Home » R/E/P » Klaus Heyne's Mic Lab » Omni pattern hatred
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| Re: Omni pattern hatred [message #342389 is a reply to message #342284 ] |
Sat, 17 May 2008 13:48   |
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 J.J. Blair
Messages: 10046
Registered: May 2004
Location: by the sea & sand |
Diamond Member |
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| teleric wrote on Sat, 17 May 2008 04:04 |
| J.J. Blair wrote on Thu, 15 May 2008 09:25 |
BTW, the vocal I was doing today, the singer had been sounding great on my 47, but was just a little too boomy in this one track. I switched the capsule pattern to omni, and voila, it sat perfectly in the mix. I just had to make up for the lost gain with the mic pre.
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Great!!! i believe that our ability to be versatile and adaptive to each situation makes us better recordists. That is what i'm working for.
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Eric, absolutely. While I believe in the use of EQ, I pride myself on my ability to achieve the desired sound through mic choice, placement and pattern selection first and foremost. This was a concept Michael Frondelli turned me on to when I started many years ago, when I was complaining about needing a de-esser when using my Manley Gold, because of the sibilance, and he suggested just tilting the mic off axis, instead. Knowing which mic to use, and then being able to use off axis rejection, proximity effect, and the frequency response of different mic patterns are the tools that separate the men from the boys, in my eyes.
We are getting a little off topic here, but I have to post this thing that was sent to me. Pretty much 100% of the time, using those methods and a good pre and compressor, I get a killer vocal sound. No EQ or extra processing necessary. I received the following from somebody describing his technique to me, and all I could think of is that I could get so much more, doing so much less.
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We have an Audio Technica 4060 which is a pretty slamming
tube mic. I ran it through my Avalon 737sp. I bump the EQ about 4 db around 10k, and about 2 db around 3500k, I cut a couple of
db in the low mids/say 250 and on the bottom freq I roll off around 100. (Some of my EQ tweak makes up for my less than perfect tracking
room).
I was not too heavy handed on the compression going in since we were doing more
BG stuff and it was not that dynamic. But, back end compression is always a major part of the sound regardless. I tend to lean
on the Waves compressor. Then I use the Universal Audio Pultec EQ and tweak the female voc preset. I follow that up with
a multiband EQ, typically the Logic EQ since I use Logic. I put a bit of focus in the 3500 range (if needed) to the taste of the track.
I follow all that up with the Waves compressor specifically designed for Vocals...I think it is called RVoc? I normally squash the
crap out of there! Then delay and verb by the determination of the track.
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etc.
The unfortunate thing is that some people think THIS is good engineering.
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| Re: Omni pattern hatred [message #342401 is a reply to message #342389 ] |
Sat, 17 May 2008 14:31 |
dbock
Messages: 144
Registered: April 2004
Location: Los Angeles |
Active Member |
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Eric, absolutely. While I believe in the use of EQ, I pride myself on my ability to achieve the desired sound through mic choice, placement and pattern selection first and foremost. This was a concept Michael Frondelli turned me on to when I started many years ago, when I was complaining about needing a de-esser when using my Manley Gold, because of the sibilance, and he suggested just tilting the mic off axis, instead. Knowing which mic to use, and then being able to use off axis rejection, proximity effect, and the frequency response of different mic patterns are the tools that separate the men from the boys, in my eyes.
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When I was was coming up years ago I was trained to never EQ vocals going to tape. Compress, ok, eq later in the mix, ok.
DB
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| Re: Omni pattern hatred [message #342482 is a reply to message #341059 ] |
Sat, 17 May 2008 19:58 |
Edvaard
Messages: 100
Registered: April 2008
Location: Atlanta |
Active Member |
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No Message Body
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| Re: Omni pattern hatred [message #343667 is a reply to message #341059 ] |
Fri, 23 May 2008 01:39 |
Mark Lemaire
Messages: 173
Registered: April 2004
Location: Northern California |
Active Member |
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I LOVE omni- so open and sparkly! I love multipattern mics because you can quickly tweak the sounds during a session without having to slow anything down by switching out a mic.
JJ- I appreciate you switching from card to omni on your 47 in that vocalist situation. I also like to do this- though often the switch from one patternm to another is too MUCH change. That's why I enjoy having my M269s, as the pattern is continuously variable between the 3 basic patterns. So it's possible to adjust it just a bit more towards omni without lurching the tone too far.
It can be very hard to use omni, though, in a tracking session with bunches of players in one room.
In classical music, I LOVE spaced omni on the mains-- I seldom/ never go all the way to cardiod on the mains. But it is often cool to nudge that omni pattern a bit towards card. As this is done from the PSU and not the mic, there's no need to lower that main pair to get at the pattern selector.
Fig of 8 is excellent in tracking sessions for it's intense (More intense than cardiod) off-axis rejection. I like my KM86s for this because the capsules are so widely spaced from each other that the side rejection in Fig 8 is even MORE intense than with a U67 and the like.
To reach for EQ during tracking is usually either a sign of bad mics, bad engineering, or some sort of difficult tracking situation that no one could avoid having to deal with, and the best bad solution is big EQ cuts...
Mark Lemaire
Mark Lemaire
http://www.rubatorecording.com/
Audiophile recording of your music. Anywhere. Anytime.
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