Thanks JP. That is good to hear because 'natural' is what I'm aiming for. Kind of bringing some of what I'm learning doing remote classical style recordings to the 'studio' and multitracking. Cheers.

I like that!

Thanks!

I like this one !
Probably I'll try my OM1's with my old Jecklin disk one day.

Just another piano recording in a nice big concert hall, on a Steinway

The OM1 works well with stereo discs even if they have a totally flat response. Jecklin discs and others are typically meant to be used with Diffuse Field Omnis but I think that it's because their main use is usually distance stereo (as a main pair). When used up close, say, a meter and a half away from the source, I don't see a problem using a linear response Omni as there's really no HF absorption taking place. As shown above, it works fine. At such close distances most Diffuse Field Omnis will produce a very sharp, bright image which probably won't sound that great.

OM-1 spaced pair at the tail of the piano (you can see them briefly at the end....2:03) It's the majority of the mix you hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcP8CeCf9GM

What inspired playing - what a dazzling piece of music - and luckily with a recording to match


...and BTW: What was the other part of the mix (besides the OM-1 tail end mics)?

::
Mads

KM183 Neumann spaced pair 45cm, but hardly there at all in the mix...

here is a short clip of a test recording I made in a nearby barn with flute and harp (the barn made too many funny noises, beams creaking, etc, so I doubt we will be doing any real recording there...). this clip is two OM1s used as spot mics, one on flute, and the other on harp. I also put up a main ORTF pair of km184s, but this clip is just the OM1s.

Nice one, James, nice one.

Thanks boojum. Btw, are you back home now?

I am an hour south of Paris now. I return to Holland on the 24th and home on the 29th. It has been great. Meeting Earcatcher and spending time with him has been great. He is an interesting polymath with a great sense of humor. All in all getting out of Dodge has been a wonderful experience.

I picked up a sennheiser mkh 20, and I will try to post some comparative clips of the senn and the line audio OM1 shortly.

Hmm ... that could be interesting; some 'acoustic' comparisons perhaps?

heva - what did you have in mind? my wife runs a flute studio, so solo flute will be my likely subject matter. I could do a bit of acoustic guitar or a mediocre baby grand piano, though I am sadly lacking in skill on either instrument...

It could be instructive for us all to hear the comparative sound at various distances in a large room, perhaps using these charts supplied by John as a starting point for optimal mic placement of the 2 test mics: https://copy.com/QiGKzzflTyQnPjjU

studer - that is an interesting chart for flute. I will try to provide clips at 2ft, 4ft. and 8ft out from the flute.

great..! And if you really want to go wild you can give us a more distant pickup with the MKH20's red slide diffuse field switch activated/off, for comparisons. You could even add/remove the pressure ring, if it came with one ?

I'm curious to hear it next to a mkh20 at some distance (room/mainmic or MID in m/s or so).

Just another forum member curious about this comparison. Remember MKH from earlier work and know OM1 quite well (surprisingly natural).



::
Mads

okay - here are a few clips comparing the OM1 to a sennheiser MKH20. this is just one of my wife's flute students, so the playing is a bit iffy. there are 3 sets of clips - one at about 2 feet out from the flute, one at about 4 feet out, and one at about 8 feet out. no EQ, no nothing. I did not change the recording levels between clips (didn't have time to fiddle with stuff). it was interesting watching the meters as she played - the two mics behaved quite differently according to the meters. if I get the chance soon, I will try to get some clips of flute with piano or something a bit more complex. anyway, see what you think.

That's a very helpful mic comparison, and as you'd expect given the price and technology differential the MKH20 does better in fishing out the 'micro-detail' of the instrument and the room, but the OM-1 isn't left standing at the starter-post either !

The MKH20 is less dark sounding than the MKH8020, and certainly has lost nothing to newer designs in terms of performance....you're still getting a truthful rendition of the instrument in space. More complex material, as you propose to test next, might reveal more differences...but I'm pleasantly surprised how they both perform.

Did you have the diffuse field slide switch in the off position....as you can see if you zoom in on this spec sheet, that switch gives quite a lift, whereas the OM-i is essentially flat: https://images6.static-thomann.de/pi..._datasheet.pdf

thanks studer - yes, the diffuse field switch was off. both mics seem to display a pretty flat response, exactly what you need for close micing of most classical instrumentation.

I need better ears or gear ... for me the samples are very close (listened on AudiofirePre8-AdamF5), mkh20 maybe a bit 'bigger/weightier'.
Thanks jnorman!

What is that high pitched whine that I hear in all the clips? Particularly audible in the silent parts. A spinning disk or fan of some sort? An MP3 artefact?

I found the differences between mics so big that I wondered if I was listening to different takes. But the timing was so perfect that they must be the same performances per distance. The flute in the Sennheiser samples sounds completely different from the OM1 samples. With lots more different sound aspects and varying dynamics. Strange.

Earcatcher - you have good ears. The high pitch sound is my wife's studio computer. She runs smartmusic on it all the time and for some reason it causes that noise. I forgot to have her close that app when I came in to do these clips. It is always interesting to have one listener think the mics sound very similar and another listener think they sound very different... Thanks for the comments.

But they were 3 separate takes....you don't have 3 MKH20's...right ?

I was wondering if the files at the same distance were different takes between OM1 and MKH20. So, instead of 3 takes, 6 takes. To my ears the differences between the two mics are really big.

The flutist is pretty consistent, but you can hear right away that he/she has problems getting the low register to speak cleanly in the 4ft and 8ft recordings (5-10 sec in). The timing of the breaths between phrases later on is also quite different.

EDIT: I see Earcatcher posted his clarification on his earlier statement right as I posted this. But I just loaded up a couple of the files in the DAW, and found that this is actually TWO takes. One take for 2ft, and then then the 4ft and 8ft are the same take.

I also hear the whine Earcatcher mentioned, and found something strange: The whine is worst in the 2ft MKH20 recording, but is progressively quieter in the 4ft and 8ft ones. For the OM1, the whine is worst at 8ft and progressively softer for closer distances. I wonder if this has to do with the different polar responses of the mics.

I also just looked up the polar plots, and the OM1 stays omni much higher into the treble: at 90deg off axis, the OM1 is only -5dB at 16kHz and maybe less than 2dB down at 8kHz. The MKH20 is already more than -5dB at 8kHz, and around -15dB at 16kHz. So regardless of which mic sounds better, they are at least going to sound pretty different from that alone, and the other significant specs are quite different between the two otherwise.

Three takes. One with both mics at 2ft, one with both mics at 4ft, and one with both mics at 8ft. The whine source is behind the flutist, so it gets further away from the mics with each successive take.