMD for around $125 if you check the right places. There's a place out of California that sells them for that price. I can give you a link to them if you want it.

After listening to the clip several times it is very obvious that some sort of automatic level control is in operation. I loaded the clip into an audio editor and quickly noticed that the sound level was nearly flat even when the orchestra parts were very low or very loud. So obviously there is some AGC controlling the level on your camera. Most consumer grade cameras do have AGC. I should remember what camera you have Nathan but sometimes my memory isn't what it should be. If I remember correctly you have a GS250, right? If so then you definitely have an AGC camera. That's the same camera I have and I have come to regret not springing for the GS400 which does have manual level controls. That's the main reason I use MD for the audio portion of my projects. I haven't noticed any problems with the bass fading in and out as you describe. I haven't listened real close so maybe I'm just missing it. I'll try to listen more carefully and see what I think might be the problem you are having.

Some excellent violin work there for sure Nathan. And the recording sounds good to me too. The bass problems you are describing sounds a lot like what is known as a standing wave. I didn't notice it when I listened to the recording but I only listened to it once. What I know is that standing waves can play havoc with bass tones and string instruments are well known to cause problems in this area. In fact a string instrument produces opposed waves every time they are played. This is a VERY complicated phenomenon which generally shows up as a total cancellation of all bass sounds or any number of other strange artifacts in a recording. Having a bass tone rise and fall is right in line with something a standing wave might cause. The only way to deal with this issue short of building a completely controlled enviorment designed to be perfect acoustically (very hard to do) or do what us mere mortals do - we move our mics to a different location. Standing waves are very much affected by reflective surfaces and the harder and flatter the surface the more likely it is to cause a problem. It's trial and error that shows us where to place a mic really. There's just no predicting where a standing wave might cause problems. Unfortunately if you're in a one time only situation where you don't have the opportunity to do a trial and error test you're just stuck with what you get. You might be able to reduce the effects of this problem using a good sound editor but you're just as likely to cause parts of the recording that you want to keep to be removed with the standing wave problems. Sorry I can't give you a better way of dealing with the issue. I can give you a few suggestions. Learn your enviorment as much as possible. If you record in your church often you may be able to figure out where the sound system causes problems on a regular basis. Try to stay away from reflective surfaces like walls because standing waves often travel along such surfaces. And monitor your recording so you might be able to pick up a problem in time to move your mic during a performance. Sometimes just a slight shift of your mics position will help a lot. And if the performer does a sound check before an event be there to try to do some trial and error tests. You can record from several locations then review your recording to see where the best spot might be. It's a very complicated problem and most people never notice it at all to be honest. You obviously have a good ear for such things because you picked it up without even knowing about their existence (I assume you didn't anyway). That gives you a leg up on preventing such problems because you have to know there is a problem before you can fix it.

If anyone thinks the supply of MD's will dry up in the near future I suggest they have a look at this web site. If that technology is still kicking then MD will be around for our grandchildren to use.

The problem is that MS is pressuring the hardware industry to play ball with them on this stuff. Without the exact drivers released for MS (or with them for that matter) trying to make hardware work when it is designed to deliberately cripple itself is going to be one huge nightmare even for an IT pro much less the average Joe just looking to edit the stuff he recorded. If motherboards refuse to output sound above a certain level of quality to any digital links then it doesn't really matter what OS you're using. They're talking about building these things right into an EPROM to be included on every piece of hardware made or something similar. MS thinks they have the juice to coerce everyone to play along. I hope they fall flat on their rears and I'm sure pretty much everyone here does too. Of course I am just reading an article I saw a link to and I reposted the link here. Who knows how much of this is true or how much it will actually affect what we do. Remember that XP was supposed to be impossible to pirate. Before it was ever released the hackers knew how to get around all that BS. We are talking MS here. They aren't exactly known for being able to accomplish stuff like this without problems and then there will be the cries of MS dominating the entire electronics market again. They lost that last round of lawsuits and Europe is still hot to ban their products completely over the crap they pulled with IE. Let's just all hope MS falls flat on their face (again) and this nightmare will blow over like the Sony rootkit. If not we could see a whole new set of designed for Linux components and that might not be a bad thing at all. But we'll still be looking at a lot of hassles with the equipment we already have. Just think of all the audiophile types who have been talked into making the PC the center of the home entertainment system. All that PC controlled gear could become useless because of a trick like this. I can see the possibility of MS going down the tubes over a trick like this. A lot of people don't like them already.

I disagree that the 20 hz to 50 hz range is out of the normal hearing range for adults. I'm 50 years old and I've been to way too many rock concerts (most of which were back in the 1970's when no one cared a hoot about how loud it was except that it had to be very loud). And I have a set of test tones that includes sounds all the way down to 20 hz. I can hear 25 hz perfectly well and I can hear 20 hz but it's starting to get out of my ability to hear it. I might even be able to hear some sound from a 15 hz source but I don't have a test tone that goes that low. Some people can hear sounds in that range though. Now if you want to talk about the upper ranges almost no adults over 30 can hear anything above 14 khz even if they've never been to a rock concert. I'm lucky to hear anything over 12-13 khz. Also I think the lower ranges are very important to music today because the source for most of what we record includes sound down to the 30 hz level. Back before the advent of Kicker truck speakers almost no stereo systems could even play those sounds but they caught on fast with the hip hop generation and they spread to other genres too. Now if you want your recording to sound like the original it needs to be able to record down to at least 30 hz IMO. That's one of the main reasons I moved up from my Sony mic. I liked a lot of things about it but it was shy on bass response so I got a better mic and I'm glad I did.

Yeah that article is a real eye openner. It makes it clear what direction things are headed for sure and it ain't good for us regular folks.

Actually I was referring to a highly popular drag and drop audio player (i.e. the iPod). The music industry is throwing a hissy fit about the way things are now. And if you think they aren't on the offensive try reading about the next version of Windows and how it will cripple many of the things we are doing with computers right now. Vista is MS's version of what Sony tried to do to CD's with the rootkit. It's DRM run amuk. We'll be lucky to drag and drop a text file. Looks like my prediction that the computer industry was winning this battle just took a giant step into the junk pile of bad ideas. Vista is MS's attempt at killing off the computer as any kind of a media tool except the kind that will print a worksheet. We won't be able to buy anything but business type computers if MS gets their way. This really stinks. We likely won't even be able to work with our own equipment and all the new equipment will be crippled to suit the big money crowd. That means we better hold on to what we have if we expect to edit audio on a computer for the forseeable future.

The first place a journalist goes looking for info (and often the only place) is the LexisNexis database where they find everything that's ever been written about a subject in the media. The problem is when the first article written on a subject like MD is wrong every lazy and deadline pressured journalist that comes along later writing about the same subject is going to print the same wrong info as the first journalist. Then there's a snowball effect so that soon there's so much bad copy to pick from there's no room for anyone to think for themselves and actually do a little leg work and cover the issue correctly. That's why we still see the same lame comments about software issues. Yes there were software issues even for HIMD at first. If you were trying to upload something you recorded with a mic and something went wrong you were out of luck. The copyright protection crap Sony stuck in the software prevented you from ever uploading your own stuff again. So now every story written about HIMD includes that bit of ancient history unless the journalist just happens to be personally familiar with the subject like in the second story. Journalism is a business more than anything else so they take the easiest route to a story whether it's true or not. We get a lot of bad info on a lot of subjects because of the shortcuts taken by modern journalists. Heck most of those writers aren't getting paid that much these days so they don't want to spend the time to do it right. That's why we see NY Times reporters claiming to do reports from around the country when in fact they're down at the local bar regurgitating what they got off LexisNexis. They destroy people's lives reprinting lies about them. For example they could go on printing that the Duke lacrosse players raped that stripper because they didn't bother checking the rest of the story. That case is not a good example because there has been a lot of press proving the story the stripper gave was a bunch of BS but imagine if the only thing written about you was that you tried to rape a stripper and despite you're being cleared of the charges journalists kept reporting you were a rapist for decades to come because the part where the charges were dropped against you wasn't ever printed so it didn't make the news database. That's the kind of crap we see from journalists these days.

The ECM-MS957 is a M/S design mic with the same angle adjustments that the ECM-MS907 which is also a M/S design. I'm really surprised that you are getting noise from behind the mic because my MS907 is excellent at rejecting rear noise. You basically can't hear a thing that comes from behind it. It seems strange that a Sony mic with a very similar design has such different characteristics. You should get good results with voice applications with this mic too because of the M/S design. Essentially there is a mono channel for the center plus the side capsules that capture the stereo information. Most single point stereo mics aren't that good for voice but a M/S is the exception. I get excellent stereo imaging with my mic too. As for putting sound dampening material behind the mic sure that will work. But you can't just attach it to the back of your mic. You would have to make a shield of some sort that extended out from the mic a good bit. It might be good for recording where you won't be mobile but it would probably be too much to take on the road with you. I think pretty much all bike racers use some sort of help or at least it sure looks that way. Back in the days before testing I'm guessing there were all sorts of helpers. Even today just because they don't all get caught I'm not so sure they don't all get help. Maybe they should just let them all get any help they want. If they want to make themselves into test subjects that's their stupidity I guess. It doesn't seem possible to stop them from doing it anyway. BTW I rode 3500 miles one year. Now I would be lucky to ride 3500 feet. So maybe there's more to that axiom of Eddy's.

The fact that we have devices that can be used to copy music digitally is proof that we have come a long way since the days when the recording industry killed DAT for the masses. They just didn't want us to be able to make digital copies. The strength of the computer industry has led to the existence of devices that do allow for digital copying. That wasn't true of MD at first BTW as you probably know. Sony considered the compression factor enough of a deterrent to making copies at your friends house. It wasn't a true digit for digit copy so they let it go. By the time computers pushed the recording of CDR's as a popular technology we had already seen a big breakthrough in the battle to wrest control of the device industry from the grip of the big record labels. We've seen a steady progression of the recording companies losing control since then. Even MD's can be used to make digital copies of your friend's CD's if you do it right (do it as a data file then convert it on your computer at home). Hopefully it's a trend that will continue.