Allen Sides discussion including microphone preamplifier UA610

It can be watched on youtube on A Conversation with Allan Sides by Vintage King

Watching the Stars

Remembering our origin, where we came from (Song writer Manos Hatzidakis phrase). What is important in life and free. Like watching the stars at night with or without someone. When we look at the sky we see the past. In fact we see the past on everything we look at as light takes time to travel... I am trying to remember never to exchange something precious for something of less value as Dale Carnegie sugests.

Love is in your heart

This is what Nobel physicist replied, paraphrasing, love in your heart is more important than equation in your brain. If memory is correct it can be heard on one interview of someone asking him to explain physics for his mother.

On the chords of Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime - The Korgis

In order to make it simpler to understant these so refined chords, lets's present them in the D minor key which has ony one flat ie B flat, all the other notes are natural or white at the piano keyboard. Bass D, A D F. Bass step descending to C to B natural but right hand keeps playing A and D and F! Bass B flat and code (as on Bach Bass rules pdf) becomes B6 ie Bass bB, bB D G. Repeat the 4 first chords. After "I need your loving which is bass D, A D F, F is kept and bass becomes A, so adding the usual 3rd we have bass A, A #C F, then Bass G, G bB D F then keeping right hand the same and changing only bass to C, bB D F, then the chorus, Bass A, A C E, then B7 ie Bass bB, A D F, then E7 ie Bass E, bB D G (brilliant!), ends at F ie Bass F, A C F. World class masterpiece. Actual key is #C minor (3rd) or bD minor (3rd).

Building electronic constuctions without soldering

At your risk. If this post is not mistaken NASA electronics are hardwired point to point. And we are taught to make a strong electrical, mechanical connection before soldering. Then why not just do only this and be able to build somethig even on the beach. Rescent Pleiades preamplifiers, power amplifiers have been built this way, the sound is amazing, no noise problem. See rescent posts, on using wirewrap technique, Wago connectors etc.

Why do electronics and music mate so well?

Music is really air molecules vibrating. An electronic signal is electrons vibrating. A microphone converts air molecule vibration to a corresponding electron vibration at its output cable. Welcome to the analog world!

Sound Picture Recording and Reproducing Characteristics - D. P. Lowe, K. F. Morgan - Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers

Very important paper on creatingh flat frequency respone from recird producer's brain to listener's brain

What is a Pleiades microphone filter?

In many cases the signal from even a very high quality microphone is completely different from what the producer or listener has in mind. If a wrong for the purpose of a high quality recording (not sounding correct to the listener's brain) is fed to the signal chain (mic preamplifier etc) it may be too late to correct effectively without loosing quality. The reason for a microphone not sounding correct without a filter may be: Proximity bass boost effect, human voice recorded at low intensity but reproduced at high intensity, voice effort effect (when we sing sofly we create a broadband acoustic output, when we sing loudly we create a mid centered norrower band acoustic output. Great microphones such as RCA 77DX, Shure SM7 have the switchable bass reduction filter inside them so as to help the microphone preamplifier get the best possible signal or near to it. The Pleiades filter is just this, the inductor filter of say a 77DX, or SM7 etc being external put inside an XLR female to male barrel adaptor so almost any microphone can be used. The inductor is connected as on the classic microphones across the output of the microphone. For great high frequency detail the gentle slope high pass L,R (inducor in series with resitor) can be cascaded. So for example the signal path can be: microphone - Pleiades low cut filter - Pleiades gentle high pass filter - mic pre. Recently it was studied that the SM7 uses an inductor of 240mH. Recent Pleiades experiments showed that an SM58 at 16in can sound amazing with a 175mH to 175mH 1:1 transformer just after the mic and before the preamplifier. A high pass filter may not be needed as the capsule of the SM7, SM57, SM58 has an inherent high frequency peak. A Pleiades filter are usually put inside Neutrik XLR modules to create a nice looking XLR barrel adaptor that is small, light, beautiful with a color painted cetre for indentification of turnover frequency. The inductor is wound on a toroidal core so there is absolutely no noise, or noise picked up electromagnetically etc. Anyone can make a Pleiades filter, it is public domain as any other euroelectron or Pleiades idea that does not infringe a 3rd party.

How was the piano recorded on Clocks - Coldplay

Music studemt Jhanna sent an email to the record producer of Clocks-Coldplay, Ken Nelson who kindly replied to us on how the piano was recorded on this masterpiece. Blue Bottle mics with omni capsules fitted. They were placed about 2.5 feet above the strings and about 3 feet apart on Bosendorfer grand piano at Air studios in Hamsted, London.

Recording the piano

At your risk. Not at all easy. Large spaces help a lot, eg halls, tall ceiling, church, outdoors etc. Early reflections being recorded make a frustrating result. Recently better luck came while recording the big Yamaha grand piano at SNFCC library (books tower). It is a average to big recording space, high ceiling, acoustic treatment on walls, seats, one of the main walls missing (making the sound escape to the other areas) which makes a perfect or great absorber! The piano was recorded, while Aaron was playing, with just one vintage Electro-Voice 635a omnidirectional moving coil microphone. Experience recording directly to Sony TC-D5m with or now low cut filters sugests that no low cut filter is needed. Lid was closed (regulations of library), mic was at say 4 feet.

Liliya

It is a pleasure meeting by pure chance in the metro train Liliya. Smartly dresed on amazing italian shoes. Very kind like a princess. And a singer. Her youtube channel is Liliya.mp3 Thank you Liliya for the inspiration, your kindness and laughing joy you bring.

Beautiful air gap in signal transformer carrying dc

Watching the video interview on Allen Sides to Vintageking on the best studio equipment made by mankind, the UA610 preamp was mentioned. By briefly looking at a very low resolution reading and reading a comment on air gap used... It is very encouraging as Pleiades amplifiers are really naturally into this sort of thinking and doing. Class A operation (electrons flowing all the time) not just on the active device but on the output transformer too. Allen sides says the UA610 old version sounds so lifelike.

Some quotes of Edwin Armstrong

https://www.bookey.app/quote-author/edwin-armstrong (perhaps for me seize the day may not be appropreate as it places stress and hurry, and hurry actually creates delay due to accidents). Instead perhaps the Tao Te Ching quote "She or he who sails slowly, sails far" is more appropreate for me. All the other posts are so moving.

The greatest problem of mankind...

Paraphrasing form Edwin Armstrong's (electronic engineer inventor of broadband FM amongs so many other inventions). The greatest problem of mankind is not what we do not know but what we know and it is wrong.

One of the problems of mankind

By Michalis. If an old lady comes along and tells that in order to restore your lost hair you can do this, and asuming she tells the truth, almost no one will beleive her.

Some of euroelectron's mistakes

There are many but here is one. It was thought in the early days of euroelectron that mic should be next to mouth. Far from truth, 12in or more as seen on classic Columbia 30th street church studios photographed sessions gives an amazing vocal sound. Archtect and sound engineer Hatznicolaou adviced to mic the nose, not the mouth. Rescent Pleiades experiments as written on euroelectron are done with mic at 16in, above head at 45 degrees from head, micing the head, not just mouth or nose. Head vibrates too and emmits sound. So many values of inductance for microphone filter to compensate for the bass boost proximity effect can be erroneous. But they are still very much perhaps needed but the inductance must be higher since the bass boost starts at a lower frequency when a high mic to source distance is used. See for example the rescent post on SM58 using a 175mH to 175mh signal transformer at the output of the microphone. See also other posts made in the more rescent years for better values of inductance including the Pleiades gentle slope high pass filter made with 130 ohms in series with only 20mH and the total in parallel in microphone's output. Here the turnover point is high in frequency to create the sparkle that is so much liked in produced vocals but the series resistor reduces the slope so that the vocal sounds correct with correct body. The point to remeber is that it is not only proximity effect that needs to be compensated. There must be flat frequency response not only from mic to loudspeaker but from the whole chain, from vocal chords of singer to listener's brain. And if we take it further from producer's brain to listener's brain. See references, bibliography on past euroelectron posts.

Thank you Pano for showing me the way many years ago on JFETS, very simple schematic, with K163

The classic and of course ingenious anode or drain or collector follwer single eneded in class A (electrons flowing all the time) amplifier, sounds amazing and so low noise especially perhaps at very low currents for low noise small signal amplifiers. And such schematics of course sound amazing too for power amplifiers. Thank you Lefteris too for bringing to my attention the classic Neumann U47 microphone schematic, same configuration too.

Pleiades 2 K117 RIAA 9 Volt powered record player MM cartridge preamplifier operating in class A is ready in box

It sounds amazing and huge and lowest noise, see previous post. The size of the aluminium box is a bit more that a 7" single on one dimention and a bit less on the other. The lid may be made from transparent orange plexiglass. No soldering has been used on this. How? Everything was wirewraped, and small components were inserted in the Nickel brand from Taiwan breadboard. Even on the Neutril beautiful XLR female RCA D type chassis connectors a tiny hole and been created with a circular drill vice for hand making acuurate holes. Then the thing solid core teleco wire was wired around the signal terminal a few turns. Surprisingly perhaps then is absolutely on noise problem on the preamp. Everything sounds so big and at the same time low low even using the low output tiny Stanton EEE AR stylus. For hygenic, possible signal contamination problems, it was decided to stick to perhaps Nasa's point to point mechanical joints but without then using solder.

When given an extremely low volume, so low i could barely hear the backing track, even i could sing beautifuly in tune

Why do most of us including many singers sing out of tune and below ie flat rather than sharp?

One important explanation seems to be on the begining of chapter :The Influence of Mind, on the fabulous book Sound and Hearing - Stevens, Warshofsky created after so my experiment at the Harvard university's Psycho-Acoustics lab. At high sound intensity the brain hears the same frequency flater ie with lower pitch. So the singer thinks she, he is singing correctly in tune, but in fact everything is below in frequency by a little but very annoying amount. And this may make a potentialy hit song not a hit song at all. What do the Whitney Houston level singers do? Do they sing on purpose higher so that the mistake sounds correct? Do they get a very low volume output to their headphones so that their brain hears the correct pitch on the backing track? Do they have immunity to the pitch change by highter intensity? Do they get their voice loud enough on their headphones so that it sounds flat too as well as the backing track, and the producer fiddles with the mix until intonation is correct? Phil Ramonne on his book Making Records states clearly that whenever a problem of intonation by the singer is encountered the first thing to take care is the headphone mix... Also Sir George Martin states in his All you Need is Ears (if memory is correct) book that good singers when they say sing just a note on their own the result sounds in tune with itself, meaning (if memory is correct on reading the book) that the overtones of their voice sound in tune with the fundamantal to the listener's brain...

On making the Pleiades 175mH:175mH (not 200mH or 240mH as fewer turns of wire were used) microphone filter for SM58

As can be seen from the title it is a transformer ie there are 2 coils hugging each other, rather than just one coil as in ordinary Pleiades filters. So it not only low cuts but isolates too as each wire is not electricaly touching each other. They communicate through the music sent as an electromagnetic wave from one coil to the other. It may be called the Pleiades Liliya microphone filter if Liliya agrees. It took yesterday and today to make it. 0.16mm diameter wire was used. 2 small Leukosilk spools were wound with a few meters of such wire each. Then hand was holding the 2 ends of both wires and wound both of them on a wooden stick along its lenghth. The thin wooden stick has wood removed from its ends with a tiny file so that it can accomodate the wire. Then both wires were wound with the help of the wooden stick through the small Magnetec 073 nanocrystaline toroid. This way of simultaniously windiing 2 wires seems to be called bifilar. It looks as if only one wire is wound. Each wire at any point in space is at the same electric potential (voltage) to its pair. So there is no or minimal capacitance between them. Using a Siemens if memory is correct similar size ferite core wound bifilar way, the frequency response was flat up to say 450KHz! It was a nightmere to keep it extremely tidy without each coil jumping over the other but it still looks very nice. About 69 turns were wound for each wire to fill the toroid space and give an inductance of about 175mH for each coil which should also be great for omnidirectional microphones as a nice low cut of bass prominance of environment and usuful signal. The inductor was placed inside Neutrik modules to look really profesional and beautiful and today afternoon was ready. It was tested then with male singing voice indors, outdoors (noisy balcony) and staicase. Singing the phrase I like you just the way you are - Billy Joel. Mic distance was 16in or 19 in. Without the filter, ie mic on its own, the sound was bass heavy, full of boominess even at the balcony. With the usual German inline transformer of 230mH:290mH(?) (470mH at low frequency), the vocal sound much clearer, with very nice midrange, high frequency detail, just a bit of mudiness. With the just made Pleiades 175mH:175mH signal transformer bass mudiness from proximity effect etc was completly removed, midrange was very nice and big but a bit standing out too much, high frequency detail amazing, like a ribbon mic perhaps. The sound as heared sounded close to the Billy Joel quality as recorded by Phil Ramone on apparently a Beyer M160 double ribbon microphone. Anyway I am not Billy Joel. Signal path: indoors, or noisy outdoors, or staircase, male singer singing Just the way you are - Billy Joel - Shure SM58 Mexico at 45 degrees from above towards nose at 12in to 19in distance - Pleiades inline 175mH:175mH high pass filter transformer - Sony TC-D5M on Left channel - monitoring through its tiny spaker or Sennheiser HD-580 or Pleiades 2N3053 single transistor amplifier in class A feeding Celestion Ditton 150 in a small reverberent room The best recording was the one done on noisy (machinary and birds) outdoors. Actually a Pleiades (130 Ohms, 20mH) gentle slope high pass for adding crystal clear sparckle may not be necessary as the SM58 capsule has an inherent high frequency boost. Good luck if you decide to make one.

On getting a good studio master finished product quality take with a Shure SM58, SM57,...

Since Michael Jackson used an SM7 and possibly Whitney Houston while recording in the studio and by viewing the schematic on coutant.org we can see there is a low cut incuctor of 240mH inside the mic for creating the proximity compensating low cut filter... And since the SM57, SM58 seem to have the same capsule as the SM7... And since the inductor is connected in parallel to the output of the mic... Then why not creating an inductor and placing it inside an XLR female to male barrel adaptor so that we approach with many microphone what the legendes used... This is the idea behind the Pleiades inline filter created a few years ago and published on euroelectron. Also Michael Jackson sung with many cylindrical sound absorbers around him, possibly to extinguish early reflectrions. Fairly rescent Pleiades experiments are done using the fabulous acoustics of outdoors... Anyway, after meeting Liliya and then seing her performing live on youtube with her band possibly holding an SM58 it was decided to create a passive filter for an SM58, SM58, Unidyne III etc with an inductor of close to 200mH which surprisignly had not been made yet although most other values of inductance have alreay been used on Pleiades filters.

A simple microphone experiment for better vocal sound

At your risk. Needed a microphone, a recording device, could be even a mobile phone, A usual place like a living room, a extra quiet outdoors recording place. One take is recorded holding the mic above head about 12 inch from nose indoors. Then the same outdoors. You can be amazed by the difference outdoors makes. It sounds close, intimate, no s problems, no bluriness, focused, inteligible, less bass heaviness crystal clear, and the singer sounds much younger., It sounds profesional. One reason may be... no close reflections which come back to the mic very quickly since they are from close objects. It is usuful to remeber that the mic has no brain to forget capturing early reflections. See also the Motion Picture Engineering book refered to on older euroelectron posts. If a good mic is used compensated for flat frequency response from producer's brain to listener's brain such as passive inductor Pleiades microphone inline filters, to result can be amazing.

Hit Songs may need a few electrical signal transformers ( 2 coils of wire hugging each other) in the analog signal path.

Some microphones even have one inside them, for example Shure SM57, SM58, RCA 77DX, Perhaps AKG D25 etc. Why do they create a magical sound? They recreate the music signal as the first wire is not connected to the other, music energy is transfered by an electromagnetic energy wave. They may introduce a subtle high frequency rise, see Rupert Neve interviews on youtube...

Just 2 SM58 coincident pair at right angle to each other can cover a PA concert

It was tried at Castaniani village of magestic view in the north part of Hellas, full of maintains and super clean air. Shure SM58 has no bass boost proximity effect (ie frequency respone is getting flat) at say a distance greater than 1 meter. So mics were placed in front of conductor, singers were placed about 1 meter away in center, behind them there were acoustic or amplified instruments, behind them a choir. Each PA speaker was placed behind each mic, so that feedback would be minimum. The venue was outdoors on a magnifiscent August night. The Yamaha if memory is correct mixing desk was only used as an amplifier with perhaps a bit of reverb. Roadies were very releved that they had so little to carry. Everybody was happy after the concert and congratulations were given...

Did you know A.D. Blumlein...

electronic engineer, one of the best in the history of mankind, inventor of the modern stereo disc cutting method of 2 deegrees of freedom at 90 degrees to each other for each left, right channel while cutting the groove with music, inventor of the coincident mic pair technique with each directional mic at 90 degrees to the other... On the first date with his to be wife, he took her on a trip to the sky, flying with her an aeroplane... Reference: The Life and Times of Allan Dower Blumlein - Rusell Burns - IEE history of technology series

Microphone comparison: Sennheiser MD421-II, Neumann TLM 103, Electro-Voice RE20 with or without Pleiades gentle slope high pass filter (130 ohms, 20mH)

Only the RE20 was tested with or without Pleiades filter and its internal low cut was on at both cases. The test was done on 24011817 date time code at SNFCC studios. 2 women and 2 men of young age, active in the audio engineering were the listeners. The test was quasi blind in the sense that Lefteris was playing the different files, so he knew, Fotini, Fey might had been influenced by him as he was the first to vote everytime, and i may be biased as i could more or less guess which mic with filter was which, but the rest 3 of us did not know which mic file had been playing through the Genelec coaxial monitors. Kelly who had booked the session did not turn up being ill so it was decided to record Fey singing Hurt - Cristina Anguilera using the original backing track from the CD single. The recording room is small but treaed acousticaly. Mic was in front of singer at bout say 8-9 inch. i would have possibly prefared 12 inch for less proximity effect and from 45 degrees above singer's head. but we did not do much mic placement tests. An objective of this test was whether we could make a vocal sound as good as Christina's. And whether the Pleiades filter would make the sound close to that without further EQ. 1st mic is MD421 with its low cut almost full, (I guess it would have sounded better with full low cut). While we were testing before recording (mabe greater mic distance) i was impressed with the clear sound of this microphone. Score out 0f 10, Le:6, Fo:6, Fe:4, Ge:5 (George). Total:21 2nd mic EV RE20 with Pleiades in line filter. Le:7, Fo:8, Fe:7, Ge:5, total:27 3rd mic Neumann TLM 103. Le:9, Fo:9, Fe:8, Ge:3, total:29 4th mic EV RE20 with its low cut only, Le:7, Fo:5, Fe:6, Ge:3, total:21 i gave on 2 cases 3/10 as i was hearing bass heavines compared to Christina's original backing track + vocal that we were comparing. Lefteris commented that he was imagining how the TLM will sound after eqing it. We were happy that on the higher rated cases we could approach the quality of recording of Christina. Fey did a great singing job. Many thanks to all participants and SNFCC. The files may have been deleted.

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