TRICK!!!: how to make your ME66 mic sound like a MHK416 mic
 

HI

As a fanatic sequencer musician (9 years of experience) I know how to spice up or make something sound like it should sound. So I was thinking about the senheiser mic recording ( ME66 Quiet (2,725kb and MKH416 Quiet (2,725 kb) that can be found on this site (http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/audio/tanaka2.php).

I took these 2 samples and imported them in CUbase sx 2. I then used 4 plugins on the audio channel ( me66) to see if I could make the ME66 sound like a MKH416. I have to say It was a easy job, besides the lack of the bass response. The ME66 simply doesn't record any low bass frequency, so it is hard to add bass there. YOu CAN modify the upper part where the ' SSSS' is and the telephone notch frequencies are.

WHat Did I do to make it sound similar?

I made a photo of my pc screen. Check out the foto for details.http://pic14.picturetrail.com/VOL537...9/71877668.jpg

I used WAVES (Vst plugin) frequency simulation to see what kindof frequency curve both mics had. As you can see on the pic, the mkh has lots of frequency beneat the 70 hz. The ME has nothing there (rolled off). I fyou look in the top area, you see that the ME has too much freq in the 3000-5000 area. The ME in the original 'quiet' recording souned harsh. why? Too much freq in the 3000-5000 area. The same freq that is boost up in cheap radios to simiulate a boost in volume, but actually the radio is cheating cause you ears are more sensitive for that frequency range. So I lowered that range with Waves EQ plugin. I also added some bass in the 80-100 area with PSP VIntage warmer which is a analog warmer to boost up the lower part a bit (gives that numman feel). Check the 125-250 range of the MHK416 track (down, right side of the screen). It is way higher than the ME. Why? lots of bass there. YOu can fix that with adding a little more bass there. :). Oh yeah, there is a waves plugin out there to add extra low to the LOWER frequency range, called MAXXBASS ( do a review google on it). I also noticed that the MHK sounded a bit comrpessed to me in the upper part (smoothen out). YOu can use a multi-band compressor ( free vst plug ins are on the net) I am so audio-horny telling all these tricks. I love this.

You can also save the freq simulation curve of the MHK audio track and import it in the other ME66 audio track. EASY!!!! YOu have the same curve, but the only thing that lacks is the bass. Tweak a bit and voila.

I soloed both tracks and I couldn't see any differences besides a slight deeper bass. The harshness of the ME was gone and sounded like the upper freq range of the MHK. NO ' SSSS' anymore and my ears could handle the ME output. That simple.

SOLUTION:

YOu can substract or get rid of frequencies, but you cannot create new frequencies. THIS MEANS: BUY a cheap microphone with lots of bass. The higher freq part is always covered. DOn't buy a 25$ mickey mouse mic. I am talking about mic in the 250-600$ range.
SO look for a cheap mic which has lots of bass (no roll of) and you are the man! WEHy spend 10000000 dollars if you can fix it afterwards with simulation analog ' warm up' plugins. We live in a digital era. Evrything can be done to fool the client. Same with adding colour effects in adobe after effects. :)

The MKH 416 has the ability to isolate a voice in a sea of bedlam. No trick in the world can do this. Part of the sound of a mic is it's ability to reject unwanted sound.

As Bryan said, you can only manipulate what your microphone has captured. This is why, at the end of the day, you still need a good mic. Furthermore, fixing a bad recording quickly becomes tedious. Nevertheless, the ability to manipulate the character of recording is very useful. Now you can seamlessly mix recordings from both mics. I can do analogous things visually, but have yet to learn how to translate it into audio.

It's the old analogy "Crap in /Crap out"

Thanks for the replies.

' Garbage in=garbage out' does apply for profesionals. They can sometimes hear the small differences. But i fyou know what the strenghts are of the MKH mic, then you can use those strenghts and translate them to audio frequencies. YOu can easily FOOl a ' standard' movie addict. They will not notice the difference. If you got the money, sure..go and buy the mhk for conversations outdoor. BUt every mic nowadays (1000$ and lower) all use chips. And in this pc world we live in it is so easy to fix things and to achieve the same sound that was obtainted in the older days with valve tubes and stuff like that.

PC plug-ins have evolved to great machines, able to do the same exact thing. It takes a little bit more work, but you can save your presets and use 1000 plugins one 1 track.

I have the edited wav version at home (I used the maxbass to add the lower bass) and I must say....it sounds pretty similar to me. PLay it for some teenagers and they will not notice the difference, especially if you add background music and stuff like that.

Jose
At the end of the day, all that matters is your satisfaction. If you are happy with a moic then that's all that is important.

The 66 does have a BAss Roll-off Dip switch. Have you got this active? I can imagine that this would remove . . bass.

Graham

graham,

The test they did on this site was to compare both mics. I reall y don't know if they cut of the bass fromt the 66. Analyzing the tracks shows a heavy roll of above 120 hz or so. So I also read that the 66 had more down there, so I don't know if the test was valid. You never know it without having actually being there on the moment of recording both mics.

WHY DO I THINK That the test of the ME-66 and mhk is NOT CORRECT??

In their comparison I noticed a roll-off in the ME-66. I thought well that is because the ME-66 has no bass, but I checked out the specs and it says:


me-66: Pick-up pattern: Super-cardioid/lobar
Frequency response: 40 - 20,000 Hz +/- 2.5 dB

SO it has 40 hz on the low side and the mhk has 50, so basically the ME_66 has a little more bass, so I do NOT understand why in their tests the ME-66 was recorded with a bass-roll at 120 hz (40-120hz=80z). What happened with the rest of the 80 hz that should have been there? I analyzed the samples with frequency analyzers and yeap....so test them out yourself in the shop.

Sorry, Jose, I don't understand your, "I analyzed the samples with frequency analyzers and yeap....so test them out yourself in the shop." . . .

Best regards,

Grazie

Don't trust a test
 

Don't trust a comparitive test done in the computer world unless you know absolutely positively that NO COMPRESSING was done when the signal was being imported.

The best tests in my book are done with analog recording.

I think two of the most useful, reliable, and portable analog recording formats are BetaCam SP and S-VHS/VHS Stereo, or S-VHS/VHS linear stereo with dolby noise reduction.

Record your various mikes to those formats and compare the results.

A standard mixing board can do a lot to fill out the sound.

The only reason to use an ME-66 is if you don't want to deal with phantom power issues. This point always seems to get lost when this topic is brought up.

As for sound isolation, too much isolation is actually a bad thing if you are in a crowded environment. The very factors that may make the ME-66 not as good in a controlled environment may favor the ME-66 in an uncontrolled environment.

I like that I hear other sounds (at a lower level) besides the primary sound because it makes the overall sound, sound real. When I set up a mike and have to leave it and walk away, the last thing I want is for it to be super-isolated so that if the person moves I completely lose them.

The ME-66 still gives me a decent signal even when a perfomer moves. (although not if they move 15 feet away in a lateral direction)

The sound is definitely too tinny if one rolls off the bass, but that function is strictly to be used if one is in a windy, outdoors environment. I have had situations where the wind died down and I have been able to add bass back in after the fact even when it had been rolled off in the original recording.

Well put Alessandro

I did comparison clips recorded through a Sound devices 302 or Mix Pre and onto a Marantz PMD 670 flash recorder. my files were all PCM uncompressed. I did post mp3's along with the wav files so those will narrow bandwidth could still partake.

Even with these uncompressed examples you are still at the mercy of your Digital to Analog converters. Even full analog will be coloured by the equipment used. At least with a comparison, all files are being treated the same.

I once put a 635 in a condom and it sounded like I was wearing a raincoat in a shower.. .. really strange.

<<<-- Originally posted by John Hartney : I once put a 635 in a condom and it sounded like I was wearing a raincoat in a shower.. .. really strange. -->>>

Um, do you often wear your raincoat in the shower?

I understand that SOME people pay good money for this type of footage! - LOL . . Grazie ;)

Flashdance
 

<<<-- Originally posted by John Hartney : I once put a 635 in a condom and it sounded like I was wearing a raincoat in a shower.. .. really strange. -->>>

<<<-- Originally posted by Alessandro Machi :Um, do you often wear your raincoat in the shower? -->>>

<<<-- Originally posted by Graham Bernard : I understand that SOME people pay good money for this type of footage! - LOL . . Grazie ;) -->>>

------------------------------

"Officer, Officer, I thought I was still in my shower at home!"

. . and the same old excuses too! ! ! !

NOw I understand why they never use condoms in porn movies. The sound of the rubber thing is difficult to record onto your gm2!

Now that I'm back in the States, I can finally make some decent access to post! Geez, but it's hard to get good webservice sometimes.

Jose, are you familiar with the Antares Mic modeler? While it's a very different process, the principles are the same as what you are doing.
And while the mic modeler "fools" the ear of the inexperienced, it's not the same, and will never sound exactly the same. It does a good job at some things, but it also damages the integrity of the original sound. (That's a bad thing)

Hello DSE. Did you read my post on these matters? Have I got it correct?

Grazie

I wrote a interesting post about pc/mac plug-ins you can use for movie audio:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=34625


Hi eagle,

I got antares installed on my pc but I installed it a long time ago and I don't like it very much. New technologies makes it posible to achieve profesional results without distroying the original mic sample. All the big synthmakers like ROland, YAmaha are designing synth software for the future. The same goes for effects units. It is very hard to distinguish between good quality plug-ins like Waves LM2 and a 1500 dollar compression hardware module. The Lm2 plug is used in every studio nowadays. Got it and love it!!!

The best thing to fool people with your mic samples is too add 5 or less plug-ins. Basically you need 5 things to do to improve your sound:

0) high pass filter: get rid of evrything below 60 hz: <<< rumble
1) eq; better to cut those annoying EQ ranges than boost them
2) multi-band compression (level the volumes out if manual volume riding7 with atuomation doesn't help)
3) analog tube emulator (PSP plugins or Antares TUbe) will do fine). I love PSP. It add so much warmth to vocals. It is amazing. YOu also have izotope which is a all-in-1-programm or T-racks 2.
4) a toouch of reverb (cut off the low freqs within your reverb plugins; you don't want to add rumble or muddness to your sound)

>>>>>The best thing to fool people with your mic samples is too add 5 or less plug-ins. Basically you need 5 things to do to improve your sound:<<<<

Lordy, if it were only that easy.
Jose, FWIW, I WROTE the WAVES guides. And edited their internal books for Bob Reardon before he left WAVES. I'm quite familiar with their product line.

Finally, FWIW, my last name is "Spotted Eagle" not Eagle. Kinda like me calling you "Cani."
Grazie, I didn't read your post. Still wading through all the mail and posts while i was gone, and I leave for NYC first thing a.m. I'll catch up ASAP.

Thanks Spot! - G

Sorry Sir Douglas Spotted Eagle.

You can call me 'Cani' or ' mister Cani' if you want.

"Sir Douglas Spotted Eagle" the name has a ring to it. I think it's a keeper!

I think not.... :-)
I've never been a "sir" and never been a "Mr." That would be my dad.

Jeez. I thought this was easy but it is not!

Let me take back everything I said about the Waves expert.

From now on I will call you:

" Douglas Spotted Eagle "



I hope I said it right this time. Let me know if I need to change it. Thanks. Have a nice day and a nice night.

Or as is established: Spot

the audio tricks don't do much except degrade what you start with... it goes back to integrity: garbage in garbage out.

But, you may have fun spoofing

I looking up the word ' spoofing'.

Just to give you an example how the rel world hears audio. If you analyze ricky martin's song ' vida loca' , you see that a horrible amount of digital distortion is added. You can anaylze it the way I did with the senheiser mic samples. The tops are flatted outin a 90 degrees style. That is destoying sound. But why do normal non-profesional people think that the sound of ricky is good? Well...it is hard, isn'it it? But does that mean it is well recorded? Nope.
The same trick applies with the mic samples. YOu can make it sound like a profesional mic in front of the audience but not in front of someone who analyzes audio. At the end, the script is what makes the difference. If it is good, you won't hear the audio faults.

I am on the right ' SPOT' now I guess. :)

The distortion is intentional on LaVida Loca. In fact, the engineer did a commentary on that.
Distortion is sometimes pleasing to the ear if managed correctly. Squarewaves are bad, but if a smooth wave format is cropped off, it gives a certain edge and integrity, plus aggressiveness to the sound. Heck, almost ALL rap has distortion added to voice and/or drums, bass..

This is an EEEnteresting discussion. And thanks to Jose for bringing up Ken Tanaka's mic comparison.

Meandering from the original topic, but providing further reading for those interested in how other professionals talk about sound, I list below some articles I found while Googling:

Aesthetics are weird: this guy hates Pro-Tools (and prefers to record his audio on two-inch analog tape).

And I found one article about recording "Livin' La Vida Loca" that described recording and mixing everything in the digital domain.

But I don't think I've found the article that Douglas Spotted Eagle was talking about. Anyone?

Michael

We are not talking about Douglas Spotted Eagle's article!!!!! I was discussing the article from Tanaka (comparance between bth shotguns from Sennheiser) that you can read here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/audio/tanaka2.php

The only discussion I had with DSE was about his name and about using VST-plugins in video post-production. I still think that you can come very far with VST-plugins. MOst of us don't have a clue about how to use vst-plugins and want them to be the solution to their audio problems. I been making music for 9 years now , using audio and midi and I saw things change. It is soo easy (too easy I guess) to achieve good results, but sometimes people tend to use the presets instead of experimenting and hearing the sublte differences. DSE also talked about the next VST mic modelor plugin, which I used as well but I don't like it anymore.

http://www.antarestech.com/products/amm.html

Protools I don't use and I don't give a damn if people think I am not a good musician if I don't use PRo tools. You use the tools you are most comfortable with. I don't need PRo tools , but I must say that PRO tools has some NICE PROFESIONAL PLUG-ins that you can't find anywhere else. The studios demand these plugs. that is why! And for video production, you probably need protools cause all the big players use pro tools and that is the prefered way of producinf music. COmpare it with using technics as a standard. The same old story. I prefer to use my own stuff.

End.

Gracious.

I actually wanted to find the source which Douglas Spotted Eagle referred to when he said:

The distortion is intentional on LaVida Loca. In fact, the engineer did a commentary on that.

I'd love to read the article or interview (or watch it on video, if that's the case).

Michael

Hi

Let's be honoust. The vocals of Ricky martin sound as if they were coming out of a sennheiser 66. I too think the distortion was done intentionally. Everybody has to add some kind of distortion cause everybody 9is doing that nowadays. If the beatles were alive today, they too would use distortion cause they are mainstream. Evrything you hear on the radio is distorted anyways, so why not distort it more. I don't like it to be honoust. I don't listen to comercial BS (ricky martin, britney spears, Eminem and the rest of the commercial garbage).

The same is happening with movie/film sound. FOr my taste, the effects of movies are way TOO hard. Sounds that are too hard and thus unlogical are: sound of beating someone up, guns, doors, etc. Grab a 80 film and you will apreciate real logical sound. That is why a sennheiser 66 or other cheap mic will just do fine for movies. It doesn't record garbage. It records sound how it is. Equalize it afterwards to get rid of harsh frequencies and move from there one.

At the other hand, grab a 70 or 80 single and you can apreciate the sound coming out of yoru speakers. You can hear with what mic they recorded their vocals.

Here some other good links to help you out with getting better sounds with your current low-end microphones. Why spend 1000 dollars on mics, if you can get the same quality with some understanding about recording tricks and pc-editing with plug-ins.


another great general link to how record good vocals:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/how_to_record_vocals.htm


interfacing professional microphones
to computer sound cards:
http://www.shure.com/support/technot...soundcard.html


choosing the right microphone:
http://www.kernmount.com/docs/HarveyThread.pdf


Using Plugins for Professional Sounding Audio
http://www.tweakheadz.com/plugins_for_audio.html


equalize your vocals the right way :
http://www.recordingwebsite.com/articles/eqfreq.php


Guide™ to Putting Together an Inexpensive PC Recording System
http://www.recordingwebsite.com/articles/eqfreq.php


in this article they are talking about red hot chilly peppers' song californication and the way music is distorted/smashed to sound harder on radios. This is going the wrong way. This is not music. This is worse than listening to HItler talk 24 hours a day. The sound is getting worse and worse. That is why I don't listen to radio anymore. NO dynamics
http://www.airwindows.com/analysis/Dynamics.html

I hope that all of you besmirching the ME-66 are not basing it on what you hear coming from a mini-dv camcorder or the mini-dv format.

If you are not using a high quality analog record device such as BetaCam SP or S-VHS HI-FI and/or Stereo Linear (with Dolby NR), your acquisition format maybe coloring your results.

If you are using uncompressed audio files recorded on a computer, then does that mean your tests are not location sound recording tests?

The point of the ME-66 is it is a cost-effective internally powered ENG microphone. That does not mean it is the best microphone, nor the cheapest, but it is quite effective in most situations both on location and in studio.

alessandro,

YOu hit the spot. Absolutely right ! If you record your sounds on labtob through a quality soundcard (soudncards are cheap nowadays), then you can edit the sound in real-time and save your sound on harddisk, delete it and record over again. Record ambience sounds, record effects, doors ete etc , save it on harddrive and you can achieve pro results.

OK, Now I'm confused.
Record the sound to a hard drive, edit in realtime, delete the file?
Sound cards for laptops are cheap? I'm missing something.
The lowest cost GOOD sound card for a laptop is the Echo Indigo I/O which is a 24/96 2 channel card with 8 virtual outs and AC3 decode. 3.5mm input. USD $179.00

From there, the cost jumts dramatically. Cheapest good firewire box I'm aware of is 379.00.

You can record, edit, playback in realtime on ANY laptop soundcard, internal or not. You can record to external or internal hard drive, edit, or not.

Alessandro's point is that you can't use the DAC quality of a camera to compare the quality of the ME-66, which you call a "semi-professional" microphone, and the quality of the sound you hear is not accurate if you're using a low grade DAC, which most DV camcorders have. He's not correct in assuming that all DV cams have poor audio converters, they don't. It's an uncompressed format, so only the DAC, not the format matters. To assume that an analog recording device is better is also incorrect. In fact, at that point it's worse, because you'll then have an analog to dig transfer at some point, and the potential for adding noise is there. You have no noise transfer potential with dig to dig transfers. Plus, in the analog to dig transfer, you're STILL relying exclusively on the quality of the DAC.
Either way, the ME66 is a good mic, but my question is, why would you (Jose) suggest that editing on a laptop is any more different than anything else anywhere else? Or that recording on a laptop is more "pro" than recording say...to a Nagra, to a field recorder, or other device?

I am under the impression that virtually all digital formats (especially the prosumer ones) use compression.

We hear about ever increasing digital audio recording sampling rates. If Digital Audio can keep increasing it's sampling capability, then that must mean the previous digital version was compressed to some extent.

Analog Origination, Digital Destination.

I'm a bit perplexed about the sound card comments also. I firmly believe in recording onto reliable tape based formats, then transfering to ones preferred method for editing.

I don't believe in recording first generation onto any device that can instantly "lose" your recording, aka vaporware.

No, DV is not a compressed audio format. It's raw audio.
As far as recording to HD, I do this quite regularly. Backup is nice, but tape has dropouts too. I converted all three of our rooms to HD only, we use DA88's for archive and backward compatibility. Have yet to have suffered the problems of dropouts that we've had with digital tape and analog tape formats for years. And I go back to the days of our 2" Stevens machines.
Sampling rates and compression aren't related in the way you are describing them. Sampling is merely how many "pictures" of the sound that the application/hardware takes, and how many times it does it in a given amount of time. More samples means better pictures, that's all. But that doesn't involve compression.