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A Bad recording with MZ-707--Why?

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NJDUKE

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Hello everyone,

I need a little technical critique. I recently loaned my niece my MZ 707 and the Sony ECM-MS907 microphone. She was recording a local author reading selections from her book. She wanted to send this reading to a publisher.

Anyway, I was out of town at the time so I tried to keep it simple. I set the 707 to SP and told her to just slide into record. I thought this would give us the best sound to transfer. Fresh batteries were in both units.

When I returned I was very disappointed with the sound quality. There was a very noticeable hissing noise throughout the recording the "s"s and "t"s were very piercing.

What went wrong? This lady was just reading from her book into the microphone.

I put on my headphones and recreated the situation. I ran through all the recording modes and notice that the noise was NOT there when I put the unit into MONO.

Any ideas as to what's going on here?

Regards,

Ed

PS I was able to clean up the recording but didn't expect to have to do that.

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This is entirely a guess. But since Mono eliminated the problem maybe you were having some kind of phasing phenomenon between the mic elements in the MS907. What pickup pattern was it set on?

Also, it could just be the noise from the mic itself if the reading was quiet. Every mic has noise, and Sony mics are not known for being particularly quiet. When you turned it up to hear it, you also turned up the noise from the mic.

As I said, only guesses. Maybe someone more familiar with the MS907 has a better explanation.

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This is entirely a guess. But since Mono eliminated the problem maybe you were having some kind of phasing phenomenon between the mic elements in the MS907. What pickup pattern was it set on?

Also, it could just be the noise from the mic itself if the reading was quiet. Every mic has noise, and Sony mics are not known for being particularly quiet. When you turned it up to hear it, you also turned up the noise from the mic.

As I said, only guesses. Maybe someone more familiar with the MS907 has a better explanation.

Thanks for commenting A440. I doubt she'll remember what pickup pattern she set it on. I'll have to experiment. The sound reminds me of good old fashioned surface noise. I wonder if her being in the AUTO recording mode contributed to the problem.

My regular stealth live music recording is done with CORE Binaural microphones. I haven't used the MS907 for some time. If it's just in the nature of Sony mics, then I have a new appreciation of how significant microphone quality is to a good live recording.

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Thanks for commenting A440. I doubt she'll remember what pickup pattern she set it on. I'll have to experiment. The sound reminds me of good old fashioned surface noise. I wonder if her being in the AUTO recording mode contributed to the problem.

My regular stealth live music recording is done with CORE Binaural microphones. I haven't used the MS907 for some time. If it's just in the nature of Sony mics, then I have a new appreciation of how significant microphone quality is to a good live recording.

Unamped speech is rather quiet, whereas most live music will be much louder, doesn't require as much preamplification. The (self) noise of the mic and/or preamp will be way less audible. You're comparing apples with oranges here, I'm afraid.

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Unamped speech is rather quiet, whereas most live music will be much louder, doesn't require as much preamplification. The (self) noise of the mic and/or preamp will be way less audible. You're comparing apples with oranges here, I'm afraid.

You are correct Greenmachine. I tested the Sony mic by recording a big band and no noise was detectable.

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