can anyone host my scan, The new scott dorsey AKG c-3000 mod

[josh]

PROBLEMS!


>From: <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected], [email protected]
>Subject: C-3000 article
>Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:54:58 -0400

>You appear to be hosting a copy of my C-3000 article from Recording
>magazine. This is copyrighted material and I don't want it running
>around on the internet. I would appreciate if you would take this
>down.
>
>http://www.saemskin.com/schematics/AKGC3k/AKG_C3000_Pg.1.tif
>(likewise through Pg.4.tif).
>
>Thank you.
>--scott


Looks like I'll be taking this down when I get home guys.
Sorry, but the only way he would have found this is if someone went blabbing on about it. It's always a good idea to keep it to yourself. :thumb:

 

[Gus]

this kind of mod makes me wonder if changing a few parts on a the 3000B. circuit board might be a better thing to do cost wise.

I don't have a schematic of the 3000B or have been inside one. But I would GUESS it is a -1 gain circuit.

The SD 3000B mod has a ceramic at the gate to capsule IMO sometimes the most critical cap in a microphone because of the voltage difference across it. Read about dielectric stress and DA

The lundahl transformers I have used are very clean a very good thing sometimes. With a microphone like this l might use something that added some distortion.

And why a charge circuit with an electret?

Maybe try removing the charge circuit and connecting the capsule to a cap then to the gate other side at ground is something I would try

 

[Gus]

tommypiper

List of articles


http://www.musicmakerpub.com/Products/RecordingMagazine/RM-06-07/June2007.html

 

[pstamler]

Well, Scott has a point. He makes a small chunk of his income, and I make a large chunk of my (smaller) income, selling articles to magazines who sell the magazines to the public. They're happy to sell back issues. And Recording, at least, is not a piece of some huge conglomerate oozing with money, but a very small shop that's on a pretty slim margin with postage rates shooting sky-high for their class of mail. If the magazines aren't there for us to sell articles to, well...

Stuff that's unavailable I have no problems with seeing on the net. Likewise all the out-of-print, out-of-copyright stuff that's out there. But when folks pay me (or Scott) to write things that they can then sell, it hurts us all to be posting it. Even quietly.

Peace,
Paul

 

[pucho812]

MY bad guys for bringing this to the table. I was hoping to get an Intellegent discussion on the benifits and drawbacks to such a mod as opposed to get anyone introuble.
:sad:

 

[gyraf]

..would it be possible to have the mentioned documents emailed to our email address:

[email protected]

..that would be appreciated..

Jakob E.

 

[jensenmann]

Paul, I respect your point of view and will delete the files from my twin-x accout

 

[Rossi]

Paul is absolutely right. As some of you may know I write for several German magazines. None of these magazines is particularly rich; this is a small market. Publishing DIY stuff in one of those magazines is doing a particular favor to their readers; the publishers have to pay the writers but get little in return. Ads are a necessary source of income for any magazine these days, and a DIY article does no not generate any interest in manufactueres or distributors to put ads in the magazine. On the contrary, some manufacturers may not like to become the object of a modding article. So, it would be good for anyone wanting to support the DIY scene to buy magazines that make an such an effort. It is a sign of genuine reader dedication. Also, you have to keep in mind that the autor of a DIY-article has to convince the editors to some degree. It's not like any editor acutally asks for another DIY-article. I had a modding article in Sound & Recording last year, and it took almost a whole year to place the next modding project (a ribbon two part mod article in this month's and last month's Sound & Recording, Germany). DIY-articles usually take months to research. What you see in those pages usually is only a fraction of what the author actually tried, rejected and tried again.

Articles such as SD's, mine or others' may not be particularly exciting or novel for seasoned DIYers, but I think they play an important part in keeping the DIY scene vital by recruiting young (or maybe not so young) readers. Think of how you started.

Yes, I admit, I downloaded the scans. But not for beeing a scrooge. I own quite a number of American and British magazine, which usually cost at least twice the original price and are available only at certain big city newsstands. I'd be more than happy to support SD's (and Paul's) work by buyng the back issue. Unfortunately, the mag dosen't seem to have distribution in Germany, and the website doesn't allow me to fill in a German address.

Paul, is there something like a PDF service to purchase individual articles online?

 

[okgb]

Scott could publish a book of the articles , which i would buy
to have them in one place .
Either he is unable or unwilling to do this himself and wants the
pressure on the publisher , which ....really , an ad vehicle of
50% or more , few mags seem worth the money
How many reviewers feel the pressure to , at the very least be
diplomatic & politcaly correct when writing the articles .

I'd think he could take pre-orders and make a minimum run ,
but recording mag doesn't seem to have any email contact , so
you know how much they care .
regards Greg

 

[pucho812]

[quote author="gyraf"]..would it be possible to have the mentioned documents emailed to our email address:

[email protected]

..that would be appreciated..

Jakob E.[/quote]

done and done... although it didn't come from me :wink:

 

[Gus]

http://www.musicmakerpub.com/Contact-Us.html

 

[tommypiper]

[quote author="okgb"]Scott could publish a book of the articles , which i would buy
to have them in one place .
Either he is unable or unwilling to do this himself and wants the
pressure on the publisher , which ....really , an ad vehicle of
50% or more , few mags seem worth the money
How many reviewers feel the pressure to , at the very least be
diplomatic & politcaly correct when writing the articles .

I'd think he could take pre-orders and make a minimum run ,
but recording mag doesn't seem to have any email contact , so
you know how much they care .
regards Greg[/quote]

Greg, I agree. And I've talked to Scott about this informally a few years ago at an AES convention. I believe he said he was trying to get Recording to publish a book of all his DIY articles, or something along those lines. This was like three some years ago... so it's obviously not happened yet.

I also went to the Recording magazine exhibitor table at AES and said I really appreciated the Scott Dorsey DIY articles they published. I asked the publishers to support more Scott Dorsey and Paul Stamler articles, particularly mods and DIY articles. I mentioned that the information in their articles was far more valuable and interesting, and furthermore, looking under the hood of gear and discussing how things worked was an invaluable aspect to the engineering and recording arts.

The Recording magazine publishers were indifferent and rude towards me, to my face. And basically refused to acknowledge me, even though I was a subscriber to the magazine. There were two guys there, and they basically didn't want to hear any customer feedback.

I thought, OK, they're in a bad mood or have expo burnout. So I went back later in the day and talked to another guy in a suit at the table. Same response. I even sent them emails in support of Scott and Paul's articles, but no reply. It felt like a slap in the face. When I was showing support for the mag.

After that experience -- plus waiting months and months for another article from Scott or Paul with nothing -- it appeared they were aiming the mag more and more towards 20-somethings with no experience who wanted to buy cheap gear and record in their dorm rooms.

It appeared they were taking the magazine further away from real informative articles and that's why they were discourteous, because I was not their target demographic. I had the feeling they were not going to support Paul or Scott in future. I let my subscription expire.

 

[pstamler]

[quote author="okgb"]Scott could publish a book of the articles , which i would buy to have them in one place

[snip]

I'd think he could take pre-orders and make a minimum run ,
but recording mag doesn't seem to have any email contact , so
you know how much they care .
regards Greg[/quote]

Recording is run by nice guys, and they do care, but their internet face has always been a source of major frustration for me. The website used to have a searchable index of articles, but now it's only issue-by-issue. I tried to find everything I'd written for them recently (putting together an updated curriculum vitae) and had to laboriously go through all the issues that weren't actually in my house. Pain in the butt.

To be fair, it's a very, very small shop; half a dozen people, at most, put the magazine out: the editor, two assistant editors, the graphic design person, and a couple of others. The economics of magazines is a weird thing; basically, how thick a magazine can be (and how many staff people you can pay) depends on how much advertising there is, and advertising in all the audio mags has been dropping in the last few years as more and more companies direct their ad bucks online rather than into print. Combine that with (drastically) increased postal rates, and all of the audio magazines are running on the ragged edge of survival, so I can sort of understand why they don't budget for things like web designers, .pdf article sales, and the like. In the long run, though, I think that's hurting the future of the mag.

As for an anthology of DIY articles, Scott and I have both pitched the idea, but the resistance we've run into is that the magazine believes that the audience for DIY is so small that it's not economically feasible. Two things have helped turn that around: Scott's Oktava MC012 mod article, which has been so popular that the back issue is sold out (the magazine will sell a photocopy of the article for a nominal amount), and the "Taming of the Shure" article I wrote, about the Gizmo for loading an SM57. Note that both of these involved mods to extremely popular existing products, rather than construction-from-scratch or mods to obscure pieces.

Todd, as for your rude brush-off at an AES convention a few years ago, I make no excuses for bad behavior except to note that people staffing a booth at AES usually are doing so on about 3 hours sleep, if they're lucky. Still, I wish they'd been nicer to you.

Anyway, that's a small look at the wonderful world of magazine publishing. It's a squirrelly business, although not as squirrelly as the music biz.

Finally, if you want to make contact with someone at Recording, I recommend Mike Metlay. You can reach him HERE.

Peace,
Paul

[Edit: Corrected bad link. - PJS]

 

[okgb]

thanks for the link , but i think you said it when you quoted them as believing the d.i.y.
market too small , so even if they did care , it is
in porportion to the profit , so they're not going to lose money on it .
I might subsribe if there was a d.i.y article every issue , .........
well that and honest reviews , but they don't expect people to be loyal
recycling articles every year to make them fresh for new people , you
know a yearly mastering , build a home studio , latest d.a.ws , mixing tips
To be fair they wouldn't be in business if they didn't make a profit ,
but to what end [ or better yet , what demographic ]
so as entertainment maybe ,but who really needs to read it ,
save for original things like d.i.y. articles

regards Greg

 

[tommypiper]

Paul, thanks for the explanations. I understand. I think that was the attitude I got, that DIY and gear modding, etc, was a fringe topic. I've felt your reviews were the most refreshing and honest reviews of commercial gear I've ever seen in a magazine. You usually explained what was under the hood and how it contributed, or didn't, to the sound, etc.

By contrast, most magazine reviews are unreadable nowadays, basically echoing the manufacturer's brochures, and written by someone with no knowledge of circuitry or build quality and with no critical listening ability. Therefore, useless. Just an extension of advertising.

I agree with Greg. I'd subscribe if there was a mod or DIY article every month.

There was one article that made me laugh uncontrolled for a half hour on a transcontinental flight. The one about pitch correction, reviewing a device that applied an electric shock to the performer when the pitch was out Hysterical. I emailed the editors about that too, got no reply.

These editors sound like they are living in the dark ages. Your web presence has to be good, you have to offer something online, you have to reply to emails, if only automatically, nowadays.

 

[Rossi]

To come back to the circuit in question:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there almost the full 48 volts at the drain? The resistors between XLR 2 and 3 are just 1k and go directly to the drain. Drain to source must be around 46V. A bit much, no :?

 

[Rossi]

I asked AKG about applying an external voltage to an electret capsule. They were very friendly (Austrians) and gave me a surprisingly detailed answer from their mic developers. The gist of it is that an external voltage (of the same polarity)...
- adds to the electret voltage and thus
- increases the sensitivity;
- the diaphragm tension increases, thus
- the resonance frequency will be higher
- sound change also occurs due to some other effects relating to friction, increased stiffness and deformation of the diaphragm.
- some loss in low frequency response if the surrounding environment (I suppose that means the inner resistance of the voltage source + resistors) becomes lower than 10 Gohms

The AKG guys found Dorsey's approach quite interesting and innovative and said they were pleased with this kind of customer input.

I still wonder about the very high FET voltage, though.

I also wonder how much sound change could be had by just applying the phantom voltage to the capsule. That would be a very cheap and easy mod except for sourcing a gigohm resistor.

 

[tommypiper]

Rossi, thanks. Interesting!