I need your opinions ...

[House]

Hello there. I'm new at these forums and new to the whole live recording.

i mainly attend rock concerts in small/medium size venues.

i'm looking for a high quality mic that'll get me nice recordings without sounding awful. I have mode one recording, but the vocals were far too loud for the poor Sony mic and it turned out pretty rough.

i've heard a lot about Green machine and his mics, so got in touch with him. he recommended his battery module and mics. i am on a budget so if i got the battery module, i'd have to go with his 'standard' mic.

i've also checked out Church-Audio's auctions on eBay. if i can nail a bid for $79.99 (and shipping of $39.99 to Europe) that'd be just within my budget.

here's the auction: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/STEREO-MICROPHONES-P...ShippingPayment

what i really need to know is who's mics/battery's are going to be better for my recording? that church-audio package and the standard+battery module from Gm work out at the same price...

if anyone has got sample recordings of each of these mics/battery's, that'd be really cool (but just your opinions would be greatly appreciated!)

thanks guys

[greenmachine]

The 'box' in the auction is actually a preamp, which is not really useful for recording rock concerts, it will overload and produce plenty of distortion. A battery module on the other hand doesn't preamplify but enables line-in recording for a clean recording of high sound pressure levels. The mics look rather large, no so good where stealth is required. Also the shipping costs would make the set rather expensive.

You can find a sample recording of one of my standard mics + battery module here:

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?act=m...si&img=1519

[faulkner1953]

Although I don't have greenmachines mics, I agree with his reply totally. For recording loud sounds, like a live band in any situation, you must use a powered battery box with your powered mics. The mics will only get 1.5 volts directly from the recorder unit, which will result in them getting overloaded and distorted with loud sounds. The battery box will supply the mics with 9 volts, giving the mics the ability to handle much higher sound pressure levels without distorting. I have never had mic distortion using a battery box and line in.

[The Low Volta]

I do have the greenmachine mics and I agree totally with the above ... for a sample of what g's mics and battery box can do check out the live recordings linked in the 'my stealth setup'-thread in my signature

[greenmachine]

The mics will only get 1.5 volts directly from the recorder unit, which will result in them getting overloaded and distorted with loud sounds. The battery box will supply the mics with 9 volts, giving the mics the ability to handle much higher sound pressure levels without distorting. I have never had mic distortion using a battery box and line in.

The preamp usually overloads way sooner than the 'underpowered' mics themselves. Switching to line-in will make the big difference. Although it is true that the mics will perform best close to their maximum voltage (usually around 10V for electret mics), the importance of the voltage is often overestimated. Nevertheless it is necessary to power the mics externally because there is no voltage at the line-in directly from the recorder.

[faulkner1953]

The preamp usually overloads way sooner than the 'underpowered' mics themselves. Switching to line-in will make the big difference. Although it is true that the mics will perform best close to their maximum voltage (usually around 10V for electret mics), the importance of the voltage is often overestimated. Nevertheless it is necessary to power the mics externally because there is no voltage at the line-in directly from the recorder.

I defer to your greater knowledge of mics and such. I was just under the impression that it was a voltage difference at the mics that made the most difference. I'm sure that the preamp can be overloaded as well. I assume that line in has no preamp to overload? If you powered the mics with 1.5v and fed them to line in , would you get equally good results? I am always willing to gain a bit more knowledge, don't want to go around spreading misinformation.

[greenmachine]

The best example is the headphone attenuator connected between the mics and mic-in. Although it lowers the voltage, you'll be able to record loud sounds with less distortion (or in other words, louder sounds with the same amount of distortion), because the preamp will get a lower signal and thus won't overload too easily. If too much attenation s used without external powering, the mics won't get sufficient power and distort. Using line-in bypasses the preamp and thus will give plenty of additional headroom. A higher voltage will improve the mics' performance particularly at very high sound pressure levels.

[CHURCH-AUDIO]

I disagree 100% a preamp is very usfull and my preamp is perfect for recording loud concerts. I recommend my cardioid mics and st-9000 preamp package that will give you state of the are reproduction of concerts with no noise and much better signal to noise ratio then just using a cheap headphone attenuator.

You have always had it in for me. try and be unbiased in your remarks about me if you can..... I can see you sell mics and battery boxes I guess you dont know how to build a good preamp or you would be saying that preamps are importaint. I sell both battery boxes and preamps. I have no bias I know a preamp is better. I think its sad you have to shoot some else down because you need to make "sales" that badly....

Saying that all you need is a battery box is rediculous. Go to Tapperssection.com and say that. They will laugh at you. A battery box will work great under some situations, But my preamp the st-9000 and ST-9100 will work in all situations.

PS... we don't USE cheap headphone cable for our mics we use MOGAMI and Neutrik connectors. I dont think using CHEAP dollar store headphone cable is a very good method for connecting mics and reducing noise. DO YOU?

I would rather have a solution that will do everything then a cheesy battery box that will MAYBE work in some situations. You have to admit the less normalization you do the better your recording will turn out.

When you plug into a line input your already at -20 db the mics them selves can swing anywhere from -10 to -30 ( depending on mic sensitivity) on the output with very loud music. So that means your putting into the line input a signal of -20 to -40! on average that means you need atleast +25 db of gain from your MD and +15 thru normalization. Why not start out with a nice -10 signal and get +5 from your MD and +5 from normalization? insted of getting all that noise?

Lets stop handing out bad advice my preamps are not the only good preamps out there, I am not piping in because I want to sell something. I have all the sales I could ever want. But I am tired of your one sided remarks, and the fact that you always do your best to stear people away from my products. When you have never used them.

Chris Church

The 'box' in the auction is actually a preamp, which is not really useful for recording rock concerts, it will overload and produce plenty of distortion. A battery module on the other hand doesn't preamplify but enables line-in recording for a clean recording of high sound pressure levels. The mics look rather large, no so good where stealth is required. Also the shipping costs would make the set rather expensive.

You can find a sample recording of one of my standard mics + battery module here:

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?act=m...si&img=1519

Edited August 17, 2006 by CHURCH-AUDIO

[faulkner1953]

I don't want to get in the middle of a good Feud , But I would like to say.....

In my experience with a battery box and line in, My recordings have absolutely no noise other than ambient sounds of the location of the recording. This is nothing like audio tape, where it is near impossible to get a quiet recording. I can't disagree with the preamp argument, because I have no experience with them. It is entirely possible that either method will work satisfactorily for most people. Avoiding distortion is more important than worrying about noise levels with these digital recordings, in my opinion. Why not just do what is comfortable for you, and what makes you happy?

[A440]

I'm very happy with a pair of Church Audio mics I got a few years ago, and the components look to be high quality. I wish he still made these small binaurals--last time I looked, the ones on his Ebay site were larger.

But I want to untangle this argument a bit.

We're talking about 3 different things:

An attenuator: a headphone volume control used backward. This is a cheap ($7), small, imperfect way to lower noise by lowering the amount of the signal that gets to the preamp inside the MD unit. This has nothing to do with the external preamps Church Audio sells. When I started using it, my MZ-N707 didn't allow changing the levels while recording, and the little knob on the attenuator did. Now we have on-the-fly level adjustment. An attenuator is a very imperfect solution because ultra-loud music will still overload the mics (which are getting less power) and the cheap little gizmos add noise of their own.

The real shootout here is between the next two:

A battery module: a little box with batteries in it (about $50) that provides enough power to the mics so that with a loud sound source, they generate a strong enough signal to go through line-in. I used to use an attenuator through mic-in because the battery boxes that were around at the time were big and clunky, but now that I've found a tiny battery module (Microphone Madness Classic Mini), I prefer it. I have also recorded speech with Mic-Battery Module-Line-in, and it's more than audible.

A preamplifier: a box that actually amplifies the signal coming out of the microphone before you plug it into line-in. Sophisticated electronics and priced at $100-$200. I have not used a Church Audio preamp, but I have used the original Sound Professional preamp (before they added a No-Gain setting that essentially turns it into a battery module) and the Boost Box from Reactive Sounds. With loud music, both of them were simply not the right piece of equipment--and both were also about the size of the MD unit, making stealth more difficult. (The curly, bulky telephone-style cord on the Reactive Sounds was an extremely bad idea.) Something--either the preamp unit or the MD line-in--overloaded during loud shows with even the slightest gain.

Perhaps the -10 dB Chris Church refers to is a setting on his preamp that lowers the gain from a loud concert, and so his preamps are more suitable for loud concert recording. I can't say.

For me, the battery module via Line-in has been able to capture nearly all music quite well, and for the few concerts that are too quiet I go through Mic-in, so I'm not going to be checking out preamps any time soon.

And let's not even wade into the question of omni mics vs. cardioids....

Edited August 18, 2006 by A440

[CHURCH-AUDIO]

Hi Guys. All I wanted to say is a battery box will not work for everything, where as a preamp will the st-9100 preamp I make has a true gain control that goes from -00 db or totally off to +20 db of gain. That way you can attenuate or boost as needed, a battery box is just a power supply. You will notice noise when you try and use a battery box for a concert that is not that loud, and you have to boost it with your recorder or with normalization. Thats the whole point, I was trying to make. This "other" person just wants to put my products down and sell his. Even though he has never used my product. It would be just as unfair for me to say his product was bad. Preamps do have there place in loud concert recording. But I must say we do not use cheap headphone cables for our mics we only use MOGAMI and Nutrik connectors yes you pay a bit more but you also get alot more. I dont waste my time putting other products down I have sold over 2,400 preamps in the last 2.4 years I have been operating. Thats alot of preamps I guess they must be good for something or I would have never sold that many.

Chris Church

I don't want to get in the middle of a good Feud , But I would like to say.....

In my experience with a battery box and line in, My recordings have absolutely no noise other than ambient sounds of the location of the recording. This is nothing like audio tape, where it is near impossible to get a quiet recording. I can't disagree with the preamp argument, because I have no experience with them. It is entirely possible that either method will work satisfactorily for most people. Avoiding distortion is more important than worrying about noise levels with these digital recordings, in my opinion. Why not just do what is comfortable for you, and what makes you happy?

[tekdroid]

as an innocent bystander in this argument ...all I can say is, if anything, greenmachine is irritatingly irritating at the lengths he goes to NOT to advertise. If I were him, I'd be flogging my kit left, right and centre .

So I don't believe this has anything to do with putting down another vendor, but maybe getting best bang for buck? But that's just my opinion. If anything he's helped us all tremendously by 'open sourcing' his work (for want of a better expression) for the good of all who frequent this board and have the time/inclination to geek it out a bit. It's easy to make your own battery box and mic from basic parts, and most of us have...and have reaped the rewards. That reminds me, I should post pics of my ghetto battery box soon.

I am impartial to all this...

I have neither purchased from greenmachine or Church Audio. But I have no doubt both make fine products. I just don't believe bad-mouthing the competition was his intent. Really, they are two very different products at different price points, anyway. I'm sure the products speak for themselves.

[A440]

A battery box will not work for everything, where as a preamp will the st-9100 preamp I make has a true gain control that goes from -00 db or totally off to +20 db of gain. That way you can attenuate or boost as needed, a battery box is just a power supply. You will notice noise when you try and use a battery box for a concert that is not that loud, and you have to boost it with your recorder or with normalization.

OK, that's the crux of the matter. If recording with a battery module produces a recording that's too quiet, and you have to normalize it in post-processing, then a preamp will help give you a louder recording in the first place.

It's not about noise FROM the battery module, it's about the noise added when you have to amplify a quiet recording.

Please correct me if I misunderstood this, but is -00 dB the equivalent of using a battery module?

[CHURCH-AUDIO]

00- is a term used for a signal that is totally attenuated, 0- db refers to unity gain, not boosted or cut. So my preamp will do from all the way off, to +20 this includes the 0-db range or unity gain like a battery box. In situations where you do not want to boost or cut. The gain control on my preamp covers the whole range to +20 db. As do most of the other preamps out there.

OK, that's the crux of the matter. If recording with a battery module produces a recording that's too quiet, and you have to normalize it in post-processing, then a preamp will help give you a louder recording in the first place.

It's not about noise FROM the battery module, it's about the noise added when you have to amplify a quiet recording.

Please correct me if I misunderstood this, but is -00 dB the equivalent of using a battery module?

[CHURCH-AUDIO]

Well sadly if that was the case, then this user would not comment on every single opportunity about my products. Read his posts over the last few months, I see a very obvious pattern of his comments. He uses his "power" here to sell his product and steer people away from mine, by misleading them about my product, when in fact he has never used it.

I do not go out of my way to steer anyone away from anything, but when someone is totally misleading people, and talking about me behind my back, I will and do have the right to defend my self. That’s all I wanted to say about this subject. Sorry for hijacking this thread.

I think you can sell things with out having to resort to slander in the process. I guess I feel my product is good enough, that I have never said anything negative about anyone else’s product.

Funny I don't hear any comments from Greenmachine now? aint it.

Chris Church

as an innocent bystander in this argument ...all I can say is, if anything, greenmachine is irritatingly irritating at the lengths he goes to NOT to advertise. If I were him, I'd be flogging my kit left, right and centre .

So I don't believe this has anything to do with putting down another vendor, but maybe getting best bang for buck? But that's just my opinion. If anything he's helped us all tremendously by 'open sourcing' his work (for want of a better expression) for the good of all who frequent this board and have the time/inclination to geek it out a bit. It's easy to make your own battery box and mic from basic parts, and most of us have...and have reaped the rewards. That reminds me, I should post pics of my ghetto battery box soon.

I am impartial to all this...

I have neither purchased from greenmachine or Church Audio. But I have no doubt both make fine products. I just don't believe bad-mouthing the competition was his intent. Really, they are two very different products at different price points, anyway. I'm sure the products speak for themselves.

[Richard]

Ok, can we try and keep cool and if you want to take the handbags further then I suggest PM would be the appropriate medium to do so.

Thank you

[A440]

00- is a term used for a signal that is totally attenuated, 0- db refers to unity gain, not boosted or cut. So my preamp will do from all the way off, to +20 this includes the 0-db range or unity gain like a battery box. In situations where you do not want to boost or cut. The gain control on my preamp covers the whole range to +20 db. As do most of the other preamps out there.

Thank you for explaining this.

The problem with the preamps I previously owned was that they only boosted the recording level from unity gain on up--and the last thing you need at, for instance, a Tool concert is any kind of boost.

It sounds like your preamp is indeed more useful for minidisc recording at concerts since it can attenuate (without lowering power to the mic, I hope?) if the music is too loud and boost if the music is too quiet.

But first I have to refill the piggybank after splurging on the MZ-RH-1....

[CHURCH-AUDIO]

Unlike headphone attenuators my preamp is a real active circuit that has a real gain control so your not losing any battery voltage and we provide the full voltage your battery is at so if your battery is 9.5 thats what the mics will see. Our preamp also draws only 8ma so it will run for up to 50 hours on a signal 9 volt.

Thank you for explaining this.

The problem with the preamps I previously owned was that they only boosted the recording level from unity gain on up--and the last thing you need at, for instance, a Tool concert is any kind of boost.

It sounds like your preamp is indeed more useful for minidisc recording at concerts since it can attenuate (without lowering power to the mic, I hope?) if the music is too loud and boost if the music is too quiet.

But first I have to refill the piggybank after splurging on the MZ-RH-1....

[tekdroid]

Well sadly if that was the case, then this user would not comment on every single opportunity about my products. Read his posts over the last few months, I see a very obvious pattern of his comments.

We have learned your pre-amp is more flexible than just a regular preamp.

I have looked through all your posts, many of them agreeing with greenmachine, and many adding useful additional information (and of course, many mentioning your business - as you should, I feel). I have no experience with your products but they do sound like they mean business.

Greemnachine started his own thread about how to make your own mics and battery boxes, describing all parts needed and the methods used to do it. You commented in this thread, so perhaps you already know this.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...=11254&st=0

To me, this sounds like a helpful guy. Open and honest (and not putting sales above all else). I still believe he was just dishing out basic pre-amp info, not putting you or your products down.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?s=&am...st&p=106738

This recent post from greenmachine pretty much sums up my thoughts. Though there may be situations (and devices) where an external preamp (like yours) is needed (or even favourable) I haven't been in a situation that the MIC IN and LINE IN (with battery box) hasn't handled things fine. But I am curious about your product - and it certainly is very flexible.

[greenmachine]

I admit not having read the description of the linked auction thoroughly enough. If the product works as advertised, it should be suitable for recording loud sounds indeed with its wide gain range (unlike the built-in preamp of most MD devices). I apologize for this misinformation. Still i believe a MD recorder with mic-in and line-in in combination with a battery box is sufficient for virtually any situation if you know how to use it. See the 2nd link in the previous post.

[tiberiusbeekirk]

I learned a lot from this section of the forum.

Both from Greenmachine and A440, I too am moving up in the food chain of MD recording.

I say MD recording because it's not mentioned often in taperssection. I still don't know what a pre amp does in regards to using it with a MD unit. Maybe, I'm dense, who knows.

I keep on hearing words such as "brick walling" and overloading and this is what frightens new recorders like me.

I made a recording of what I thought was going to be a loud show using the RS in line voulume control as an attenuator and I recorded it at too low a level for fear of overloading.

I will trust what my Fellow MD users are saying regarding Battery boxes. And, what I've found out in hours of research (here and in T board) was, Stick with a Battery box, no bass roll off. I don't hear many MD users mention Pre amps so I cannot comment on what I haven't seen.

You can always fix the bass in post. but you can never get it back if you don't have it.

So to the OP, pre amp or Battery box, the above was what I've found to be the consensus.

Just my .02, your mileage may vary. and probably will.

[A440]

I keep on hearing words such as "brick walling" and overloading and this is what frightens new recorders like me.

I made a recording of what I thought was going to be a loud show using the RS in line voulume control as an attenuator and I recorded it at too low a level for fear of overloading.

Yeah, brickwalling sounds scary. It doesn't hurt the unit, but it means the recording is unlistenable. If you look at the recording as a waveform (open it with Audacity, available in downloads), the wave will be flattened on the top and bottom where it overloaded. So it looks like a brick wall. Plug the mic into mic-in, crank up your stereo on something big and brutal, and you'll hear it.

When using the attenuator, always turn it all the way up. It attenuates even at max volume. When I first used it, the MD unit couldn't adjust volume while recording, but now that you can, there's no reason to have the attenuator on anything but max. Use the level control on the unit to keep the peaks of the music between the two dashes--use Manual Volume, set it at a reasonable level and leave it alone. But at a superloud show, the mic itself will overload, so there's going to be distortion anyway.

A battery module is better in every way--it's well worth the $50. It gives the mic more power so it won't distort easily, and through Line-in it leaves lots of headroom for musical peaks. I don't have a problem with overly quiet recordings (I usually use Manual Volume at about 20/30) but that depends on the sensitivity of the microphones.

Chris Church's preamp seems to be a combination of a genuine variable attenuator--one that can lower the signal coming in but doesn't diminish power to the mics--and an amplifier for quieter music. But at the moment I'm doing fine with just the battery module.

Bass roll-off was a way to compensate for the problems with MD mic preamps, which overload with bass. Going through line-in, it's much more unlikely that the bass will overload--it just doesn't happen to me--so there's no reason not to capture it and filter it later if necessary. But for some reason the bass roll-off cult is still there.

Taperssection does have a lot of good advice about higher-end mics, mic placement, etc.--they've been doing it a long time, they're obsessed, and a lot of them really know their electronics. What they have against minidisc seems to be bad institutional memory. Before Hi-MD, all minidisc recording was in compressed formats, not full-quality .wav like the geeks always want it (though in a good audience recording, I bet they couldn't tell the difference if they heard it). And the only way to get the music off MD was by analog recording, which deeply upset the taperssection people who are obsessed with "bit-perfect" copies. But nowadays, we have PCM and digital uploading, so let them carry around their clunky JB3s or their expensive Ipaqs with DACs while we put our MDs in our pockets.

[House]

Thanks for all the feedback guys!

I recieved my Greenmachine mics and battery box (2 days from Germany to UK!!)

The next concert i'm going to is in September, so i haven't had a chance to try out my new gear properly. In the mean time, I popped a punk CD in my hi-fi, cranked it up to full volume and recorded to MD via line in. The results look very promising! Thanks GM!!