Microphone question

[wolfgang]

I'm a n00b at recording concerts. I have read lots and lots of stuff about it, but I've never actually done it. I got a Sharp MiniDisc from Ebay, but I get the dreaded UTOC error any time I try to do anything. I'm just going to get a new Hi-MD next. My question is about mics. It seems lots of people here recommend binaural mics over cardoid mics. Why is this? It seems to me that binaural would pick up too much noise from behind, say a large fat woman screaming in your ear like what happened to me at the last Bon Jovi concert. Whereas if one were using cardioid mics, then the woman's effect on a recording would be minimized because the sound from the speakers coming into the pick-up pattern would overpower the sound from behind whose sound is coming from the opposite direction of the pickup pattern.

[A440]

The large fat woman would still be audible from in front of you, so it would still be in your recording. Perhaps cardioids would lower it slightly.

I have only used the kind of cardioids I could afford, which were under $200. So my experience only applies to lower-priced cardioids. But with those:

1) They don't pick up as much bass, making for a more tinny sound. Listen to "Power Serj" in my gallery album, recorded with cardioids. System has a lot more bass, obviously.

and

2) Because they don't pick up sound from behind you, listening to them through headphones (as I usually do) creates a strange effect I describe as backless: there's nothing at all behind you, so the sound image is more two-dimensional.

More expensive cardioids might eliminate (1), but I think (2) is unavoidable with cardioids. They are useful for things like instrument and voice miking on stage, where you want them to reject a lot of sound, and for interviews where you are just picking up one source. But live music is really an immersive experience, and I like my mics to pick that up. Maybe next time you could move, or ask the fat lady to shut up?

[wolfgang]

Ok. I'm in the same boat as you in that any mics I buy will be under $200. So are you basically saying that "low-cost" omnis are better than "low-cost" cards?

[A440]

That's exactly what I'm saying. Low-cost omnis can give you 20-20,000 Hz frequency response, while low-cost cards tend to cut off at 100 Hz, or roll off rapidly (pick up less and less as the pitch goes down). Look around at manufacturers' specs.

Every doubling of Hz is an octave, so the difference between 100 and 20 is more than two whole octaves of bass. The lowest note on a piano is 27 Hz, and rock bass goes lower than that.

I had Core Sound low-cost cardioids, and I thought they sounded narrower in every way--spatially, timbrally--than omnis. Cheaper omnis give you more sound for the dollar. And to me they are more realistic, because your ears are omni as well.

If you want to stay on the fence, look at Sound Professionals CMC-4: you can get them with either omni or cardioid capsules, and buy the other capsules later. Listen to some of the sound samples on that site to hear what they sound like.

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-CMC-4

[wolfgang]

2 questions:

1) On mics with a freq. range of 30-20,000, what happens to sounds below 30? Are they just ignored or distorted or what?

2) I've been reading greenmachine's DIY project. Are the mic cartridges really only like $2 a piece?

[A440]

What happens below (or above) the specs depends on the mic. They either ignore the other frequencies or pick up the sound at a much diminished level. Distortion would ruin the signal you did get, so that doesn't happen.

Yes, the basic Panasonic capsules are about $2. But you need to get a few so you can choose two that have closely matching output, since they vary. You also need the other parts, a soldering iron, heat-shrink tubing and a steady hand.

http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dk...=507300&Site=US

[wolfgang]

Thanks for all your help man, I really appreciate it. I got a mic element from Radio Shack to see if I was going to be able to do this before I went out and got all of the parts, and I cant get it to do anything. This particular mic came with the wire already on it, so that might be a problem. I tried running it through phantom power and through a pre-amp and nothing worked. There was very, very little signal coming out of the mic. I tried just twisting the wires together and I tried soldering the wires together. I tried wiring the mic into several different cords, still nothing.

Any suggestions? Tonight I think I am going to try removing the pre-existing leads and putting my own on there. This DIY may not be the thing for me after all