The best parametric EQ on earth with a next to nothing cost

At your risk.


It is revisiting the great idea explained by Lou Burroughs (Electro-Voice) in his book. [Burroughs]


Signal path:


Male singing voice in untreated room - 2 Beyer M119 omni microphones connected deliberately out of phase - (Pleiades (130Ω,40mH) filter if needed) - Sony TC-D5 as mic preamp - Sennheiser HD580 - listening singer's ear brain perception


"Technology is doing a lot with little"
Michalis


How does it sound like?


When mics are equidistant in front of singer, almost nothing is heard as expected. This verifies that the particular setup is corrects connected, that mics are matched etc.


By holding both mics by hands...


When distance of mics is several feet all sort of ambient noise can be heard, similarly to listening through an ordinary setup with just one mic. Birds can be heard, but also room ambience, bass heaviness, the very low frequency sound of neighbours' air conditioning, machinery etc.


As mics are approached a parametric low cut frequency effect sets in. Machinery, low rumble etc disappear.


Mics further approaching and mid ambience disappears.


Mics further approaching and only HF content of birds etc can be heard.


The same happens when one sings only to one of the mics while moving around the other.


Voice bass heaviness disappears, as distant mic move closer.


The good thing is that nature provides with an infinite choice of cutoff frequencies. Just by changing the distance of the far mic.


So the ideal of flat frequency response from producer's brain to listener's brain can be approached.


Advantage is the disappearing of much of the ambient sound as well as room bass heaviness etc.


The Pleiades filter was connected too for comparison or additional effect.


Except for producing a very bright sound it is not needed.


The Pleiades filter on its own sounds similar to the above setup while producing a bit more HF.


But the 2 mics out of phase setup, sounds great with perhaps a better or more emphasized midrange.


Mics were just connected in series, ie pin 2 of one mic to pin 3 of the other and remaining pins to mic input. Actually this has the advantage of creating a 200Ω + 200Ω = 400Ω resultant magic mic.


Ambience visits more or less equally both mics and since they are connected out of phase it cancels.


Am amazing trick.


Reference


Microphones - Lou Burroughs