Frequency Response - will the Mic "hear" it?

skwee

skwee

Member
Howdy: here's a word problem for you.

So I've got an Audix microboom condenser available to record my choir/ensembles. Its frequency response is rated at 50Hz-19kHz. A bass' low E string is 41.2 Hz, and Occasionally, the bass section of my choir will go below that for low notes.

Will this mic hear those fundamental notes at all, or will they just be reproduced weakly? is this something I can fix in post with EQ?
 
MicroBoom is the boom arm system. Which actual mic do you have?

The one I looked at was down 10dB at 40Hz. You can probably bring some of that back with eq. But probably half your listeners don't have speakers that are flat to 40Hz so I'm not sure that it matters much. I bet they're mostly hearing overtones that suggest the low note rather than the low note itself.
 
Nobody actually hears 40 Hz whether your speakers go that low or you're in the room with the choir or whatever. Frequencies that low are more felt than anything. It's all rumble and thump down there. It absolutely is the overtones that make it sound like notes.
 
Ash...the OP is basically asking if the mic will pick it up so that it's correctly recorded and reproduced...felt and/or heard.

Don't turn it into the "RMS" thread and give her a headache too. :D ;)
 
skwee said:
Howdy: here's a word problem for you.

So I've got an Audix microboom condenser available to record my choir/ensembles. Its frequency response is rated at 50Hz-19kHz. A bass' low E string is 41.2 Hz, and Occasionally, the bass section of my choir will go below that for low notes.

Will this mic hear those fundamental notes at all, or will they just be reproduced weakly? is this something I can fix in post with EQ?
Click to expand...

The mic will hear the source as well as you can, if not better. ;)
 
bsg pretty well answered the OP as well as anybody could. There may be some attenuation of the lowest fundamentals, but you probably won't miss them and if you do, there's EQ.

I have an AT stereo condenser that I've managed not to lose or completely destroy for almost 20 years. Heck, I've even kept track of the funky 5-pin to dual XLR cable that originally came with it! The only "problem" is that the fiddly little high-pass switch is stuck in the On position. I could probably take it apart and fix it, but I've found that it buys me a whole buttload of headroom and makes it a lot easier to work with around loud, bass heavy sources. I use it as the bulk of my sound when I record acoustic drums, and I don't ever have to worry about distorting the mic pre or clipping the converters. At mix time, I just shelf that bass way up to compensate, and you'd never know the difference.
 
Any stringed instrument will have most of its energy an octave above the fundamental. So it really won't be missed.

Couple that with the fact that most playback systems won't reproduce the lowest octave, and a lot of mics aren't flat down there, etc... it generally isn't something to worry much about.
 
Low E is actually normal for some male singers, I used to sing in a Choir some years ago and they found I could get down to a low C, another dude there actual hit a low B. Not that we had to sing down there that much but some choir work is singing tones not actually words, a bit like Bobby McFerrin.

If you are worried about the bass end of the choir being picked up by the mic, you may want to spot mic the bass section for a little more volume, the bass section often gets over run by the sopranos and alto sections. I would not try to enhance the bass end with EQ after the event as I don't think it ever sound natural.

Alan.
 
I regularly work with basses who have great ranges. If you skip to the end of this track, the basses get down a tritone below that low E (!) to Bb (you should listen to the whole thing though...)

 
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