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borjam

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Everything posted by borjam

  1. At least in Spain the MD441 is the standard microphone at radio stations. I love it for live concerts, especially horns. It also saved my life with a violin once in a very difficult concert. A friend who had a voice over studio in Spain was a big fan of the CAD e300, which is not expensive. And speaking of "emulations", Austrian Audio, from the ashes of AKG, have announced a really curious beast: the OC 818. https://austrian.audio/produkt/oc818/ It's a dual diaphragm LDC which allows the user to record the output of both capsules, including a plugin to process them and adjust a custom polar pattern with programmable crossover points. The idea sounds interesting.
  2. Speaking of recommended mics, there is a Belgian seller on eBay offering AKG SE300B+CK93 at a very good price. I purchased a SE330B+CK93 combo and an additional CK93 and they are in perfect condition. Only complaint, the seller insisted on charging for the shipping of _each_ item.
  3. Now that I think of it, the main advantage of those 32 bits will be a better limiter implementation in software without degrading resolution.
  4. Yes and no As I intended to say, I can imagine an instrumentation microphone emulating the "personality" of another one intended for music. With limits of course (off axis response would be impossible!). But I am really sure my old SE2A microphones won't emulate a Schoeps! Don't get me wrong, *part* of a microphone characteristics come down to some eq, but there is a lot of reluctance against it and many multi microphone lockers could be almost equivalent to a lesser collection. In hindsight I think in the past I heard about audio plugins purportedly emulating different microphones.
  5. I think I heard of them some time ago. Interesting to somewhat copy the frequency response and distortion of popular microphone models. But what about the off-axis response which can be so important in an untreated room? Or, as they show the EV RE-20 as one of the emulated microphones, how to reproduce the lack of proximity effect? Will the plugin have a control to state the distance between speaker and microphone? I am really skeptical about this, I guess you can achieve similar results using some EQ in post. Last month I tried to explain a physicist friend what's the difference between the sound of different microphone models and why it's so important. I explained him that not only the on axis frequency response (which would be reasonably easy to replicate with EQ) matters, but also the off axis response and distortion. Of course it was trivial for him to understand frequency responses, noise floors and maximum SPL. But there are many sound characteristics that we are unable to represent just with a bunch of numbers. After all distortion is a non linear complex phenomenon and a mere percentage doesn't tell the whole story.
  6. Curious. I've always wondered about the 32 bit A/D converters mentioned in the SD MixPre specs. I imagine they play a role in gain staging (hybrid approach between analog and digital gain in the preamps). But it's just a guess of course. That said, the bits issue is a bit tricky. 32 bits of quantization in an A/D converter won't really translate into the full dynamic range you could represent with 32 bits in floating point. 32 bits FP is actually useful for processing.
  7. borjam

    scorpio!

    Beware, not all Ethernet switches are created equal. You can’t imagine the kind of crap you can buy.
  8. borjam

    scorpio!

    Betting on Dante?
  9. No I haven't. The C480 system is much more expensive and, well, despite the names we have on stage this is a non profit endeavour I do pay for the microphones I am wondering, though. Apart from the spectacular signal to noise ratio, which is irrelevant on stage a meter away from the drummer, is there any other advantage? I think I read somewhere that the CK63 and the CK93 have a similar sound although of course the noise floor on the former is much lower. Well, if someone visits Bilbao on a Thursday, bring a couple of C480+CK63 and we can try on stage Needless to say I will pay for the beers and a nice dinner.
  10. The CK93 has an amazing rear rejection. I begun using a pair on a piano for our jazz concerts this week. The stage is really tiny, there is less than 2 meters between the drum kit and the piano. Before the CK93 I was using a pair of Peluso CEMC6 and despite pointing the rear end to the drums I got a lot of bleed. As a plus, the AKG are less bright than the CEMC6 and a bit of proximity effect makes our piano sound like a bigger one. I guess their higher directionality also helps to cancel phasing problems between them. And seems that the off axis response of the Pelusos is not so good. I know this is about motion picture sound, but these microphones are amazing hypercardioids and I think these properties make them really valuable. Moreover, they are really cheap. I haven’t tried the other capsules except for the CK98 which has somewhat ugly sound. But it seems that they really nailed it with the CK93.
  11. I was having some issues with the unread content. If I go to activity->unread content it didn't display some posts that are shown on the "most recent replies" area. I think it's working now. Tapatalk can be problematic but I installed it recently on the Spanish Mac forum and so far so good.
  12. Something that happened me several years ago, I hope it will illustrate why it’s not a case of territoriality. I administered a Mac users forum in Spain. Suddenly I had serious family problems and I had to downsize responsibilities. So they found another guy who was reportedly a super expert on Linux and all that. The forum runs on FreeBSD but both are Unix systems and so the differences are minimal if you understand what’s going on. So, a week later I receive an email that says “How do I install Nginx? It was not a doubt about a particular aspect of it, but something that is trivial to find on the manual. So how long would be the answer to the OP? 500 pages like Jay Rose’s book? The guy I am talking about was mostly a bozo who thought that he would get quick one line answers for a one page manual topic. And he didn’t even bother to read the manual, or he would have specific questions. Reminds me of a child psychologist I heard once talking about homework help. If they ask for a specific trouble spot it’s fine of course. If they say “I don’t understand _anything_ and they are unable to point out a particular problem area it just means they didn’t bother to read it and they want you to do it for them Now, my recommendation for the post world and general audio understanding: “Matering Audio, the Art and the Science” by Bob Katz.
  13. Hmm. Wikipedia says that the VX1000 was famous because of its fisheye accessories. Makes sense, my brother has been shooting stakeboard photos since he was 16 (that was 1984) and I never saw him using a regular lens Actually I always poked fun at him about the guys show in the air upside down. http://www.confuzine.com/tag/jaime-marcos/ I'll ask him anyway out of curiosity. I also wonder, will it be a similar design to the Sony ECM-MS907?
  14. Anyway that is digital gain. Equivalent to adding some files to the ProTools tracks.
  15. borjam

    Tumbleweeds

    Nah they're going vintage. The 5 pin DIN connector is back!
  16. I got the Sachtler SN607 bag. An Anker USB-C battery fits on the bottom without problem and there's room for some cable management.
  17. Noise cancelling headphones cancel background noise reaching your head by phase cancellation by using microphones mounted on the cups. Of course it doesn't filter out any problems picked up by your microphones. So, clothing rustles, etc, will be heard actually better. While isolation headphones are better at removing high frequencies, noise cancellation excels with low frequencies. Phase matching for high frequencies is too critical, so it's not feasible. The advantage of cutting low frequency background noise is that our ears suffer from a masking effect from low frequency sounds. So, removing them can be really beneficial. In short: you will hear better what your microphones are actually picking up. Maybe some manufacturer has added some "intelligent" noise removal system? I don´t know if that's the case. I can say mine don't do that. I own a pair of Sennheiser PXC-550 and the sound is very good. Maybe not as "analytical" (ie, a bit overhyped in the high mids) as the MDR-7506 or the Ultrasone HFI-650, which are really good for monitoring, but I don't think they hide much. I have also a lighter pair by Sennheiser, I don't remember the model now. They are small over the ear ones with the typical "walkman style" form factor. Adequate for uncompromising situations but I wouldn't trust them for anything serious. They are a bit bassy and, moreover, given the small size they are prone to distortion (I think caused by some feedback between the speakers and the microphones) if the phase cancellation tries to cancel a strong bassy sound. For example, traveling by bus and hitting a bump. The PXC-550 doesn't suffer that problem. Moreover you have three different noise cancellation settings: 0, mid, high. Of course not all headphones are born equal. I tried a pair of Bose (I don't remember the model) and the result wasn't so good. Slightly better cancellation but a somewhat "boxy" sound. And if you want to punish someone, Beats are orders of magnitude worse than the worst torture device developed in the Middle Ages
  18. Inary is a lake in Finland, and the name of a friend’s daughter for example.
  19. I am sure all of us have heard of this on many places but it's worth having a notice posted here. In the last years there have been several high profile intrusions in popular (and important) Internet services. Adobe and Dropbox to mention two of them. The intruders got a huge database of usernames and passwords. The problem is, those usernames are often email addresses and most users reuse those passwords in other accounts. Which is very bad news for the user especially if the compromised password is used for the email account. I mean: Imagine your email address is justme@gmail.com. You registered on Adobe and you used the same password. That means that the guys who stole the passwords from Adobe may have the password of your email account. Maybe some of you have received a message from a place called https://haveibeenpwned.com warning abou the breach. The site I link is legit and you can check wether a username with your email address has been compromised. Note that, despite clueless news reports, your actual email account hasn´t been compromised unless you reused the same password. The site promotes 1Password, which is a very good password manager, but Mac OS X has a decent password manager built in as well. Now, the advice. First: Do not reuse passwords. Nowadays there are good password managers. Second: If you need to reuse passwords, make sure that each one of your important accounts have a unique (and good!) password. Which ones are the important ones? Any account linked to financial data, credit cards, software licenses, or, of course, email accounts. Email accounts can be used for password recovery in other sites, so email security is critical. Third: If you are reusing passwords begin changing them right now. Prioritize according to the previous recommendation. Email, banks, Amazon, eBay, Paypal, etc. You can also use the same website to check wether a password was found somewhere. It won't reveal the accounts to which it's linked, but it's a good way to know at least how unique the password is.
  20. I've often wondered about a Jecklin disk myself. Hope you can share some sound samples!
  21. Actually it's an interesting topic when discussed in a civil and rational way. In other areas not related to audio I've seen different cases of rebranded OEM hardware. In one of them, a marine aquarium filter sold under two different brands, there was a clear difference in product documentation. One of the brands included a thorough, well researched and well written manual while the other just had a placeholder. I could desribe one of them as a sheet, the other as a shit. Both units were identical as far as I know. (Note, I didn´t do sophisticated checks of important stuff such as the alloy of the pump shaft which can be an important difference for a marine aquarium). So, not all rebranded OEM products are born equal. - The Western brand selling them can offer a good technical support. You may even find out that comparing two brands selling the same unit one can give a superior technical support or offer superior warranty terms. That costs money (a lot!) and it certainly justiies higher prices. - The Western brand may have actually secured a supply/manufacture with higher grade components and/or some design changes. Only a thorough comparison would determine if that's the case. The outside look can be identical but, what about the inside? A good example would be the Sound Devices branded SD cards. Probably they not only have tested them thoroughly. If I were them I would have secured the supply with the OEM so that they don't make changes to the components or firmware without approval. And there are of course clueless brands beyond help. Several years ago I suffered a serious metal contamination incident in my aquarium with the sudden death of all my coral colonies. Before that they were growing a centimeter a month or so. Turns out the culprit was a poorly sealed magnet. To my horror, the vendor was unable to tell me the actual magnet composition. And they replied with nonsense when I asked why they hadn't sealed them with epoxy. So, not all brands relying on OEM suppliers are born equal.
  22. As far as I know they are not limiting it to Apple chargers, but they are picky with protocol details. So only power supplies supporting the power delivery standard will work.
  23. Ah yes, one of the old treasures of the BBC I purchased the dvds even. And the book by RV Jones is a terrific read.
  24. The Germans had radars as well. I highly recommend “The Most Secret War” by RV Jones. He describes some interesting differences between the German and British radar. Moreover, the main factor was how the British exploited the information obtained by them.
  25. I saw it and it's an exciting advance. That said I think it's a bit overblown to say that they have a commercially available quantum computer. After all they acknowledge that for now there's nothing you can do with it you can't do with a conventional one. I think the video was targetted mostly at investors in order to create some buzz. And yes, IBM is one of the very few companies that can eventually pull it off. Not many have Fundamental Physics research laboratories.
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