I'm writing my degree on the U47 and need your help

  • Thread starter Thread starter md431
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That was really a lot of listening. The players worked great too. Very impressive set of samples and work.
 
The samples crapped out in the middle of the listening. Ill go back later.
 
I didn't have any issue listening to any of the samples. I will say I struggled with some aspects of the vocal tracks. I would have liked a piano track but we work with what we have.
 
I have to ask: The picture of the female vocalist doesn't look like she was singing in an anechoic chamber. Was she or not? If not. that will have an impact on the input signal.
That said, I did notice a difference between samples.
 
If you used the mics in question - it is realtively easy to hear the differences.
I agree that it is easy to differentiate mics. However, to state the obvious, some mics sound better that others on vocals, while others sound better on your other samples. It's almost impossible to compare transient response of a snare drum or the bass to either the male or female vocals. Same holds true for saturation.
 
I'm interesting in hearing what others have to say. Having ears that are 7 decades old, I probably can't hear a lot of the upper level hash that everyone else seems to hear.

Oh, to be young again!!!
 
Having ears that are 7 decades old, I probably can't hear a lot of the upper level hash that everyone else seems to hear.
I'm happy that my 7 decades old ears still function. No tinnitus, no ringing, just random hairs and ear wax.
 
thanks @CoolCat - I stepped in for the drums and acoustic guitar on those.

@TalismanRich yeah, piano would have been great but unfortunately the time schemes didn't line up. I did record piano for a backing track though, as I'll be mixing 5 different versions of the song using one type of mic exclusively. I'tll be Dream Little Dream of Me with Jazz drums, the female vocals and double bass. Didn't include the Jazz drums in this test as I felt the others provided more benefit.

@Old Music Guy fortunately it's just how our recording room looks in the university, bleak 70s design and worn down moving panels haha.
 
I agree that it is easy to differentiate mics. However, to state the obvious, some mics sound better that others on vocals, while others sound better on your other samples. It's almost impossible to compare transient response of a snare drum or the bass to either the male or female vocals. Same holds true for saturation.
One can tell from a Frequency Response Chart how a mic will react to different sources - but I wouldn’t normally compare transients of mics to guess whether they would work
on what source - maybe I don’t know what you are meaning?
 
I struggled. Like others, I liked one on one source and another on another. none stood out as good or bad, just different. However I had real problems with some questions. I don't know what some descriptive terms meant to you. I don't know how hard you drove the preamps - i don't know if the singers were singing up to some, or down to others - the angle of the mic to mouth. Centre pattern or a bit on the edge. There were none I hated, some just sounded nicer. Then I did it again using speakers. By this time I was in a different location so had forgotten my first choices. I did remember C and E, but on speakers, C and E were not my preference, so I repeated with different headphones and got a different third result. I have not submitted the second and third results, but if I did, it would mess things up as they would interfere with the the others.

Last thing - Old Music Guy reports his older ears are great, ECC always mentions his ears are quite limited HF wise - mine are OK, just tailing off above 13K. I note your end question about age. This is three 'oldies' with different ears, so how are you linking age? You haven't asked any questions about listening environment, so maybe some respondees listened on full band quality studio monitors, some on laptops. At best, we are all telling you our preferences. I still don't see how this produces qualitative data?
 
I struggled. Like others, I liked one on one source and another on another. none stood out as good or bad, just different. However I had real problems with some questions. I don't know what some descriptive terms meant to you. I don't know how hard you drove the preamps - i don't know if the singers were singing up to some, or down to others - the angle of the mic to mouth. Centre pattern or a bit on the edge. There were none I hated, some just sounded nicer. Then I did it again using speakers. By this time I was in a different location so had forgotten my first choices. I did remember C and E, but on speakers, C and E were not my preference, so I repeated with different headphones and got a different third result. I have not submitted the second and third results, but if I did, it would mess things up as they would interfere with the the others.

Last thing - Old Music Guy reports his older ears are great, ECC always mentions his ears are quite limited HF wise - mine are OK, just tailing off above 13K. I note your end question about age. This is three 'oldies' with different ears, so how are you linking age? You haven't asked any questions about listening environment, so maybe some respondees listened on full band quality studio monitors, some on laptops. At best, we are all telling you our preferences. I still don't see how this produces qualitative data?
Hi Rob, first of all thank you for taking the time and thanks for your feedback.

From the technical side, the preamps were driven moderately, usually 20dB - 28 dB of gain with plenty headroom left. Singers were positioned as shown in the pics on the second or third page of the survey - about 30-35cm straight infront of the bulk with some directly centered, the others on the side but all capsules angled at the mouth - all as close together as I could get them.

Regarding listening situation, I did not specifically ask about it, but emphasized the need for a studio quality playback situation (studio headphones or monitors) where I could. If somebody listened to this on laptop or on phone speakers, those results indeed would be compromised.. so I am relying on people not doing that. Usually this is not further confirmed in these kind of surveys. One could argue, that this question would be a good addition to the data set, to eliminate compromised data.

Regarding the age, it's something I'm tracking but not neccesarily planning on doing any connections with. If I happen to get a very large sample size, I could start if certain age groups preferred certain microphones, but I don't think my dataset will be large enough to comfortably draw such conclusions.

My goal of the thesis is

- to survey what audio affiniated people expect to hear when thinking of U47s and derivatves (is there a general consensus, does it differ wildly?)
- whether they can discern vintage units from cheaper options
- which units they personally prefer
- if the overall listening experiences match the sound aesthetic expectations (if there was some kind of consensus)

It is not able to, and not meant to, act as a guide or descision over what the best microphone is, whatever that should mean. I'm aware my results will be specific to the this test and setup and not able to be fully generalised - as is all science if you're not doing very large studies or metastudies. This is due to choice of microphones, artists performance, rooms, placement of microphones. Any change in one of these factors could produce different result. If one were to take it really seriously, you would have to test a heck of a lot more people on tons of more microphones on more sources to get some generalizable data. My time frame and bank account don't allow me to to that unfortunately, so I'm forced to limit my research to what I could pull off sensibly while hopefully covering a lot of bases.

So giving me your personal preference is exactly what I want and need. Regarding the terms I used ("Brightness, saturation" etc.) they certainly won't 100% mean the same to you as to me. I always included space to describe the listening experience in words that feld more comfortable if needed though.
It's impossible to define some of the terms, and if I did, I'm not sure everyone had the same knowledge or language to use or interpret them correctly. For example, an experienced audio engineer could measure 2-3dB peak reduction between 200-800 Hz, and possibly hear it this specifically too, but more people will feel comfortable saying the "mids are slightly compressed". In any case, we all tend to use these terms when talking audio in everyday life and we kind of have the same idea what they mean. So I'm going on that - if I get a moderately large data set, things should even out. And if only 30 people do the survey, I'm screwed in any case.

Hope this helps.
 
I'm interesting in hearing what others have to say. Having ears that are 7 decades old, I probably can't hear a lot of the upper level hash that everyone else seems to hear.

Oh, to be young again!!!
I looked for piano too but acoustic guitar was a good one.
Bass almost sounds good through a $5 Radial DI copy..it sounded good.lol
Vocals were good, the male gave it some volume and louder screams, and subtle.- a good example...Female was clear as often is, good sample.
Drums were maybe my favorite to listen to.
 
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any more updates on this study of the U47? what are your thoughts after comparing the real U47 to other mics?
it was a much more impressive bit of work than I assumed it would be.

enjoyed the old adverts/ magazine clips too of the U47 posted earlier.
Imagine a world before the U47 existed and fast forward to today and its U87ai

I see the UT Twin 48 was just released, that mic looks awesome and different enough to be interesting and cheap enough to look at it.
Too bad it wasnt released for the tests.

 
Hi @CoolCat, I've been deliberately trying not to listen to the recorded audio or form a opinion for a few weeks now, as I had to quite a bit while setting up the blind test, so I grew a bit cold towards everything. I'm in the middle of preparing both survey data to make some graphs, but will give everything a thourough listen before I see what the results were.

I'm inherently biased by just about everything, but will still try to form an honest opinion. I remember beeing floored by the Telefunken U47 with K47 capsule in the recording sessions, and if I remember it was one of my favourites. I'll get back to you soon when I've come to some final conclusion ?

Thesis is due in two weeks, so fingers crossed everything goes smoothly from here.
 
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