The "Big Bluegrass Microphone" - Pictures of proto

[dayvel]

By the way Scott, I don't think I showed you my TSB165 xy doohickey. I used the 2n4416s too, but I put them up by the capsules, with the gates floating off of the perf board.

I was pleasantly surprised when the Fum ribbon turned out to be the same color.

 

[Scodiddly]

[quote author="dayvel"]By the way Scott, I don't think I showed you my TSB165 xy doohickey. I used the 2n4416s too, but I put them up by the capsules, with the gates floating off of the perf board.
[/quote]

I think I have seen that photo - I remember asking how you'd mounted the capsules in there.

I've made a practice of mounting the FET and 1Gohm resistor right on the back of the capsule, just to minimize the high-impedance path. Then it's easy to just run lavalier mic cable off to wherever I've located the circuit board.

Regarding the width control business, I just spent a few minutes with the MS plugins in Ardour (Linux multitrack recorder) and not getting where I wanted to go. My goal is to be able to control the width of the actual pickup pattern with a little control box that just processes the mic outputs.

On the happy side, I found that Earl fits the oversized shockmounts I built for Alice mics and also that today's changes have resulted in a lot of improvement in the sound. I've got a working mic already!

 

[zebra50]

Scot - looks really good.

How are you joining the copper parts is it just soldered or silver solder/brazed?

Nice work!

Stewart

 

[Rossi]

Have you seen the Studio Projects LSD2?
http://www.studioprojectsusa.com/lsd2.html

It's probably hard to DIY something like that, but with a turning capsule head you would have real width control. Both capsules are dual diaphragm; you can do both XY and MS. Pretty cool. Never tried it myself, though.

 

[Scodiddly]

[quote author="zebra50"]
How are you joining the copper parts is it just soldered or silver solder/brazed?
[/quote]

All those little bits are brass, actually. Soldered, with regular Kester electronics solder.

 

[Scodiddly]

Another prototype, this one named "Lester". Shown in one of the shockmounts I built a few months ago for the Alice mics - it fits, but upright is the only position the elastic can manage.

This one isn't stereo (though you could call it binaural, perhaps), instead it has one capsule pointing forward and one pointing backward. Just like a dual-diaphragm LDC, mixing the two capsules yields different directional pickup patterns. There's no internal mixing, though - you get two outputs, run them back to your mixer, and mix as needed. Both mixed together evenly gives omni, just one gives cardioid, and both mixed evenly but with opposite polarity gives figure-8.

It's something I've wanted for live use, being able to control the pickup pattern from FOH. Or in the studio you could just record both tracks and decide the pickup pattern at mixdown.

 

[Gus]

Do you have a store named "The Rag Shop" in your area? If you do they carry different thicknesss elastic like used on shockmounts.

 

[northsiderap]

I was searching for elastic, and I found some laying around the house - - -

Hair ties come in a large variety of shapes, colors, etc

Beautiful mics everyone :grin:

 

[Scodiddly]

Maybe I'll have to get that subscription to "Hair Scrunchy Monthly" after all - I need to find a good elastic thickness somewhere between the heavy camping stuff and the wimpy bead-store stuff.

 

[nacho459]

Hey Scott, I don't make it over to this side of the forum very often, but I just want to commend you on another cool mic. Let me know when you get started on production of the Lester, I want one. I think I'm gonna have you make all my mics from now on. :wink: Thanks again, my Alice and stereo mic are awesome!

 

[mike_d]

[quote author="Scodiddly"]Maybe I'll have to get that subscription to "Hair Scrunchy Monthly" after all - I need to find a good elastic thickness somewhere between the heavy camping stuff and the wimpy bead-store stuff.[/quote]

Methinks you'd need to hit a quality "outdoors" store:

http://rei.com/online/store/Search?...Id=-1&storeId=8000&textQuery=shock+cord&x=&y=

-mike

 

[Scodiddly]

[quote author="nacho459"]Hey Scott, I don't make it over to this side of the forum very often, but I just want to commend you on another cool mic. Let me know when you get started on production of the Lester, I want one. [/quote]

You know, I really ought to offer the stereo mic in a "Lester configuration"... it's such a basically useful thing but yet I haven't seen such a beast aside from the far more serious Soundfield mics. Recording inputs and tracks are cheap enough that being able to set pattern (such as on something like a drum overhead) during mixdown would be really useful. You could do a recording in a fairly live room and really dial it in. Hmm....

 

[Scodiddly]

Finally a real test last night!

I took both Earl and Lester down to the folk club where I do sound a few times a month, and had a bit of time to do some soundcheck testing with a fairly traditional bluegrass act. These guys close-mic everything (and last night's show was their usual setup), but they were willing to help test. I also got to test with the opening act.

It works! I was able to get fairly good SPL - not "loud", but it definitely filled the room. I was even able to put a bit in the monitors, which I hadn't really expected. The sound quality was good, quite a bit more tricky to EQ for a natural sound. But with only 2-4 dB here and there it came into focus nicely.

The "Lester" configuration, front and back capsule orientations and mixing to control pattern, didn't seem to do much. Rather, mixing in the back capsule didn't do much either way. The "Earl" configuration, splayed capsules in the usual stereo XY setup, was more useful. I could balance a bit between left and right sides of the mic (mono PA), and when I hit the channel polarity invert button on one side the center dropped out dramatically. So the whole mid/side control thing looks like the next step.