mmilovan Posted February 5, 2005 Report Share Posted February 5, 2005 Hello people,I'm relatively new in all this thing, and just wanted to know what exactly Mic Sens meny means. I used to record some live club dates with famous Panasonic modified capsule and battery box I made by myself according to various plans and still have a bit distorsion at louder shouts for example. Should I try with low Mic Sens mode? What are those settings?Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROMBUSTERS Posted February 5, 2005 Report Share Posted February 5, 2005 i believe, but could be mistaken, that mic sensitivity is designed to allow the player to remove abmient noise in the recording. For example if you record a room with a fan the fan may actually push air over the mic resulting in extra noise. Using a low sensitivity in this situation would lower the amount of that extra noise picked up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmilovan Posted February 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2005 (edited) i believe, but could be mistaken, that mic sensitivity is designed to allow the player to remove abmient noise in the recording. For example if you record a room with a fan the fan may actually push air over the mic resulting in extra noise. Using a low sensitivity in this situation would lower the amount of that extra noise picked up.←So, it's not connected with preamp sensivity and pressure levels, right?Is there any noticable affectation on sound of music by adding this Low Sens filter? Edited February 5, 2005 by mmilovan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROMBUSTERS Posted February 5, 2005 Report Share Posted February 5, 2005 it might just be increasing the lower threshold of what it picks up and stripping away the low soundsthis all just pure speculation however Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted February 5, 2005 Report Share Posted February 5, 2005 Mic sensitivity does one thing and one thing only:It increases the base gain of the mic preamp by somewhere between 30-40dB over the 'normal' setting.The end result is, you guessed it, higher mic sensitivity [as well as increased preamp noise].In the vast majority of situations, unless you're recording birds or people whispering, you should never need to use high sens. It will drive the mic preamp straight into distortion with louder sounds.In combination with AGC, high sens can be used for "radio" like recordings that are higher compressed and catch literally all of the sound, albeit with no dynamic range whatsoever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmilovan Posted February 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2005 Many thanks to all of you.May I ask another question: I’ve tried to figure where distortion actually was generated from by observing in Sound Forge sound clip I recorded.My recording has been taken by using “high sensivity mic” mode. I’ve noticed clipped frames no matter what recording level was adjusted by the main button (manual level recording) in the center of jog dial, only the overall volume is lower, but clipping exists. So, I figured that whole mechanism of changing levels (from 0-30) is placed AFTER mic preamp (and not before). So mic amp can clip - no matter what is shown on display, and what level from 0 till 30 is tuned – isn’t it so?If microphone capsule is not overloaded by high SPL, I can think that source signal from electret mic must be attenuated before MD and I must use low sensivity mode not to put preamp in clipping position - am I right on this one?Mic sensitivity does one thing and one thing only:It increases the base gain of the mic preamp by somewhere between 30-40dB over the 'normal' setting.The end result is, you guessed it, higher mic sensitivity [as well as increased preamp noise].In the vast majority of situations, unless you're recording birds or people whispering, you should never need to use high sens. It will drive the mic preamp straight into distortion with louder sounds.In combination with AGC, high sens can be used for "radio" like recordings that are higher compressed and catch literally all of the sound, albeit with no dynamic range whatsoever.← Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted February 6, 2005 Report Share Posted February 6, 2005 Many thanks to all of you.May I ask another question: I’ve tried to figure where distortion actually was generated from by observing in Sound Forge sound clip I recorded.My recording has been taken by using “high sensivity mic” mode. I’ve noticed clipped frames no matter what recording level was adjusted by the main button (manual level recording) in the center of jog dial, only the overall volume is lower, but clipping exists. So, I figured that whole mechanism of changing levels (from 0-30) is placed AFTER mic preamp (and not before). So mic amp can clip - no matter what is shown on display, and what level from 0 till 30 is tuned – isn’t it so?If microphone capsule is not overloaded by high SPL, I can think that source signal from electret mic must be attenuated before MD and I must use low sensivity mode not to put preamp in clipping position - am I right on this one?←Correct, sort of. As it is digitally/discretely controlled, yes, it's likely that the actual level adjustment comes after, not before, the initial preamp gain. In high sens mode, preamp distortion will show up even with levels that show good on the meters [you have to monitor to tell it's distorting].So yes indeed - opening the WAV files in your editor, if you see that the signal's peaks are below 0dBfs but there is still distortion - this is the mic preamp running out of headroom. Which isn't surprising, considering the fact that it's running off a single 1.5V AA battery.There are several possible fiexs to this problem, of course:1) using a battery box and/or external preamp, via the recorder's line-in2) moving the mic farther from the subject3) attenuating [preferably passively] the mic using something like the radioshack volume control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmilovan Posted February 7, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2005 Well, I already made battery box and modification capsule according to this scheme http://www.linkwitzlab.com/sys_test.htm - so 1,5 V wasn't energy power in my case.Today I tried recording with normal sensivity dialed at HiMD recorder, and found only few distorsion problems with very close miking of very loud voices, so this could be the solution of annoying problem.Thanks dex Otaku and to all of you!BTW, anyone knows what is the input impedance of mic preamp in HiMD unit? (usefull data for lbuilding mic according to linkwitz schematic diagram)Correct, sort of. As it is digitally/discretely controlled, yes, it's likely that the actual level adjustment comes after, not before, the initial preamp gain. In high sens mode, preamp distortion will show up even with levels that show good on the meters [you have to monitor to tell it's distorting].So yes indeed - opening the WAV files in your editor, if you see that the signal's peaks are below 0dBfs but there is still distortion - this is the mic preamp running out of headroom. Which isn't surprising, considering the fact that it's running off a single 1.5V AA battery.There are several possible fiexs to this problem, of course:1) using a battery box and/or external preamp, via the recorder's line-in2) moving the mic farther from the subject3) attenuating [preferably passively] the mic using something like the radioshack volume control.← Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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