SouthSIDE Glen said:
Personally I kind of like the idea of a graph as graphs can convey a high density of information in a very fast and clean manor (unlike one of my typical posts
.)
That said, though, I'm not sure I quite get that microphone graph, as it seems to me that there's a bit of a conflict between the two axies. For example (without commenting on the specific mics themselves) how can something be extremely dark or bright and very transparent at the same time? Or, put another way, aren't "bright" and "dark" forms of coloration in themselves?
G.
Graphs are fine and everything, but I think it's a generalization to trust that sort of thing too much.
For example, there might be a graph with an axis that goes from "dick" to "asshole". Now for the sake of argument, let's say it clearly showed that Ford Van is a dick and chessrock is an asshole.
No problem.
Now let's say the second axis went from "giver" to "receiver" and depicted beyond refute that our illustrious club wagon is a giver and chescrock can't get enough.
One might be able to infer that these two are in love.
Whoa, Nellie! That's reading a bit too much into things, I would think. Perhaps checkscock is mad with desire for the man-o-van who, in turn, would be practically oblivious to this poor idiot's obsession merely because of his obvious inability to communicate properly. That's not exactly paradise, and a graph isn't a very good way to deal with such subtle complexities.
I've always thought that bright to dark meant tone in terms of audio, while transparent to coloured is a reference to distortion, but distortion of such a subtle nature that we're not exactly talking about a true square wave here. That's all very nice and everything, but consider that the TLM103, KM184 and 603S are all sitting very close to each other. They're all medium bright and coloured, but probably different enough from each other that it's misleading to think that they're all going to sound the same. They don't look the same. They don't cost the same. They aren't made with the exact same components. At best, the chart might serve to help people figure out what the terms mean, and a very rough ballpark idea of what the mic might sound like. I noticed that all the ribbon mics except the C&T are sitting on the dark side. That might be sort of useful to know, but the only real way to know exactly what one of these mics will sound like for you is to get one and use it. Again, I find it difficult to believe that an Oktava pencil mic sounds like a vocal ribbon mic, but taken for what it is, I still think it's a pretty cool looking chart.
sl
