ECM8000's Full of Hiss

B

bbZ

New member
A-B'd them with my other mics, like an AT4033 and the 8000's are full of hiss. I can't believe it. It's all over my most recent tracks.

Are the Marshall603's any better?
 
Yes, the 603s are a lot quieter. My guess is you were recording accoustic guitar, am I correct? By nature of their design, the ecm's are considerably noisier . . . to the point where I would never use them for quiet - medium accoustic guitar or any other quiet sources.

I use them strictly for drums and/or (louder) percussion . . . when I use them, that is.
 
This is inherent to the design of extremely small diaphragm microphones. Because of the extremely small size of the diaphragm, the signal is much lower, and needs to be amplified more. You amplify the inherent noise of the capsule as well as the desired signal. This is a particular issue with a low cost mic like the ECM-8000, I would guess. (I have not used them, though I have used many B&Ks and Earthworks mics, of similar design.)

Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
bbZ said:
A-B'd them with my other mics, like an AT4033 and the 8000's are full of hiss. I can't believe it. It's all over my most recent tracks.

Are the Marshall603's any better?
Click to expand...
Hmmm... seems odd.
Maybe you're over-driving the output gain on your pre?
I recorded this with the ECM8000's.
http://artists.iuma.com/site-bin/streammp3.m3u?286662
While this mic wouldn't be my first choice, I wanted to see how good a sound I could get from them using judicial placement techniques.

(P.S. If the file wont stream for you, you can D/L it here:
http://artists.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Michael_Jones/index-2.html
Its called ecm8000; last one on that page)
 
These mics will pick up shit that you cant hear, and the room needs to be pleasing. They are like the NS10s of mics, they make you work harder.
 
darrin, room is fine - lost of well-placed Auralex sound dampeners and bass traps etc.

The mics are VERY hissy - in fact almost ruined a project for a client of mine. Just returned them and getting an AT4040 to match my 4033.

Thanks.
 
They're cheap, what did you expect...Earthworks for $30?

I have two ECM8000's and they are worth every penny of the $50 bucks I paid for both of them. You have to be very aware of your room and where the source is going to be placed in the mix, cause they are noisy. I never use them for critical tracks. If I'm doing solo acoustic guitar, or omni overheads I use Earthworks M30's. The ECM8000's are what they are.

Tom Cram
dbx Senior Technical Support
(801) 568-7530
tcram@dbxpro.com

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
-Thomas Jefferson-
 
The best drum sound I've ever gotten was with ECM8000 on overhead. Yeah, they're hissy, but when the drums kicked in you couldn't hear it. I definitely wouldn't lay track after track down with these mics, but for the right loud source, you can't beat them for less than $300/pair (and that $300/pair would be the Stapes Audio Omnis)
 
Hey bbz,
Glad to see your post. After all the raving about these things I got a couple too. Similar problem for me too. I thought I was the only one. I guess you've got to keep in mind that phrase "for the money".
 
a gate?

What exactly is a gate, and what would it do to the hiss?

You mean like, a noise gate?
(even though I knew the term, I still don't know what it does...)

:(

Jimmy

"Give me knowledge, and I will suck it up like a sponge."
Robert Oppenheimer
 
Tom Cram said:
They're cheap, what did you expect...Earthworks for $30?
Click to expand...

that sums it up... a friggin $35 mic. Not that a mic HAS to be expensive to sound good, but for $35, you'll get that sub $100 sound for sure.

and no... a gate won't work to cut out the hiss in most instances..especially solo guitars, etc.

and no...the 603 is in the same league.

Get an AKG451 or a KM184 if you want a fairly inexpensive, but decent small dia. mic. Another 4033 would be a good choice too.
 
I can vouch for the 184's. AT-4033's and the Earthworks mics are killer as well. And for a little rounder sound the Octava MC-012's are cool (and they even come in omni:D ).
 
FYI, jimmy_LD, a noise gate is a device that cuts off signal out when signal in is below a certain strength. for a very obvious example, a good portion of metal bands, using very loud overdriven guitar tones, will tend to feedback like hell-but with a noise gate, set properly (slightly above the noise floor), feedback can be all but stopped, not only cutting down on annoying sueals, but making lower noises (whatever is below the threshold) like perhaps hand movements during quiet parts, etc, dead so that they don't interefere with the rest of the song. another way gates are used is in recording drums, when the room is pretty noisy (perhaps from other instruments at the same time!), you can dial up the threshold to just above the level of sound in the room so that all the mics pick up is the drums. now, of course, if you don't know what you're doing, you can either create something pretty cool, or something pretty useless, but noise gates can be very valuable on any signal chain that you want quiet parts to be QUIET on.

my PRS half-stack has a noise gate-tragically, it doesn't help much with distortion pedals, because the sound is already pretty noisy (something to note: on guitars, gating is generally easier BEFORE the distortion pedal), but if i'm just using the amp's circuitry (which isn't half bad, just not that heavy until it's cranked up pretty high), it's a great way to keep the soundspace clean while not playing licks.
 
btw, what kind of signal:noise ratios are you guys getting on ecm8000's, anyway? i just got a pair, just so i could learn to work with omnis, so i'll be happy either way, and i don't mind doing dynamics tweaking/etc until i figure out what i can get out of them. i'm just curious. i'm getting 55-60db on my audix om-3xb's with my current rig i think, i'm guessing i'll lose, what, 5-10 db? that's a lot, but not more than i can handle-especially if i just use the omni takes for ambience (lowering it so the noise floor is more or less gone), and dynamic takes for the up-front stuff.
 
zerOsig....

I kinda always felt that gating on drums was not used for eliminating ambient room noise, but [more often used for] shutting of the mic so as not to have bleed from other drums...reducing phase problems, and just general build up of off axis sound. 10 mics added up with off axis sound = mud a lot of the times... or so I've heard! :p
Hence...the culprit of cheap mics... shitty off axis sound...kinda like all the inexpensive condensors seem to have.

And!!!...most importantly...!!!! DON"T forget Phil Collins!!!!

also...55-60 dB of signal to noise... aren't we talking cassette levels now?? and 5-10 less... man...that starts to borderline on AM radio...eh?

anywazzz...
happy new years...
 
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