VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[chrisvoco]

I've spent quite a bit of time coddling my new Neumann, screwing around with gain settings, fretting over it revealing every nook and cranny of minute reflection in my room here, and generally beginning to think the Germans hate me, like they put an anti-Greek guy circuit in their microphone.

Then I discovered what, to me, seems counter-intuitive: leave the gain on the Focusrite about 3/4 up, and move actually *closer* to the mic, and voila - sounds nicer and open-er, but my room is gone. Hooray!

But I don't quite understand - thought it would sound tighter and smaller, being physically closer. Not so close it's being lunch, but closer than I figured I should be. This is the BCM-104, btw, with the pretty tight pattern to begin with.

So, "I knew what I was doing with my other mics" translates into "I've been totally wrong with this nicer one."
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Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

[vkuehn]

Yes, we do get a nice surprise now and then. This "moving in closer" should reduce your room noise"... which may be what you were talking about when you said "my room is gone".

"room" seems to divide into two issues: noise and.... and what? Character? Personality? Mood?

[chrisvoco]

Nope - room, in this case, is the physical room, the Bane of My Existence.

I guess I expected to, yes, become "fuller," but at the same time take on undesirable amount of proximity hoo-hah. Turned out not to be the case, which is a good thing.

At any rate, that's one more thing to not have to stab at randomly. Even though I still don't claim to really know what I'm doing, I *have* learned that repeatable workflow that produces reliably repeatable results while saving time is worth its weight in gold.

...or worth its "wait" in gold.

One thing I don't really like about this mic is that its bottom grille is - well, at the bottom, pointed down, and picks up my pants if I'm not careful. Flipping it upside down is fine, and points it at a ceiling cloud. According to Neumann, that's okay and doesn't affect the internal elastic suspension or alter any characteristics, but I'm terribly superstitious and would rather not test the universe that way.
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Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

[georgethetech]

Through trial-n-error on hundreds of client's studios, I've found that the smaller the booth, the closer the proximity must be to get satisfactory rejection of the booth resonance. That means the sweet spot is much smaller in a small room than in a large room. Comes with the territory... Shotguns tend to be a bit more forgiving of this issue, but not much so, and they have a tiny sweet spot as it is.
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If it sounds good, it is good.
George Whittam
GeorgeThe.Tech
424-226-8528
VOBS.TV Co-host
TheProAudioSuite.com Co-host
TriBooth.com Co-founder

[chrisvoco]

Ah - there's also a story that goes with my Once-Was Booth.

...I disassembled it, and its frame was, in line with my thing for making frankenfurniture, recycled and pressed into new and different service.

The reasons for that involve comb nasties, created by ill-informed choices on my part a few years ago when I built the thing. I adjusted and adjusted to make it fine for my mic at the time, and then it sounded not so great when I got this new one - so I took my little booth apart and used its bits in other ways.

Also, the stupid thing was a sauna.

I found that careful redistrbuion of the ample amount of Auralex involved, plus some traps on walls and ceiling, gets everything under control. So, I made the room usable, but shot myself in the foot with my desk - which is a big-ass solid core door that has too much other unrelated stuff drilled, wired, sensored and automated on, to and around it to replace... thus, I cover the desk with towels and need to eventually find some appropriate permanent covering that can take the occasional coffee stain or electronics cleaner spill without melting, exploding or becoming otherwise toxic...

But anyway, I'm making progress, albeit in the most obtuse fashion possible. My dad always told me doing things the hard way builds character and puts hair on your chest.

He is, to put it bluntly, full of shit.

Anyway, the computers, robotic thingies, alerting systems and other noisy parts with fans or squeals are in the other room, and I redid the ventilation a few years ago, so there's nothing in here making noise - other than me, and my voice reflecting off the desk and the four big displays on it.

Just gets worse and worse, doesn't it. The good news is, I can write and sketch on my desk with impunity.
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Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.