Core Sound Binaurals Using With Mz-r900?

[Bandanabruce]

I've got a Sony MZ-R900 MD recorder and I am using the MSC-907 mic from sony for concerts. Now I hear a lot of recordings from Springsteen/u2 etc and they are taped with Core Sound Binaural mics. I really am thinking about getting myself

Core Sound Binaural $ 230

Battery box with the switchable bass roll-off filter $30

Shipping to Europe $ 34

TOTALS: $ 295 which is like € 235,63 (not too bad I guess ;-)

This setup will it improve my recordings BIGTIME? Can this mic be used with my MZ-R900? I really thinking of getting this one, so if anyone knows something... please do tell!

[Wedge]

I got my CSBs+bbox used, and they work fine with my MZ-NH1.

Check out some samples I've got up:

http://www.aqsl13.dsl.pipex.com

The first 2 (Dare and Asia) were recorded with the CSBs > bbox > MZ-NH1.

The second 2 (Scorpions and Judas Priest) were Sound Professionals CMC-2 > SP-SPSB-1 > MZ-NH1.

Please note that the Dare and Asia are slightly too loudly recorded - this was MY fault, not a fault of the equipment - I was in a rush as the band came on early.

But the samples will give you an idea of what you can expect.

With Scorps and JP, I had better preparation, and did a better job.

Edited April 26, 2005 by Wedge

[Wedge]

Oh, and if anyone is interested, both shows were recorded in Hi-SP format on 80 minute discs.

[greenmachine]

@Wedge:

I think it could sound awesome if you could encode it as higher quality mp3, maybe --alt-preset standard with Lame, or if you have to use such a low bitrate, use joint stereo mode.

You can find a very easy to use frontend using the high quality Lame encoder here.

Just drop your wav files at it.

[Wedge]

These are only samples - the actual shows are converted from Hi-SP to .wav then CD.

The .mp3s were just knocked up using Audacity with the Lame encoder plug-in and whatever defaults it uses. 128k I think.

[greenmachine]

Yes, just samples, i know, but how can you present someone your recording efforts if the quality is significantly degraded by a poorly set encoder?

[Bandanabruce]

So should i but the mic or not?

[A440]

It will be a radical improvement from your current mic. You'll hear bass that wasn't there before, and you'll have better stereo separation and probably a more realistic response across the frequency spectrum.

[Bandanabruce]

It will be a radical improvement from your current mic. You'll hear bass that wasn't there before, and you'll have better stereo separation and probably a more realistic response across the frequency spectrum.

←

sounds just like my mic

[greenmachine]

I believe these ones not to be significantly worse, if at all, propably they even use the same Panasonis capsules with the same modification, although the core sound's are declared to be closely matched, but in the end it's your decision...

Edited April 26, 2005 by greenmachine

[Wedge]

At your kind of budget, the choice is between omni and cardioid I think.

If you want omni- then the CSBs are a good choice.

If you want cardioid, then look at Sound Professionals CMC-2, CMC-4 or CMC-8 depending on what you want to spend.

I went for cardioids (CMC-2) as my first choice as it is mainly largish rock shows that I will be taping and in general, cardioids are best for this kind of gig, for where I normally stand.

So I bought the CMC-2 and an SP-SPSB-1 battery box (with adjustable bass roll off). I later got a set of CSBs with battery box second hand.

[Wedge]

Yes, just samples, i know, but how can you present someone your recording efforts if the quality is significantly degraded by a poorly set encoder?

←

Hi. I don't want to get in an argument about this, I'm just curious for the future.

The samples I put up were originally put there for a small circle of friends - as a quick and dirty indication of what was coming their way once I mastered and burned the CDs.

They were more than happy with what they heard.

So what settings do you suggest I use. As I said, I used the default settings for Lame, which I believe are 128k (CD quality?). How much higher than CD quality should I go?

Also, you need to bear in mind that I have limited web space available (50Mb). These 4 samples have already used around 15 to 20Mb of that space.

[greenmachine]

So what settings do you suggest I use. As I said, I used the default settings for Lame, which I believe are 128k (CD quality?). How much higher than CD quality should I go?

Also, you need to bear in mind that I have limited web space available (50Mb). These 4 samples have already used around 15 to 20Mb of that space.

--alt-preset standard is a x-times proven Lame setting for 'transparent' lossy compression, in most cases undistinguishable from the uncompressed source. It is variable bitrate (VBR), which means that it adjusts the necessary bitrate for different sources automatically, easy to encode tracks give a lower, hard to encode tracks a higher bitrate. The average resulting bitrate would be approximately 190 kbit/s, about 1.5 times as large as your actual 128 kbit/s samples.

You can read about recommended Lame settings here and the corresponding discussion here .

128 kbit/s CBR can be good enough in some cases, but use at least mid-/side joint stereo mode mode then, it means to losslessly couple the channels if possible and this way improves the sound.

For a more detailed discussion, read here or here or here or simply search for "joint stereo" at the excellent audio compression discussion forums at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/ .

Hope this helps.

Edited April 27, 2005 by greenmachine

[Wedge]

Thanks for the info.