Mike Rivers

It's all about gain structure. With a mic preamp, we don't want to get the signal into the headroom level range, except maybe just a little for a bit of, well, you know, distortion. But it's easy to overdo it with a guitar amplifier because, by nature (that is, the "nature of design"), they have lots of gain on the front end. But just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it. The back (speaker) end will only get so loud.

My approach is to get a clean sound first - with the stipulation that "clean" means sounding like whatever crap is coming out of the player's amplifier. Then we can start mucking it up from there, or, if he doesn't like the recorded sound, tell him to change it - he has control over the knobs and strings.

Well, I'll try to think of what I have on the shelf. I have more than one of several mics, not as stereo pairs as such, but just because if one mic is good for a particular application, it might be good for something else, too. I don't believe I have any "one trick" mics. EV 654 (my first good microphone, used it with my Ampex A-122 and 600 recorders) Shure SM 57 Beyer M260 Beyer M260 with a Stephen Sank RCA 77DX style ribbon Beyer M160 Beyer M88 AKG C451 (cardioid and omni capsules) AKG D224 AKG C414 B-ULS AKG D12 Sennheiser MD421 Echolette that's supposedly the same as a Sennheiser 409 Fostex M55RP Cascade Fathead MXL 990 MXL 991 Audio Technica AT812 Audio Technica 813 Shure SM-11 AKG C-567 Neumann U87 Neumann KM84 Samar A95 TZ Stellar X2 Studio Projects LSD-2 A Crown measurement microphone Sony ECM-21 (my first condenser microphone - bought in Japan for $25 equivalent in 1969, half the price in the US) Radio Shack PZM That's a pretty long list from a guy who can't remember what he ate for breakfast this morning. I'l look to see what I missed but the mics are at the other end of the house from where this computer is.

I feel the same way, but I think that a big part of it is that I don't know the vocabulary for a great guitar sound or what to listen for. I also don't work on projects that involve a lot of guitars, so the subtleties that let you separate one guitar from another in the mix go right over my head, or in one ear and out the other. If I think (and the artist agrees) that the guitar sounds good in the song, that's all I care about and we can move on. It's hard to imagine a mic so special that it can get a sound that you can't use and you have to get out another one.

It might be simpler than I think. I just ran across this DIY article on another forum - an Ethan Winer project to add distortion. It's not targeted directly to guitars, even though Ethan is a Tele player, but the circuit is passive and very simple, and reminiscent of Craig's red LEDs wired across a guitar signal. In this design, one diode across the signal gives you even harmonics and adding a second diode in parallel with opposite polarity gives you odd harmonics (probably in reality both even and odd harmonics). I'll have to play with that. Here's a link to the article: Build the Mojo Maestro (Audio Express magazine)

It's pretty much a universal fact that, in the real world, distortion is very low until you get very close to running out of headroom somewhere. That's usually a pretty sharp knee, so there isn't a lot of dynamic range between darn near full clipping and the onset of some harmonics that aren't present in the source. So to me, "respond well to dynamics" would mean that that's a softer knee. I'll bet there's a way to create that soft knee response by design rather than letting standard circuits do their thing. Maybe that's how they make one distortion box different from another. Another thing that they do - and I'm not sure how - is allow independent control over the percentage of even and odd harmonics. In a conventional amplifier, as you start to get closer to zero headroom, you start getting 2nd harmonics, then when the level goes up a little further, the 3rd harmonic comes in. I expect that they do this with circuitry (or virtual circuitry) to generate the harmonics with a input level close to, but lower than that of the whole box. So you can get some second harmonics without everything going to hell until you want it to. Right, indeed. To me, the guitar sound on that Jeff Beck song sounded just right - like an electric guitar should sound. But I don't sense the change (or no change) in harmonic content with the changes in volume, and that's pretty cool,

Thanks for the quick rundown and, as usual, excellent photos and summaries of the important facts. We've known Oktava mics for quite some time but those other names at the Russia booth were unfamilar. Will there be a re-run of your talk? You had the most interesting topic there.

Ahah! Another data point in my observation that most guitar pedals involve distortion - overdrive, artificial harmonic generation, tube non-linearity when improperly biased, and so in. It could be a delay or reverb pedal, but at least half of them coming out in the last couple of years will have a "drive" knob. I never knew that what particular flavor of distortion on a guitar could be "just right." Of course there has to be some distortion - it's part of the sound of an electric guitar - but it used to be that just the right settings on whatever amplifier the guitarist was using was "just right." Ain't it grand how we have so many ways to spend money to make what to the end listener what would be a subtle difference, if noticeable to anyone outside the studio at all. Of course it's easy to recognize "just wrong" distortion, but it's easy to avoid that once you learn what the knobs do and how to play the part.

Oh, no! It's been more than 24 hours since Craig's workshop and we still haven't heard from him. Either he was having too much fun or someone should check the list of new Covid patients. I'm hoping for the former, and that his presentation was, as usual, well received. I was hoping that there would be a "virtual NAMM" to watch his talk, but I couldn't find one. Maybe later on YouTube?

Do guitar players still tote racks of gear? I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the trend was to use pedals that were more convenient than a rack mount unit or two. Frankly, as a barely electric guitar player with a couple of 30 year old pedals and some rack mount gear in the studio, I think the rack gear is easier to use, though perhaps more trouble to tote, traded off with a pre-assembled pedal board to serve as the "rack." I guess it's what the marketing department researched and found where the enthusiasm lies. I suppose that in order to really appreciate these pedals either you had to be completely new to IK and T-Rack or you had to be very familiar with the T-Racks family and dreamed you could have a pedal with this or that effect from the toy box.

My clips still work, so do lots of others. The people who have problems with the clips are mostly stage people who are in to much of a hurry to break down after a show, Grab the mic the wrong way, that is, mostly by the clip, and the clip can unlatch easily with the slip of a finger. I studied it once to see what all the fuss about disengaging clips was and I figured out how it was most likely to happen - carelessness. Which of course has nothing to do with female vocals.

You're making it sound really scary. I hope that AES and NAB shows in October won't sound so risky. Keep your mask on and hold your breath.

I just got a press release from IK Multimedia about a new series of pedals that (I imagine) they're introducing at the NAMM show this weekend. The Amplitube X-Gear line consists, currently, of four pedals, one each for distortion, time-based effects (delays, chorus, phasing), reverb, and modulation. These serve as hardware hosts for a set of algorithms from the Amplitube collection. The idea is that you can have exactly the same processor in hardware for live playing as you do in software for DAW use. It's not as flexible as the Muse because it only involves processors from a single company, but that solves one of the Muse's problems. While I don't use them, Amplitube's effects have a pretty good reputation. Even Craig likes some of them.

There have been a few replaement clips for the MD-421 over the years. One was essentially an all metal copy of the standard clip. Some MD-421s have been bought for less than that metal clip. One that I've seen advertised recently is plastic and has a ring that slips over the XLR connector and something to prevent the original clip from slipping off. It's called the Mic Lock and comes in two styles, one to fit the original MD-421 and another to fit the newer MkII. Cost is around $30.

You mean that they're encouraging people to play music live, on real (though not necessarily made of wood and metal) instruments? What a concept!

I have four C451 cardioids plus two omni capsules for them. They served me well in the 80s and I still don't hesitate to pull one or a few out when they seem to be appropriate and I rarely end up swapping out something else for them. In my banjo camp workshops, I put a C451 next to my MXL 991, make a little recording, and compare them. The AKGs are the winner every time, but when I can gather a few other players and record the two mics together in the context of a band, the apparent differences are smaller and the MXL would have worked just fine. As has been said many times, "best" depends on a lot of things, and sometimes what's best doesn't always matter as much as we'd like to think.

Well, there's "better" and "better for $50," as well as plenty of similar mics for sale used for around $50. That's a tough field to play, and if you actually needed a small diaphragm condenser mic, I'd suggest that you need it enough to be worth spending more than $50 on it. I'm kind of curious about those PreSonus SDCs that are $139/pair with a stereo bar to boot. Based on the most-of-the-time fact that PreSonus' stuff is worth what you pay and a little more, they might be a decent buy - if you have a use for them.

I rather enjoyed the Summer NAMM shows because the booths I wanted to visit were usually less crowded than at the Winter show or AES. I stopped going, though, because hotels got too expensive. But they are everywhere now.

Not that you need it, but the 991 is actually a pretty nice mic. A little noisy, but good for acoustic instruments in a band context. I ended up with one in one of those 990/991 deals and used the 991 in my "Recording the Plunky Old Banjo" workshops at Banjo Camp North.

Good troubleshooting, and a good lesson that all wall warts of the same voltage aren't alike. Now that I have the Mackie d8b set up, I'm looking for a headphone amplifier like that. In my previous setup, I had one power amplifier that I used for one or two mono headphone mixes, which was "good enough for who it's for" (as a friend used to say about a lot of things). The headphone mix(es) came from aux outputs on the console. The Mackie, however, has the brilliant "Copy Mix to Cue" button for two stereo outputs that are intended as stereo headphone feeds. I'd like to be able to take advantage of those, give the talent stereo mixes (starting point being the control room mix) if they want. So I need more channels to drive headphones.

Looks like their copy of the SM58. Has anyone put the two up side by side and compared them - on female vocals and other sources? That would be interesting. But for $20, probably nobody cares to bother publish test results. For an under-$200 (just barely) mic, I'm still liking the TZ Stellar X2 cardioid large capsule mic. There was a flurry about it a few months ago, but it hasn't hit the big time yet. Initial reports were that it's very close in sound to a U87. I've put it up against my two older U87s and agree that, at least for close miking (I couldn't tell a lot about the polar pattern) it was on the same order of difference between my two U87s. And while the U67 has the reputation for the greatest vocal mic, the U87 is more flexible and is a great all-around vocal mic, including for female singers. $200 direct from https://techzoneaudioproducts.com/products/the-new-stellar-x2-large-capsule-condenser-microphone or you can order one from Amazon.

If I recall correctly, API's first lunchbox accommodated 4 modules. It caught on so well that everyone wanted space for more modules, so six or eight became the common configuration. There was also a 1-space rack mount chassis that accommodated two modules sideways. The idea of combining a computer interface with the modules seemed a rather long time coming. Aphex had one before Cranborne but Aphex was bought by Rode about the time that product was introduced and, except for a few products (including the USB 500 rack), has faded into the sunset. Here's a Sound on Sound review of the Aphex USB 500 Rack. Again, more than you're dreaming of. One consideration is that metalwork is expensive. Every hole in the panel adds to the cost, and those module slots have to fit the modules correctly, the power supply needs to meet the current requirements, and how good do you want the A/D/A interfacing to be? I suspect that marketing departments for the lower cost audio interfaces have done a study and haven't found enough interest. But one never knows. If there's a likely candidate, I think it would be Behringer since they make so much stuff and have all the technology off the shelf except probably for VPR compliance. But the Aphex rack was $800, and Behringer would have to make it for about half that in order to have a chance in the market.

In the spirit of the well known principle of "you can't get just what you want, only more or less" may I present to you the Cranborne Audio 500R8. It's more than you want, but they have the right idea. I think it's a pretty clever box, particularly good for a traveling multitrack recording setup with some signal processing of your choice.

Congrats! I was going to watch that but forgot. I have a 990 here that's my "does it have phantom power?" test mic. It's actually not all that bad for a $50 condenser mic but I was always curious about upgrades, but not curious enough to mess with it. I have enough good condenser mics now that it doesn't hurt to have a "meh" condenser mic around when called for. Let us know how it goes.

Well, how many different ways can you make a powered speaker, or an analog mixer, or an audio interface, for that matter? You want a round speaker cabinet? or a mixer with the faders at the top? Specifications appear similar because there are certain "classes" of equipment - cost is a big factor here - that means that any speaker that's designed to cover an audience of 250 needs to have a certain amount of power and certain size drivers. There are tricks that can be played with efficiency that give a spec of 1000 watts for a powered speaker that uses a Class D amplifier rather than 250 watts for another that uses a Class AB amplifier, but that doesn't mean one is better than the other. Where you see more significant differences in design and frequently in front panel layout and control naming is in "boutique" items such as mic preamps, compressors, or reverb units. There's more room for design and application creativity with items like this rather than "commodity" items like powered speakers or PA mixers. The fact that you can mix-and-match system components easily is one of the benefits of making a lot of the external features pretty much the same across the board. For example, your mixers, outboard EQ and Sonic Maximizer probably all have 1/4" phone jacks for inputs and outputs, which may only differ in how they work (pretty much equally well) with balanced or unbalanced connections. If you switched to, say, a larger Allen & Heath mixer, you'd find at least some of the outputs on XLR connectors (which, conventionally also defines the operating level) so you'd need some new cables and maybe have to re-adjust input and output levels on other gear in your system to provide all the headroom that you've bought. It's not a big deal, but it's something you gotta do. If you were to dig into specifications, you'd find that there are some differences that might matter to you. It could be in mounting hardware, it could be in input and output connections, it could be in extra features like equalization (some being simple, others being rather complex), size, weight, and - very important and not often well stated in specs - directivity and coverage. Do you really need a 15" bass speaker, or will a system with a 12" speaker of somewhat different internal design provide the same or better coverage and save you a couple of cubic feet and 15 pounds? There's more to choosing a speaker system than size of the drivers and the price. In some instances, you can get away with the cheapest one and trust that the maker hasn't sacrificed reliability to save a few bucks, but more money doesn't necessarily buy better reliability, though sometimes it buys better build quality so the cabinet won't fall apart if you drop it when taking it out of the van. Sometimes, too, the reputation of the manufacturer is one of the better indicators as to which would be the best choice for you, but just about all of the lower costs products that have been around for a long time have had a black mark or two against them, which has almost certainly been cleared up in the next edition (which is one reason to be very careful when buying used). For example, Mackie's first Class D amplifiers weren't sufficiently heat-sinked when operated on their side as monitors due to the orientation of the heat sink fins. They figured that out after replacing a lot of amplifiers under warranty and it's no longer a problem. Who can you trust to give you the best recommendation? Sadly, just yourself. It's up to you to research more than just price.