Small vs Large condenser for instrumental acoustic guitar

If people spent 1/2 the time actually recording that they do searching for different ways to spend money in the hopes that there's a new/old/modded whatever that will make them sound better, they'd probably be better at recording and have more money in their pocket...

this made me laugh....of course its true, one could say that about bars and beer too... :)
but what if the gear schlopping is part of the fun than the recording? Trying gear, buying selling, learning about it...hell I even like reading the history of some of this stuff.

microphones like they say can sound so different just moving them a few inches, its like if it sounds bassy...pull it away, if it sounds thin bring it in.

searching for the holy grail mic that can sound great no matter what room and what distance continues ...and is encouraged by marketing!
 
t\\
searching for the holy grail mic that can sound great ]g!

Yeah I do this too. I will google studio pictures on google for albums I liked.

Heres one. ELO 1976. Can you identify the microphone?

110261490-58aca0163df78c345b7490ff.jpg

It is like they know you are doing it too. So they will show a bunch of different mics in the studio. And you are left with no answers as to which they used.

93cdc018d72524e0442b93da79caeaa2.jpg

They know.
 
WOW! That's BRIGHT!

Definitely not a tone I would look for on an acoustic. I would take a stock AKG P170 over that one.
 
Steve what are you using to record as an interface? I notice strong bass in the recording.


When my USB interface starts recording tracks with that much bass I will know my interface is working properly.
 
Man, I suck at computers . I hate them more and more every day.

Shame on these DAW companies and interface makers. They need to make it record the same for everybody with one button. Drivers, latency, OS, what a bunch of crap.
 
Just go buy a Tascam DP32SD and you won't have to worry about any of that stuff. Or an old Yamaha AW2400 or Tascam 2488.
 
How is it that the Chinese supposedly can't make a capsule that's any good (they are GREAT at imitating known products) but a guy in a metal building in the mountains of Virginia can make a capsule as good as Neumann? It doesn't make sense.

With the right machinery, you can build things to incredible tolerances. Folks like 797Audio have the machinery. Rode has the machinery. Reverse engineering a mic capsule should be childs play compared to some of the things that are out there. There's no magic or mystery to it. Mylar is a standard material, gold sputtering is well known, teflon, brass. These are standard materials that anyone can buy. Stick the parts under a laser and have the CNC machine crank them out to .001mm tolerance. Yeah, it's precision work but no more than building a 14nm microprocessor with millions of transistors that's the size of a postage stamp.

True that, but the issue is, that said microprocessor was insanely expensive to develop, but the fact that they could produce and sell 200 million units afterwards, drastically decreased the cost per unit. There will not be a lot of 1.2" microphone capsules produced - since nobody needs a lot of those. It's a real issue in the high end manufactures, that need specifically inductors, resistors and whatnot, but the only way to keep production cost low, is to buy 100.000 units - and if you're Leif Masses (of Maselec Electronics) you probably need something like 120 of these components per year, and it is just not cost-effective to do this. And if you want custom made quality components in smaller quantities they will be expensive. As is the assembling and testing, if you want a failure percentage below 1%. It might be possible to build a Maselec MEA2 in a chinese factory, but the Behringer SMT-component version will not sound as pristine as the Maselec - and it will last a tenth of the time. Quality costs. Deal with it. No freaking way I will spend five minutes in my studio with myself or a client being bothered about equipment that does not work properly. That, and IT-issues, is the worst creativity killer on the planet. If I had to live with that I'd switch to become a carpenter or a blacksmith instead.

Chinese factories build to a price point. Neumann (since you mentioned them) build to a quality point.
 
I can't agree with the idea that there aren't a lot of mic capsules sold. In addition, I wasn't talking about surface mount components.

Look at the inside of a U87, there are a handful of very common components. The only custom component is the capsule, and even that is made of basic components. Machined brass, gold sputtered mylar film, plastic spacers, machine screws. The headbasket is a wire mesh component.

There's nothing unique or proprietary .Quite the contrary, everything can be measured, from the component values and physical dimensions to the actual circuit. It's something that could easily be built and sold for 1/4 the price of a Neumann model. Having worked with Chinese factories, I know that if you give them a target, they'll meet it. They were just as capable as the Germans, Japanese or Koreans at making products. A CNC machine works the same in Beijing or Sydney as it does in Berlin or Willis.

Granted, if you just want them to provide a cheap copy of something that looks like a high end product, someone has it. I'm not talking about knock off Chibson guitars for $100. I'm talking about actually engineering and building a quality component such as companies like Eastman do in the guitar market. They are quality products, although their designs are not necessarily direct knock-offs or exact copies of other products, they play and sound just about the same as their target designs.
 
When they make the disc's, the manufacture process causes differences in nanodentation. Heat distortion differences are magnified at a nano level. It is hard to achieve a particular repeated spec. So they make a large quantity and take the best ones.
 
When they make the disc's, the manufacture process causes differences in nanodentation. Heat distortion differences are magnified at a nano level. It is hard to achieve a particular repeated spec. So they make a large quantity and take the best ones.

That sounded interesting, but I couldn't find any more info on it. Do you have a reference to this somewhere that I can look at? Also, I'm trying to figure out how they would work out which were the best ones to keep.
 
Measuring nano and pico levels of indentation?

measure , s a m p l e {\displaystyle E_{sample}} {\displaystyle E_{sample}} in the Pa range, “pico-indentation” using an optical tweezers system is suitable. Here, a laser beam is used to trap a translucent bead which is then brought into contact with the soft sample so as to indent it.[22] The trap stiffness ( k m a c h i n e {\displaystyle k_{machine}} {\displaystyle k_{machine}}) depends on the laser power and bead material, and a typical value is ~50 pN/μm. The probe size a {\displaystyle a} a can be a micron or so. Then the optical trap can measure E s a m p l e {\displaystyle E_{sample}} {\displaystyle E_{sample}} (≈ k m a c h i n e {\displaystyle k_{machine}} {\displaystyle k_{machine}}/ a {\displaystyle a} a)in the Pa range.

Looks like a lazer!
 
measure , s a m p l e {\displaystyle E_{sample}} {\displaystyle E_{sample}} in the Pa range, “pico-indentation” using an optical tweezers system is suitable. Here, a laser beam is used to trap a translucent bead which is then brought into contact with the soft sample so as to indent it.[22] The trap stiffness ( k m a c h i n e {\displaystyle k_{machine}} {\displaystyle k_{machine}}) depends on the laser power and bead material, and a typical value is ~50 pN/μm. The probe size a {\displaystyle a} a can be a micron or so. Then the optical trap can measure E s a m p l e {\displaystyle E_{sample}} {\displaystyle E_{sample}} (≈ k m a c h i n e {\displaystyle k_{machine}} {\displaystyle k_{machine}}/ a {\displaystyle a} a)in the Pa range.

Looks like a lazer!

lol

That's one of the more lucid explanations of something I've come across.

What about a reference to manufacturing causing differences in nanoindentation?
 
Thats is a search on measuring nano dentation. I copied the part that said the device used .

I would not understand any of that. Or argue it effectively.

It is possible nano dentation and nano intedentation are measured differently. I just don't have the data.

Manufacturing methods of the said items are probably proprietary secrets and the information would not be available.
 
I think we lost Steve.

Dude it sounds pretty nice. You told us the microphones you used. It sounded like you wanted to tell us about it.
 
There are several types of indentation measuring devices. Here's a paper about nanoindentation. ... and Neumann has been using this technology for how long?

BTW, if you want to see how a U87 is built:

 
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