Do shock mounts improve low end response from a microphone?

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Correct. An excerpt from Revolution's 2010 show. It's still early season so not as good as it'll be in August. And probably a third of the group was gone due to prior commitments. Plus they spent the entire weekend learning drill, not doing ensemble work.

As far as sounds, that's one of the better (maybe even best) one I've made so far. But it's only the 2nd opportunity I've had to use my new Sound Devices MM-1's on a drumcorps. The first time was in an odd HS gym and the mics were down low to not intrude too much on the paying audience. I probably should have angled the mics more downwards. They were a bit over the group once I elevated them. I'm not used to being that close when recording. Not that a church parking lot with cars parked in it and low hanging trees was ideal for recording. But that's why my rig is the way it is. One man, one trip, all battery operated. I should probably get to editing the HD video now.
 
I finally made it down the GC and got an extra stereo bar to improve it a hair more. Plus an extra battery for the camcorder, some more rope/string. And a cheap plastic cake server to use as a rain cape / enclosure for the camcorder. Open air or shielded plexiglas I'll decide later.

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rnsmv2.gif


BTW these were bought used and are who knows how old. They've also seen about 100 hours of Texas sun. One other reason for the furs, as extra shielding from the sun. And they're serial numbers are in the neighborhood of 0470. I don't think they're as UN-dull as you might think that they are. Even naked.
 
I know it looks all "redneck-cool" and everything... :D

...but just to convince yourself of any "value" the homebrewed "shockmounts" are providing...
...plug in the mics, turn up the pre and your monitors to normal recording/playback levels, and then tap on the coat hangers or stand with your fingers and you will see that the rig provides probably "0" shock-proofing or little more than just the stand, goosneck and stereo bar would.

You'll get more mileage of placing the entire stand on some thick foam and decouple everything from the floor, than you will with the hangers...of course, you won't have the "redneck-cool". ;)
 
These mics are mostly immune to handling noise to start with. Before the redneck rigging, I could hear the hand rubbing on the stand when I pick up and place down the mic stand. I can hear the cables hitting the stand when walking with it and recording. But otherwise immune to most handling noise without the shock mounts.

The new setup doesn't have any plastic touching the metal of the stereo bars. So flexible plastic and dampening cloth / rope working together towards an end. I suppose that if I had a bag of rubber bands or party balloons they wouldn't be good enough either. Fair enough, so here's an actual handling noise test. I guess I shouldn't have sold my drumsticks to tap on the stand with. But my fingernails are getting a bit long. Clapping is actual clapping away from the mic stand.

Seems to help IMO. Korg set to HIGH gain, which I never use. MM-1's set to 18, which was used on the former debut. Korg gain knobs at noon. TV on and viewing Armageddon in the next room over.



The only edit was converting to mp3. Originally recorded in 24/96 on the Korg MR-1000. Mics are naked and otherwise as pictured.

$ lame -b 128 WAV_0087_001.wav
 
Shadow_7 said:
Correct. An excerpt from Revolution's 2010 show. It's still early season so not as good as it'll be in August. And probably a third of the group was gone due to prior commitments. Plus they spent the entire weekend learning drill, not doing ensemble work.
Click to expand...

Cool, dude! I marched a DCI top twelve corps back in the 80's (Sky Ryders) and my daughter marched in Pacific Crest. Cool to know some guys around involved with it still.
 
Shadow_7 said:
I finally made it down the GC and got an extra stereo bar to improve it a hair more. Plus an extra battery for the camcorder, some more rope/string. And a cheap plastic cake server to use as a rain cape / enclosure for the camcorder. Open air or shielded plexiglas I'll decide later.

Version 2.0

rnsmv2.gif


BTW these were bought used and are who knows how old. They've also seen about 100 hours of Texas sun. One other reason for the furs, as extra shielding from the sun. And they're serial numbers are in the neighborhood of 0470. I don't think they're as UN-dull as you might think that they are. Even naked.
Click to expand...

Have you tried moving the stereo bar forward?

I guess the shockmount would work better with equal paths from the front and back of the stereo bar to where it is secured.
 
The center of gravity is pretty much the front stereo bar. Towards the center it's springy. Towards the ends it's pretty stiff. Plus if I move the weight distribution off center enough the goose neck will flex. So of limited use and it's probably not suitable for boom arm (as in video) use. And outside of some tape on the rope it will slide forward and back even if the gooseneck doesn't flex. But I suppose I could double/triple the gooseneck count to stiffen that up. Or go with coat hangers of the metal variety. The gooseneck is of great use though. Lets you angle it if you're on uneven ground. Even tilt to the sides to keep it level.

-----

I marched Freelancers '88-'92 in the DCI era (lost to Sky Ryders in '88). Went on tour as a cook in '93. Army Band '94-'97. And few intermittent years in all-age drum corps since then. They hosed the rules in that genre though. Need 35 members minimum to be a part of the competitive circuit. Which doesn't work too well for weekend only, volunteer, pay to play, travel vast distances on your dime(competitive or not), 501c3 type activities. i.e. Since the competitive circuit is OUT, I'm IN to the recording thing. Otherwise recordings wont exist at all. And the gear is from a certain POV, cheaper than paying members dues to pay to play. Plus DCA + BVP really pissed me off in 2006 when they weren't even competent enough to put a webcam in a dixie cup sealed with plastic wrap and a rubber band to get video of the entire event. Versus bad video of slightly more than half. One would think that if you specialize in video, you'd take a moment to wipe the rain off the lens on occasion. I realize that it's an amateur activity, but my god man. It's not rocket science. And it's not like a hurricane (or remnants there of) come out of no where, with no warning. Not in 2006 anyway.

I've pretty much got all bases covered in terms of weather proofing. Baring arctic freeze or lava flow melting. I still have to figure out a viable rain proof for the mics and that's about it. And I'm not entirely sure that they'd stop working if they got wet / submerged. At least not completely, and might work again once dried out even if they don't. Otherwise ziplock bags over them should keep them safe, but not ideal for audio capture. I've got the field recorder and preamps in a squirrel cage of sorts, just throw a jacket over it, or put the whole thing inside a waterproof sleeping bag cover. A slice and dice trash can for the camcorder, and plan B with a plastic cake cover that locks in place. I still need to cut it up and put some quality optical glass (lexon?) windows on it, but it should do the task needed. Worst case, upside down fish tank. i.e. keep sensitive electronics out of the rain. Minimal effort IMO, which is why that 2006 thing P.O.'s me so much.
 
Shadow_7 said:
The center of gravity is pretty much the front stereo bar. Towards the center it's springy. Towards the ends it's pretty stiff. Plus if I move the weight distribution off center enough the goose neck will flex. So of limited use and it's probably not suitable for boom arm (as in video) use. And outside of some tape on the rope it will slide forward and back even if the gooseneck doesn't flex. But I suppose I could double/triple the gooseneck count to stiffen that up. Or go with coat hangers of the metal variety. The gooseneck is of great use though. Lets you angle it if you're on uneven ground. Even tilt to the sides to keep it level.
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I would say that the plastic coat-hangers are better than metal ones as they are less resonant and won't "twang".
 
John Willett said:
I would say that the plastic coat-hangers are better than metal ones as they are less resonant and won't "twang".
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I was thinking of using them in place of the gooseneck. The shock mounts would have to be the plastic ones. Metal ones just bend, not bounce. Mostly out of weight concerns, since it's already top heavy with just the mics and a single stereo bar. Having a boom arm instead of a mic stand with decent height probably doesn't help much.
 
miroslav said:
Priceless! :laughings:


:drunk:




Can't you hear how dull, muted an lifeless it sounds because of them...? :(

You might as well put them under a pillow...that will significantly improve your SPL rating! ;)
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I'm not saying that it's not dull sounding per say. Just that the windscreens are probably being overrated as the CAUSE of the dullness. They do have an impact and not a positive one in terms of sound quality. But in terms of the alternative, wind noise, acceptable IMO.

Take a listen to a second version of that sample. Sorry trim points are slightly different +/- 5 seconds. Let me know if it's different, if it's better or worse and why. Very subjective I know. It should be IMO different enough, and not just because the different edit point altered the amplification results.

NEW:


OLD:


I guess I need a second set of ears. I sold my good monitors, and the problem / issue probably doesn't exist on headphones. And if the very minor edit is as significant as I'm assuming it is, it might explain a few things.
 
NEWEST:


It looks like I've identified several issues with my post flow. Sox was introducing some L / R channel drift. There does appear to be some drift even without sox. I'm not sure if that's the clock in the hardware of the field recorder or the software being used to convert to more common formats.

Anyway sox is out, and sndfile is in and the resampling routine for sndfile seems to take a mightly long time at it's maximum setting. Does that mean it's better? Hopefully, and I think so. It takes nearly 4x's longer than audiogate. With alignment and better resampling from higher bitrates hopefully the above is LESS DULL. Correcting the alignment issue also seems to give the low end I've so longed for. Tuba Christmas will never be the same. And my STO-2's are really starting to satisfy.

Version 2 was basically a 0.0002 second shift in one channel. Version 3 is a complete resampling of the whole track with some shrinking to compensate for drift. I guess I've been using the headphones too much as you don't hear L/R phase cancellation on headphones (unless you push the mono button). And even the mono button is not a good judge as it boosts the output to blur the difference. Anyway thanks for the strong words about the dull. I might never have looked as deep as I apparently did. Who knew that recording in stereo could be so complicated.

I'll try to work up Tuba Christmas Austin 2008 to A/B with Tuba Christmas Austin 2009 for a more direct comparison of windtech + rycote windscreens versus that PLUS the layers of my DIY for Austin-ish weather. With the new work flow. I don't doubt that there is a difference. But I'm still not sure that the difference is that much. I certainly cannot get away with just the lavalier windfoam and windjammers outdoors on 95% of the days in this region. And sometimes not indoors either depending on where the A/C vents are located. But I guess that's another thread.
 
Shadow_7 said:
NEWEST:


It looks like I've identified several issues with my post flow. Sox was introducing some L / R channel drift. There does appear to be some drift even without sox. I'm not sure if that's the clock in the hardware of the field recorder or the software being used to convert to more common formats.

Anyway sox is out, and sndfile is in and the resampling routine for sndfile seems to take a mightly long time at it's maximum setting. Does that mean it's better? Hopefully, and I think so. It takes nearly 4x's longer than audiogate. With alignment and better resampling from higher bitrates hopefully the above is LESS DULL. Correcting the alignment issue also seems to give the low end I've so longed for. Tuba Christmas will never be the same. And my STO-2's are really starting to satisfy.

Version 2 was basically a 0.0002 second shift in one channel. Version 3 is a complete resampling of the whole track with some shrinking to compensate for drift. I guess I've been using the headphones too much as you don't hear L/R phase cancellation on headphones (unless you push the mono button). And even the mono button is not a good judge as it boosts the output to blur the difference. Anyway thanks for the strong words about the dull. I might never have looked as deep as I apparently did. Who knew that recording in stereo could be so complicated.

I'll try to work up Tuba Christmas Austin 2008 to A/B with Tuba Christmas Austin 2009 for a more direct comparison of windtech + rycote windscreens versus that PLUS the layers of my DIY for Austin-ish weather. With the new work flow. I don't doubt that there is a difference. But I'm still not sure that the difference is that much. I certainly cannot get away with just the lavalier windfoam and windjammers outdoors on 95% of the days in this region. And sometimes not indoors either depending on where the A/C vents are located. But I guess that's another thread.
Click to expand...

Could you do a short recap on what you're doing here -resampling, shifting -the same track it seems? Re-recording with and w/o the socks? I noticed the three versions have different l/r balances and such..
 
mixsit said:
Could you do a short recap on what you're doing here -resampling, shifting -the same track it seems? Re-recording with and w/o the socks? I noticed the three versions have different l/r balances and such..
Click to expand...

rnsm.mp3 - as is / software defaults

rnsm2.mp3 - left track offset 0.0002 seconds relative to right track. to bring bring waveform back into alignment.

rnsm3.mp3 - resampled left and right tracks at slightly different rates to achieve waveform sync.

It could just be that the resampling routine is making things nicer. Or not, but the resampling method seems to make a lot of difference on tracks with a lot of boomy bass. Like Tuba Christmas. And of length to allow the drift to be problematic. Cut points might be off by a few seconds, I didn't take very good notes the first time around. And the sample bridges the gap between two files which I avoided doing on rnsm2 by making it shorter.

rnsm and rnsm3 have a 5 second fade in and fade out. rnsm.mp3 and rnsm2.mp3 were edited cut/edited with sox, normalized in audacity and converted in lame. rnsm3.mp3 was resampled with sndfile-resample and edited/normalized in audacity, then converted with lame. Version 3 seems to have a clarity that the others lacks.
 
I guess not as nice as I thought. I finally hear the dull. Although it's a bit hit or miss, because I've had less dull with the same rig (less redneck shockmount). Which could be venue related. I finally authored the DVD from that weekend and the overly amped up field recorder content from BEHIND the microphones was clearer than the stuff from in front. When played on the TV and stereo with magnapan speakers. Logic would dictate the reverse. In the rear, I have scraps rolled up to fill out the wind socks, so from a certain POV, it's 10x layers thick in the rear (although off axis). As opposed to 3 or 4 in the front.

The rycote wind jammers and windtech foams(~$100 combined) are virtually useless in anything beyond stagnant conditions. If it's strong enough to blow a square of unused tissue paper, it gets recorded on those things. Although better than bare. Perhaps just one layer with an impenetrable back side. Sans rycote. I guess it depends on the weather for this weekend. Last year was a bit too windy NOT to be fully socked. I guess I've been so distracted from the lack of low end (4 timpani tubs and the first 2 register, the bigger 2 don't, the video says it exists, the audio says it doesn't). And now it's dull too.
 
Funny...my homemade deadcats are very effective and Ive been out there in a few nice gusts of wind and havent had a noise problem.

Id only imagine a shockmount could improve bass response since your handling noise isnt a problem anymore you may just turn off the hpf on your pre.
 
Well first I wouldnt want to record anything with my measurment mics...and so far any of the outdoor stuff Ive done has been loud enough to compensate so it hasnt been a problem.
 
This region doesn't really have gusts. What some might consider gusts are our consistent winds, plus gusts. 3x layers was to have it so it didn't register on the field recorder and engage the limiter and other quirks. Plus it's very much noticeable on headphones. And if you want to record the rustling of leafs or crickets in windy conditions.

I did shrink the fake fur down to 1x DIY layer, on top of Windtech foam and Rycote windjammers. Not windless anymore, but better with a decent balance for outdoor content above the spoken word. The back side is better shielded now that I found a few extra velcro cord ties to beef up that side of the wind shield.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8sjYHD9hwo

The redneck shock mount isn't well suited for travel. I have to transport it while maintaining a perpendicular orientation. Otherwise the goose neck flexes, the stereo bars slide to one side, and other concerns. Not that desirable when having to walk several blocks from the car to the concert. Not all that heavy, but not being able to drape it over a shoulder slows one down. I like the upside down hooks though, those come in real handy.

rnsm4.gif
 
IMHO the use of the foam is counterproductive...I only put the dead cat over the housing itself.
 
darrin_h2000 said:
IMHO the use of the foam is counterproductive...I only put the dead cat over the housing itself.
Click to expand...

From past experience getting the fake fur as far from the mic element as possible vastly improves things wind noise related. Until I acquire/build a viable zeppelin type setup, the foams serve that purpose (zeppelin frame) from a certain POV. That plus any creasing in the fake fur makes them behave like your mics are naked in terms of wind noise prevention. And the STO-2's business end is covered with felt, and not a metal grill. While my room is relatively smoke free, the household is NOT. The foams probably do the least work for wind noise avoidance, but a necessary evil IMO.
 
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