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Harvey Gerst said:
May I humbly request that you read the first two stickies in the Microphone Forum, which date back 6 and 7 years ago?
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Or if we had signatures back we could link to these threads, stickies and articles that we have already written. The vast majority of users never abused signatures and are suffereing because of the actions of the few.

I have pointed out how they can be reinstated with ease and little moderation. I for one would appreciate the chance to add some links to scales, tunings and temperaments information that used to be in mine to save the effort of posting them when the subject comes up, as it does often. Also many people actually used to read them anyway.

How about it.
 
muttley600 said:
Or if we had signatures back we could link to these threads, stickies and articles that we have already written. The vast majority of users never abused signatures and are suffereing because of the actions of the few.

I have pointed out how they can be reinstated with ease and little moderation. I for one would appreciate the chance to add some links to scales, tunings and temperaments information that used to be in mine to save the effort of posting them when the subject comes up, as it does often. Also many people actually used to read them anyway.

How about it.
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And like I've said before, sigs are very helpful for sharing music. The vast majority of folks who used them had a link to their music page. Considering the thrust of this site is people trying to learn how to record, and other trying to teach it--music links are critical.

If I'm spouting off about how to track killer guitar tones, some newb ought to be able to go to my music and see if he likes my guitar tones. At least then he knows if my advice is worth the pixels used to print it...
 
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I miss my SpankShed music link too...anyone could go straight to my music and see I didn't know anything I was talking about!!!:D
 
mshilarious said:
What was written. It's flat out wrong. Voltage gain isn't the primary purpose of a buffer amplifier on a condenser mic capsule. If it was, you wouldn't need a FET. Or put another way, you wouldn't need an amplifier in the mic at all, just use a mic preamp.

But the capsule is extremely high source impedance, which is another way of saying it only puts out a wee tiny current, which means that if you don't get an amplifier really close to the capsule, you won't have much signal left at all. But the open-circuit voltage is actually rather healthy. So the only thing the capsule FET really needs to do is act as a current amplifier.

That's not to say that is the only configuration of a capsule FET, but it is indeed common. The well-known Schoeps circuit, for example, has the capsule FET in phase-splitter configuration, which is unity (voltage) gain, followed by a PNP pair which is also just another current amplifier (because the source impedance of the FET is still too high to drive adequately long cables).

Why not just strap a BJT on the capsule? Because the input impedance of the BJT is far too low.

Now, do some mics take voltage gain on the capsule FET? Yes indeed, not because it's necessary to get a reasonable level of sensitivity, but in order to minimize noise in the circuit (such that the only major source of noise is the capsule + FET).

Tube mics work a bit differently; often you'll find these in plate follower configuration, which adds quite a lot of current and voltage gain. The reason for this is tube plates are better at voltage gain, and they will be followed by a transformer which swaps the high voltage for more current. Another way to do that is which a cathode follower configuration, which dumps out lots more current (but no voltage gain), but still requires an output transformer (as far as I know, I don't do much with traditional tube mics).

I mean, I hate to be rude, but these articles have the tenor of those that think there are four types of condenser mics: tube, FET, electret, and "regular" :rolleyes:

Why does this matter? Well, because if you're going to get far in audio engineering, at some point you must wrestle with impedance, and that necessarily leads to Ohm's Law, and amplifier concepts . . . screw up the terminology, and you hinder the student's eventual progress. Most people do not need to know what I just wrote, but they do need to understand line vs. mic vs. instrument levels (voltage) and impedance (current), for example they need to understand why plugging a dynamic mic directly into a line input on a converter won't work too well, and these are all related concepts.

Off on vacation now, enjoy reading Harvey's thread! :)
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So, what you are saying is, the best rap mic for under $100 is.......:confused:
 
OK, back. See, here's the thing. Yes, I design, build, and sell mics for a living, 2.5 years now. But the funny thing is that I think I'd barely make the top 10 sometimes or frequent posters in technical microphone knowledge, and nowhere near the top 100 in practical microphone usage. I mean, I've never seen a Neumann in my life. A friend of mine with a tracking studio around the corner has a U87, but I've been remarkably incurious enough to ask him about it. I mean, what am I going to do with it, sing? Trust me, you don't want to hear that.

So on technical knowledge, Harvey's threads are already up at the top. Other than hosting the summary .pdf of that thread, there is nothing more to be done. Then there's Michael Joly, Marik, the occasional Gus post, Brent Casey every now and again . . . Flatpicker and I think crazydoc and PhilGood have done tons of mods too.

My point here is the knowledge in my post above didn't originate with and is not unique to me. Were I to write an article about it, I'd be insulting the intelligence of the people who actually know what they are doing.

Which further illustrates how wrong that article was. I can excuse its many generalizations--you have to generalize in an article. But the few technical facts have got to be right, or please don't add it to this site because you make the people who know it's wrong want to leave so as not to be associated with it.
 
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