Help choosing mic for unusual studio setup

Yo Keith!
Impedance balance does get looked down upon but usually by people that have a poor grasp of the way a balanced system works.

The "differential amplifier" is in a bridge circuit formed by the two input resistive arms of the amplifier and the two equal resistive arms of the source.
If the whole lot is perfectly on spec, i.e. 2 x dead on 120 Ohms and 2 x dead on 10k (never are) then there can be no common mode, interfering signal detected. Look up "Wheatstone Bridge".

The very best common mode rejection is obtained when the low side is VERY low and the high side VERYbest common mode rejection is obtained when the low side is VERY low and the high side VERY high.

Dave.
 
Last edited:
Did you ever find a good microphone? If not , for the closet situation with the noise. You might look at the Behringer BCD1 broadcast/voiceover mic.
 
Yeah, I think I have everything I need now. Thanks so much, everyone! I'll see if I can figure out how to mark the thread solved. :P
 
aira said:
Yeah, I think I have everything I need now. Thanks so much, everyone! I'll see if I can figure out how to mark the thread solved. :P
Click to expand...

Don't count you chucks friend you have not got the kit yet leave alone got it working!

Heh!

Dave.
 
We don't usually close topics because very often they carry own evolving- maybe somebody else doing similar. Or even you coming back to give is the results when it's done would be good!
 
I think it's appropriate to tag it as solved - my question has been answered and I've made a decision. It doesn't lock the topic, people can keep talking, but this way if someone just reads the first post they know that particular problem has been solved. Once the items arrive and I get things set up I'll be happy to share how it goes though!
 
i agree, can't go wrong with sm58. i use them in my home studio all the time. for the price you won't regret it. make sure you have good working xlr cables. the money saved from a new rode mic, you can buy new ones.
 
Aira,

With all of the various discussions that have taken place since your initial posting, one of your first problems has not been recently discussed --- sound entering the room and being recorded.

It would have been interesting to have been able to see a photo of the room to see the exact physical layout of everything, so I am assuming that the microphone is sitting (say) at the end of a table.

You have stated that you have foam on the walls to reduce echo/reflections and doing this is good for sound clarity.

Although a bit unattractive have you possibly considered constructing a portable type u-shaped baffle that could be placed on the table behind the microphone, but with the sides long enough to come up to near the microphone head. You could possibly also place a baffled lid over the top.

This would look a bit like the microphone being placed inside a cardboard box that has had the front removed.

This box could possibly be constructed from (say) light weight play wood with baffling foam (similar to that on the walls) being glued to the insides --- even better if it could be also glued to the outsides.

Doing this will definitely reduce the amount of ambient noise picked by the microphone as well as adding to the damping of the room's resonances.

It will not necessarily look spectacular, but for the few dollars it would take to build, I am sure that the results would be worth the look and effort.

There are a couple of commercial units similar to the one I have described, but they are quite expensive and do not have a cover or bottom, just a curved section that goes around the mic.

Hopefully this URL works and gives you the general idea.

"microphone baffles" - Google Search

David
 
The microphone is not on a table. The room is essentially a closet, about 1 meter deep and 2 meters wide. There is a door leading into it from the office (where people are working on computers as quietly as they can, but some of them need constant reminders to type quieter because they're the sort of people who slam down on every keypress like they're in a battle with the keys). Through the back wall is a hallway. We tell people not to use that hallway during recording but sometimes they do and we have to pause recording or it sounds like an elephant stampeding through the room. The mics are on stands. There are two chairs in the room (I know standing is better, and a few of the noises I wind up needing to cut out come from the chairs themselves, but we have reasons why we need our actors to sit, including that some of them are older). The chairs face the office and there is a small window through which I can see them and give them signals if necessary. The mics on the stands (with pop filters) are set up to face the actors and be as close to their mouths as possible. There is literally zero extra room in there for anything else. If we are recording two people, the person by the door literally has to get out to let the other person through. So unfortunately there's no way to put anything else around the mics.

I can try to take a photo when I'm at the office tomorrow, but even with the lights on it's quite dark in there, so I'm not sure how clear it would be.

Basically, my hope is that with the new dynamic microphones, the noise from the office won't be picked up so much, and that will solve the background noise issue. It's really just not an option to do any further soundproofing, unfortunately. (Thanks for the info about the baffle though, might try to come up with something like that for when I record for YouTube at home.)
 
The "Reflection Baffles " that David (great name!) is talking about are primarily designed to reduce room reflections and cut down unpleasant ambient sound in the room, generated by the speakers. They are not really for sound "proofing" which can only be done effectively by putting a lot of mass, brick, plaster, in the sound path and, MOST importantly, stopping up air paths. They will have some effect but not a great one I suspect.
Nothing will keep very low frequency rumbles and bumps out of the mics except mounting them in elastomer mic clips (rubber bands!), placing mic stands on rubber foam, not forgetting to put a loop in the mic cable to isolate that from stand borne noise.

Re the corridor? I understand Ees are tight but PIR security light are pretty cheap these days. Print out a "Quiet! Recording!" sign to stick over the lens and set up to shine down the corridor?

Mind you A' from the clip I heard you are doing a very GOOD job of excluding noises off.

Dave.
 
Yeah, we put signs up saying not to go down the corridor, but my office is a tiny place, only about 20 people work there, and there are two entrances. The main entrance that almost everyone uses leads to that hallway. All deliveries get brought there, and the deliveryperson sees a sign that says "please don't ring the doorbell, recording in session", shrugs, and rings it anyway. :P Then someone has to go down the hall to answer the door, get the package, and walk back. The floor in that hall is some kind of poor quality elevated structure which booms and echoes even if you tiptoe down it. And now and then someone in the office just forgets and strays down that way on a phone call or something and we have to go out and yell at them. So yeah, we have to stop a lot to shut people up. Most of the sounds that do make it into the recordings are keypresses (especially the space bar!!!), people moving in their chairs, someone coughing, the occasional stray footstep, stuff like that. I manage to get most of it out, but now and then there's something I just can't remove. There have been a few times I worked a little magic and managed to cut out a sound while someone was talking, but mostly those just have to stay in. Really, the people who check the tracks and complain about background noises are the ones making the noises, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
aira said:
Yeah, we put signs up saying not to go down the corridor, but my office is a tiny place, only about 20 people work there, and there are two entrances. The main entrance that almost everyone uses leads to that hallway. All deliveries get brought there, and the deliveryperson sees a sign that says "please don't ring the doorbell, recording in session", shrugs, and rings it anyway. :P Then someone has to go down the hall to answer the door, get the package, and walk back. The floor in that hall is some kind of poor quality elevated structure which booms and echoes even if you tiptoe down it. And now and then someone in the office just forgets and strays down that way on a phone call or something and we have to go out and yell at them. So yeah, we have to stop a lot to shut people up. Most of the sounds that do make it into the recordings are keypresses (especially the space bar!!!), people moving in their chairs, someone coughing, the occasional stray footstep, stuff like that. I manage to get most of it out, but now and then there's something I just can't remove. There have been a few times I worked a little magic and managed to cut out a sound while someone was talking, but mostly those just have to stay in. Really, the people who check the tracks and complain about background noises are the ones making the noises, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Click to expand...

Yes, there is only SO much you can do. You can (as per the BBC) replace door bells with lights? Again, blinding LED lamps are peanuts these days.
The idea of the PIR is that it comes on and reminds people everytime they enter the corridor.

But! You seem to have enough to do without re vamping the building.

Dave.
 
Yeah, we're only renting this space, we can't make any major changes to it. The door is at the end of that hallway, and there's no one anywhere near the door except when they're going to open it, so lights would mean running wires all the way from one end of the office to the other. When the doorbell goes off we just stop and wait for the disruption to resolve, then keep going.

The office is basically a long, thin hallway with windows on one side and doors on the other. There's a stretch of about 5 meters from the main door to the first room (my office), which has 6 people working in it. Then the next room has 4 people working in it, the next room is the boss's office with only 2 people, the next room is admin with 4 people, and then the toilets and a supply closet, then the back entrance at the end of the hall. It would be hard to use lights for the bell with this setup (and require a lot of wiring, since it would have to be visible in every room). Currently the doorbell is super cheap, just a loud tone from the door whenever someone pushes the button which can be heard in all the rooms.
 
I do a lot of work for for non-profits and usually the recording areas are not great. To state the obvious, studio mics are for use in real studios with sound treaments, performance mics are better elsewhere. I tried using some nice "classic" Electrovoice studio mics in a room with a big conference table and the results were not good. Using performance mics on stands were much better due to the pattern that worked in close proximity. I've had to deal with roof air conditioners and even a washing machine running in the next room, etc. You may also want to look into a bit of software called "Auphonic Leveler" which is $99 for non-profit use. I use it simply to save time. It knocks down a lot of noise and brings up guests who suddenly change volume. Sure you can do it with hard leveling, noise reduction and EQ, but Auphonic does it all for you. There is a trial version.
 
Don't Flush!

I spent some time working with a new non-profit radio network that had a LOT of cash but few people who knew much about radio. They build a studio in a major metro area that looked like something from a starship (and far nicer than some very profitable stations I had worked for).

But the walls were hollow and there was a bathroom on the other side! Not only could you hear a flush,but the recessed TP dispenser in the wall rumbled as paper was pulled off it.
 
So the mics came, were set up, had the first recording session with them a few weeks ago and the next one is coming up this Thursday (yikes, time flies a little too fast). In general, everything worked fine. I was disappointed to realize that the mixer only has one master output (not separate outputs for each mic), but since we only have two microphones I managed to get around that by panning one all the way left, the other all the way right, and using the L and R outputs as separate mono tracks.

However, there are two issues remaining. The first is a software issue so I might start a new thread for that in another forum since it's not really microphone-related. But the other is a problem with the hardware and I can't seem to figure out what's wrong: the people in the studio can't hear me through their headphones.

We have two ways to monitor the sound. The first is the speakers outside the studio box, which everyone in the room listens to so they can check for mistakes, etc. The second is via headphones in the studio, so the voice actors can hear their own voice as well as my voice. I have a small microphone on the desk for that.

Previously, using the old Rode mics and the Lambda audio interface, the setup was like this:
Microphones are plugged into the Lambda, in the "mic 1" and "mic 2" MIDI inputs.
My microphone is plugged into the "instrument" input on the front (which is "line 1").
The speakers are plugged into the headphones output on the front.
The voice actors' headphones are plugged into the "line out" on the back (one 1/4" jack in the "L" line out plugs, which then goes through a splitter to split it into the two sets of headphones).
On the front, both of the monitor buttons are pressed, which should give mono sound.

This worked fine. The voice actors could hear my voice from my little microphone, but my voice was not recorded.

With the new setup, we can't find a way for the voice actors to hear me. After much trial and error, the new setup is:
Microphones plugged into the mixer, in the Mic 1 and Mic 2 MIDI inputs.
Mic 1 panned all the way left and Mic 2 panned all the way right.
1/4" cables leading from the L and R Main Out outputs into the Line 1 and Line 2 inputs or the Mic 1 and Mic 2 inputs on the back of the Lambda.
Speakers still plugged in to the headphone output, voice actor headphones still plugged in to one of the Line Out plugs on the back.

This works fine. But no matter what I do, I can't get any microphone to be picked up for the voice actors to use as a monitor. They can hear their own voices fine (but only on one side, so the mono button on the Lambda doesn't seem to be working), but they can't hear a third microphone, and I just can't figure out why.

I have tried:
The same setup as before. Mic 1 and Mic 2 going into the 1/4" Mic inputs on the back of the Lambda (instead of the MIDI ones, since the mixer doesn't have MIDI output), and the microphone going into the instrument input on the front. If I do this, the computer picks up my microphone instead of Mic 1 from the voice actors. No idea why. The "instrument" input seems to override the 1/4" microphone inputs.
My microphone (one of the old Rodes - quality isn't good anymore but it still works) plugged into the Mic 3 input on the mixer (panned to center). This is turned all the way down so it doesn't get recorded, with the plan that I'd turn it up when I need to speak to the voice actors. But even though they can hear themselves, they can't hear me. Even though the sound is going through the same system and I've tested the microphone and it works!

I'm just at my wits' end here. I feel like I've tried everything and I have no idea why it's not working. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. (Also, should I make a new thread for this? I figured I'd post here so the people who were already helping with this hardware might see it, but I can certainly move it elsewhere if it's more appropriate to do so.)
 
That's a good point, I haven't fully explored all the options of the mixer. I had to get it set up quickly for the last recording session so when I couldn't get the monitor working I just made sure the mics were recording properly and that was it. Unfortunately there's someone working at that desk now so I can't really go mess with it, and I'm not in the office tomorrow, so I'll have to hope I can get something working Thursday morning before the voice actors are ready to go.

The mixer is a Behringer 1202.

Here's a photo of the current setup (unfortunately not good enough quality to see all the details - I had a coworker take this with his phone after the last session).

setup.jpg
 
One possibility is this:

Mike 1 into channel 1 panned left: fader level adjusted to suit
Mike 2 into channel 2 panned right: fader level adjusted to suit

Mike 3 (your mike) into channel 3: fader level off (so that it doesn't go into the main mix)

Connect mixer to Lambda, left main output into line in 1 of lambda, right main out into line 2 of lambda. The main mix controls level going into Lambda

The above is your recording set up.

Now for your monitoring set up:

Press the 'FX to CTRL Room' button.

On Channels 1 to 3, adjust the red FX knob on each to send signal, via 'FX to CTRL Room' to the 'CTRL ROOM OUT', whose level is determined by the 'PHONES/CONTROL ROOM' knob.

Your voice is on channel 3, which is not going to the main mix because the fader is pulled down, but is going to the control room output via the FX knob. Likewise, the two using Channels 1 and 2 also go to the control room output the same way. Note also that the FX levels are independent of the faders, so you can have different level for mix and different level for monitoring.

For monitoring itself, there is a headphone socket on the mixer controlled by the PHONES/CONTROL ROOM knob. There are also Left and Right line outputs 'CTRL ROOM OUT' which can be used to go to powered speakers, or an amp, or even a headphone amp.
 
aira said:
Hi everyone! I've been the "sound master" for my company for a couple years now, which means managing recording sessions, editing the audio, and producing CDs. The audio content is entirely spoken dialogue. The CDs are for teachers to use with students learning English as a foreign language, and contain samples of native English speakers having conversations, reading texts, etc.

Up till now we've been using a RODE NT2-A microphone (condenser). We originally had two, but one died over a year ago and we switched to just one. Now the second one is dying as well (getting a lot of weird noises in recordings, quality is degrading, etc.). I've been given permission to purchase two new microphones as replacements, but unfortunately I know very little about the hardware.

The recording studio is unusual and far from ideal. It is just a small closet at one end of the office, where our writers and editors are working at their computers. It is far from soundproof. It has the foam on the walls, but all that does is reduce echo. The current microphone picks up every single tiny little sound in the office, including typing, walking, coughing, etc. One of the most difficult parts of my job is trying to remove the background noises from the recordings. There is no way to stop people from working during these recording sessions. Our voice actors can't come in during the weekends, and deadlines are too tight for people to just not work for a day while we record.

I've therefore been looking at dynamic mics, which I've read pick up much less background noise. This sounds ideal to me. On the other hand, I've also read that they are quieter. Unfortunately, our voice actors are not professionals - they just happen to be the only native English speakers in the area who are available. Some of them shout into the mics. Some of them alternate between shouting and mumbling. Some of them talk so quietly that even with the volume turned all the way up, I have to boost it further in editing to make it properly audible. Will a dynamic mic pick them up properly? Will I need some kind of external amplifier to make the sound audible?

In terms of quality, it's not necessary for it to be particularly high. As long as the dialogue is clear and understandable and free from background noise, it's fine. These CDs are used mostly in classrooms with old, poor-quality CD players. The main concern is that the microphone can pick up our voice actors clearly and without too much background noise.

I'm currently looking at the Audio-Technica ATM610 and the AKG D7 (apparently I can't post links yet because I'm new here), which are both in stock at the shop I'll be purchasing from. Both seem to have good reviews, but again, I just don't know enough about them to know if they're right for our setup.


Any feedback, advice, or ideas are most welcome. Thanks so much for reading my message and thanks in advance for any help.
Click to expand...





Your problems are far bigger than a microphone.

If this is your end product how can management not arrange for a quieter location and using better speakers.

Tell the speakers they have to stick to one volume and adjust the microphone to that level.
Add compression; a ration of 2:1 should do the job with 10dB make up gain.
That will keep most speakers in the intelligible range that is best understood. Not too loud not too soft.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top