From Brandy to Mandy

 

From Chopin to Manilow to Manilow at Davis' Arista label to Moroder, Summer

 

If you are starting out make sure you know that...

At you risk.

This is a humble advice I wish I knew or followed since beginning recording in my teens. Unfortunately or fortunately it took me 25 or so years to realize a simple truth.

Even a few inch microphone distance can play a tremendous role in sound quality. The whole timbre of the subject recorded is changed.

For example even if the mic chain has bass, mid bass correction (to reduce bass, mid bass heaviness to listener's brain) changing the mic distance from 24in to 18in can give a seemingly hotter signal at the expense of change of quality.

 Al Scmitt who has recorded so many masterpieces including Africa byToto, on his book On Vocal and Instrumental Techniques emphasize the importance of mic distance. The great recording engineers were lucky to learn this way as at that time not many equalizers were available although the quality of them was excellent.

So the humble advice is use your ears and brain and make sure the monitoring system sounds correct, amazing, on legendary recordings!

Also you might like to make sure that the sound absorbers are seen by the mic, i.e. are at the back of the singer. 

See for example Amy Winehouse while she was recording Back to Black with producer Mark Ronson.

The microphone is the ribbon microphone RCA 77DX 

P.S.

Why just a few inch or change of angle make a difference?

The frequency response curve of the microphone changes, for example due to proximity effect, due to different angle etc.

Other matters needed to be taken into account:

The frequency response curve of our brain depends of the intensity of the wave displacing out eardrum. See Equal Loudness Curves also known as Fletcher Munson Curves

The frequency spectrum of voice depends on effort (low softly or low loud the singer sings).

The objective is flat frequency response not from production microphone to reproduction loudspeaker but in a much broader sense from producer's brain to listener's brain.

Further Reading:

Elements of Sound Recording - Frayne, Wolfe

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

Schematic of Pleiades K117 1.3V 2SK117 JFET microphone booster pre preamplifier

 At you risk.

A protective fuse must be connected in series with battery for safety.

A very high quality Bulgin AA battery holder is used in the prototype  which has almost 0 ohms contact resistance, very useful for noise performance.

The 1st stage of any system is the most important as any artifact, noise,... will be multiplied thousand of times by subsequent stages.

For circuit description please see a previous post.

 

It is very interesting how many Hellenic words are on the book of Clive Davis, (the great music industry player) titled The Soundtrack of My Life

for example:

Arista (the label Clive Davis founded)

cynical page 173

monolithic page 174

stigma page 179

onerous p. 182

Electra 183

Atlantic 183

aristocracy 189

talent 189,280

aphorisms 189

meteorically 190

Elektra/Asylum 191

Ecstatic 197

Catharsis 202

pantheon 205

anathema 211

thematic 214

barbarity 22

anthology 229

philosophy 231

diatribe 239

autonomy 242

methodically 243

autonomous 243

didactic 252

Pleiades K117 1.3V JFET 2SK117 microphone booster (pre) preamplifier

 At your risk.

Even a Pleiades (R,L) microphone inline microphone filter can reduce the signal substantially since it is a subtractive equalizer.

So this is an option, boosting the mic with a very low noise single stage pre preamplifier.

It operates with just 1.3V (in series with a protective fuse). Current consumption is about 23 microamperes! so theoretically a good AA battery should last for say a decade. Current consumption may be even less than a good quality SONY ECM series battery powered electret condenser microphone.

This mic pre preamplifier is designed to be used with a low output, high quality  moving coil or ribbon microphone but other types may much fine too. It is an amplifier operating in class A  i.e. (electrons flowing all the time), so distortion tends to 0 as signal tends to 0. At high levels it may gradual distort which may prove to be a good thing (Tubes vs Transistors, is there an audible difference? - Russel O. Hamm). The operating point Vd (quiescent drain potential) should not really be at mid point, so that clipping when it occurs is asymmetric giving even order harmonic distortion too which is euphonic. The very low power supply Vb=1.3V matches the very delicate and low output of a microphone and perhaps aids in getting the most of analog amplification character when input levels start getting hotter. Inspired by Neumann U47, low device current has almost always given impressive low noise results, see for example the Pleiades EF183 pre preamplifier. It was decided to built this preamplifier before building the Pleiades DK96 battery electron tube one stage pre preamplifier operating with 1.3V for heater and say 9V for anode (grid 2 and above, see previous post).

As it turns out after finishing yesterday building the Pleiades K117 1.3V in an diecast aluminum box, it is so low noise that it can read the thermal resistance (electron thermal agitation) of a 200ohm resistor placed at the input, as earlier versions of Pleiades battery powered electron tube or JFET preamplifiers can. When the input is short circuited even less (almost absent hiss is produced) even when the next stage for example  SONY TC-D5Pro preamplifier is at a relatively high recording level.

So here is the circuit description:

Neutrik XLR input pin 1 is connected to its next chassis pin. Pins 2,3 (live, return) are connected to input transformer primary. Input transformer is a studio quality Sowter 1:5 in octal base. Secondary pin 8 is connected to ground, pin 6 trough a 82nF capacitor to JfET gate. A metal film 1Mohm resistor is between gate and ground. For bias, a 12Kohm resistor is between source and ground. A good quality ELNA magenta color 10uF electrolytic capacitor is in parallel with said bias resistor to keep gain high (negate negative feedback). A load resistor Rd=24Kohms is used to convert output music signal current to output music signal voltage. 24Kohm was chosen so that if the amplifier output impedance is about 24Kohms then a say 10:1 output transformer will bring this down by (10x10) i.e. to 240 ohms. Coupling capacitor from 24Kohm drain resistor to output transformer primary is 680nF. Output transformer is a Sowter 1;7 octal base transformer connected as 7:1. So pin 6 is connected to ground, pin 8 to said capacitor, and pins 1,3 to Neutrik XLR pins 2,3. XLR pin 1 is connected to the next to it chassis pin.  The positive pole of the 1.3V battery is connected to the upper side of Rd and the negative pole to ground. Start grounding pattern is used, so all ground are connected to one point. From this point another thin cable goes off to input XLR chassis connection.

All resistors are good quality metal film, made in Germany. capacitors are blue MKT Philips.

For a preliminary test the following signal path was used:

Soft, male singing voice mic 24in from singer, mic above head, 30 degrees towards nose - Shure SM58 - Pleiades (74ohm,25mH0 gentle slope bass, mid bass correction (subtractive) filter - Pleiades K117 1.3V mic pre preamp - SONY TC-D5 Pro tape recorder used are mic preamp - Sennheiser HD-580 monitoring headphones

Without the Pleiades filter the usually bass, mid heaviness was observed giving an indication that the preamp is flat frequency response down to low frequencies. Sensitivity is tremendous and voices could be heard taking place outside of the building. When the filter is connected the singing voice clears up from bass, mid bass heaviness, and sounds with flat frequency response to listener's brain. Average signal drops but by making up gain by increasing the recording level full modulation could be achieved as should by the VU meter. Without the Pleiades K117 pre preamp, the VU meter needle barely moves although the singing voice can still be clearly heard. 

Dear Clive Davis,

Your book "The Soundtrack Of My Life" is a source of encouragement, inspiration and knowledge.

Many warm thanks!

Thank you Vicky for revealing to me so much interesting things in music making

On using a Capacitor, Resistor simple circuit as analog computer in order to reduce cigarette or other addition dosage

At your risk.

Keep voltages below say 30 volts for safety.

When a charged capacitor is discharged by a resistor the voltage reduction is inverse exponetial with half time (the time taken for a quantity to become half, here voltage)  equal to R times C.

So if the right values of C and R are found to give dosage for every second representing say each day and the capacitor is initially charged with so many volts representing current number of cigarettes...

Then with a high impedance voltmeter we can read voltage every each second representing every subsequent day's cigarette dosage for a smooth reduction. Highest dosage decrease is the first day. 

In this context here half time means the time needed for cigarette dosage to become half. Say 20 days for daily cigarettes to become from 100 to 50, another 20 days for number of daily cigarettes to become from 50 to 25 etc.

Further reading RC circuits, time constant, electromagnetism books etc.

Pleiades (74 ohm,25mH) bass, mid correction microphone filter is ready

 At your risk.

This is just an inductor in series with resistance and the total connected across a microphone's output i.e. pins 2,3.

Since there is also the output impedance of the mic, usually about 350 ohms in SM58 case, there are 2 time constants together with the inductor, one dictating the frequency below which the filter starts to attenuate and the other dictating the frequency where bass drop starts to shelve.

Objective is to create flat frequency response from producer's to listener's brain in a very simple and effective way, small size, no added noise, no power consumption, no hum pickup etc.

This is one of the first attempts to make a compact filter that sounds as good as the Cinema Engineering 4031B at -12db 100Hz, +4dB 10kHz settings.

Serial number, date time code: 25031714

Format: inexpensive XLR female to male cylindrical adaptor

Lettering color: Magenta to signify high pass in analogy with visible frequency spectrum

Core used: Small Siemens Epcos ferrite toroid

Date time code of making ferrite inductor: 25030508

Diameter of enameled wire used: 0.16mm

Number of turns: 100 (using a wooden thin stick)

Inductance: 25 mH

Series resistors used: 2 each 36 ohms (possibly metal film, good quality made in Germany), each resistor on either side of inductor wire terminals for balanced symmetry

Frequency response test: Source impedance approx.  200 ohms, terminating impedance 10kOms:

10KHz: +3dB

1.5KHz: 0dB

550Hz: -4dB

200Hz: -6.5dB

!00Hz: -7dB

0dB is -60dBV

Subjective test: Signal path: male voice singing beginning of Bridge over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel verse -Shure SM58 at 24in above head - Pleiades (74Ω,25mH) - SONY TC-D5M - TDK SAX - Sennheiser HD580 or Pleiades 2N3053 driving Celestion Ditton 150

It sounded fairly close to Cinema Engineering EQ but without insertion loss which is an added advantage.

It remains a mystery why Pleiades filters tend to very gently boost 10KHz which may be another surprise advantage.

Comparing microphones AKG C12A, Shure SM58, Beyer-Dynamic M260.80 on vocals at not favorable acoustics with gentle cut, mid low cut ir not

 At your risk.

A rough comparison of a condenser, moving coil, moving ribbon.

All mics used at 24in default, above head, mic axis 30 degrees from horizontal. towards nose.

Signal path:

mic - (Cinema Engineering 4031-B EQ or Pleiades (130 Ohm, 20mH) - SONY TC-D5 PRO - Sennheiser HD-580

SM58, C12A without a gentle slope low, mid low cut sounded very bass, mid bass heavy . M260.80 had not been tried yet.

With Cinema Eng. 4031-B at -12dB at 100Hz (it starts rolling of at around 1 or more KHz), +4dB at 10KHz, sound was very nice, like a produced great vocal recording.

With Pleiades (130 ohms,20mH), very nice too but a bit more bass heavy than with 4031-B. (Frequency response measurement was made, plus further listening tests, with both headphones and Celestion Ditton 150 speaker plus resistor, inductor boxes in order to make the Pleiades filter sound as good as the Cinema Eng. EQ, see recent posts including Pleiades (74 ohm, 25mH)).

In general the dynamic mic sounded more focused, the condenser maybe more polished but maybe a bit artificial.

The ribbon sounded great with true detail but it is very hard to further comment as the signal was too low, since all mics were directly driving the Cinema Eng. Program Equalizer, without a pre or mic booster between the two.

Stella (instrumental) quick demo

 Key is D major.

It is to be played slower than this.

Bass code is:

D

D7

Db7

D46

B6

bB6

D

The 3 first chords are from Kiss Me - Sixpence None the Richer, but on the D major instead on the E major key.

Song with working title No Comments original

 1st verse played on Casio MT-100 recorded outdoors (balcony):

In Gminor.

bass code                  melody

                                  - - D -

                                 F - bE -

G246                        A - - - -

                                - - - -

#F6                           - - C -

                                 bE- D -

Gm                           bB - - -

                                - - D -

                               F - - bE

G246                     A - - -

                              - - - -

#F6                       - A A -

                             - G - A 

Gm                       A - - bB

                             bB - - -

Chorus

                             - - - bB

                             bB A - bB

bE7                      D - - C

                            - - - -

F                          - - - C

                            C  bB - C

bB7                     bE - - D

                            - - - -

Gm                       - - - A

                            bB A - bB

Cm9                     D - - C

                            - - bB -

F                         bB - A - 

D                         G - #F -

Gm                      G - - -

An instrumental titled SNFCC

 These are the 1st 2 bars:

Conceived while playing on the public Hellenic Library YAMAHA grand piano of the SNFCC.

In D minor.

Time signature 6/8.

bass code                      melody

D                                   F A - - - -

                                      B A - - - -

C6                                 E A - - - -

                                      E A - - - -

B7                                 F A - - - -

                                     B A - - - -

A7                                 E A - - - -

                                     E A - - - -

G7                                F A - - - -

                                     B A - - - - 

F7                                 E A - - - -

                                     E A - - - -

E7                                 F A - - - -

                                     D A - - - -

bE7                               D G - - - -

                                     D #F - - - -

modulates to G minor

G

F6

E6

etc 

then modulates to E minor

Enjoying so much reading The Soundtrack of my Life - Clive Davis

 A very nice extract:

"...I was beginning to become known both within the CBS corporate structure and the larger music business...

If you're lucky, there are moments in your life when you step into the outline of the person you might always have wanted to become, perhaps without even knowing it. You then feel truly comfortable for the first time. That process began for me at Monterey." (pop festival)

Janis Joplin - Ball &Chain - Monterey Pop

How to improve the sound quality of Hellenic cinema?

At your risk.

Dimitra was met yesterday by chance.

Discussing about older and new Hellenic movies she expressed her worry on the much to be desired recorded sound quality or intelligibility of actors.

It was attempted to express to her that a flat frequency response will lead to severe bass heaviness so that the cure is for example a gentle low cut from 1KHz and downwards. The great work of the hollywood sound engineers a century or so ago gives light, see further reading. 

These discoveries and principles apply to singing voice  recording as well in music industry, 

Further reading:

Elements of Sound Recording - Frayne, Wolfe

No Comments (song) rough demo

   

verse

chords only

chorus

rough demo recorded outdoors (balcony) with mum Rena as sound engineer on her mobile phone.

Little keyboard is vintage Casio MT-100.

This song was dreamed a few days ago fully produced with Marina beautifully singing. Tempo should be a bit slower and rhythm more atmospheric. 

Pleiades XLR MIC INLINE FILTER GENTLE SLOPE HI- PASS Schematic

 At your risk:

This is what is currently used at the Pleiades lab for correct bass, mid bass, mid emphasis due to Fletcher Munson, voice effort curves, room bass resonance etc.

Everything is inside an XLR to XLR barrel made from Neutrik modules. See previous posts.

PIEIADES 2N3053 AMPLIFIER SCHEMATIC

 At your risk.

Currently the Pleiades reference monitoring system is with 2 of these power amplifiers made with one 2N3053 instead of 2N3055 per channel. They drive Celestion Ditton 150 loudspeakers to a comfortable level in a small room.

Amazing sound quality making cds sounding like good vinyl records.

Vb is 24V.

Any battery circuit should be connected to a safety fuse for safety.

Pleiades DL94 Amplifier schematic

At your risk.

Lethal voltage inside.

This is in fact almost identical to Arnold's patent, a hundred years ago.

And it sounds aaaammmaaazzzinggg.

The electron tube DL94 was chosen for its very low power consumption especially in the heater circuit.

And for the sound.

Deep, jaw dropping bass, fluid midrange, extended non harsh but sweet high frequency content.

Much of the sound ie frequency response etc  is dictated by the input or output transformer. In fact with a transformer in the signal path the sound can be better, see previous posts.

Batteries are used throughout for simplicity and sound, lack of noise, hiss, smoothness etc.

A fuse should be in series with any battery for safety.

Please take all precautions are there is lethal voltage in this amplifier.

To the Moon and Back - Savage Garden (song) - verse only piano score from The Melody Book

 

The Melody Book is about some great song subsets arranged for piano in the simplest possible way without losing the beauty of the composition. So for example nothing is simplified to just a minor or major chord. The full code is used for example on this verse extract, if you look and hear closely the code is C, B6, G7, A7. And it can be clearly seen that in this great song by Savage Garden, this is how J. S. Bach would have written it too. So no C E G, B D F, G B D, A C E. But exactly as it can be seen on Back's manual on composition for his students: Bach General Bass Rules pdf:

https://normanschmidt.net/scores/bachjs-general_bass_rules.pdf

Bach and his great Italian contemporaries for example were really advanced at that time.

They did not even need to write whether a chord is minor or major since this was automatically derived from the scale used by choosing the right note 3 or 5 or 7 or 9 or 11 or 13 or 15 steps above bass. Om music everything we reference everything to the white keys of the piano keyboard.

So in our Moon and Back Example:

The key is C minor, meaning that all B, E, A are flat ie bB, bE, bA.

So the figured bass code C, B6, G7, A7 is really:

C with bE with G

bB with D with G (not F)

G with bB with D with F

bA with C with bE with G

which is "modern" notation is

Cm

bB6

Gm7

Amaj7

The problem with the modern notation is that chords appear to come out of thin air, with nobody really knowing how they came from. 

Where as on Bach's great teaching all you need to know is that you step bass down the scale, avoid parallel 5ths ie C and G, B and F, and using the principle of least change in music, which may come from the fact that we prepare 7ths, 9ths, for the listener's brain.

So instead of 

C bE G

bB D F (wrong as it sounds really bad)

G  bB D

bA C bE

we have

C bE G

bB D G (note how G is kept)

G bB D F

G A C bE (which is really bA C bE G in a different order).

So to recap, we can only write or play

C

B6

G7

A7

and have a masterpiece created or recreated.

You are welcome to try the correct version on the above score on any keyboard and hear the magic of just 3 or 4 part harmony correctly or rather beautifully implemented.

 

Song with working title "No comments"

This part of the song dreamed, Marina was beautifully singing

 In D minor (i.e. all B are B flat).. Rhythm is rumba.

Verse:

G A - B

E - - -          (Gm7)

- - - - 

- - - -            (A)

E F - E

 A - - -          (Dm)

- - - - 

- - - -

repeat 

Chorus:

D E - F

G - - -         (Gm7)

- - - -

 - - - -          (A)

G A - B

B - - A         (Dm)

- - - -

- - - -           (Dm)

D E - F

A - - G        (Gm7)

- - -F -

F - E -          (A)

D - #C -

D - - -          (Dm)

- - - - 

Winding 110 turns on Siemens Epcos small toroid

At your risk! It is the largest from the very small sizes that can fit inside an XLR female to male adaptor. Enameled wire used is of diameter 0.16mm. 100 turns give inductance of 20mH, 110 turns give inductance of 25mH. It is to be used for a Pleiades (58ohm,25mH) inline microphone EQ (bass, mid correction filter). It reduces bass, mid frequency content in a gentle slope so that a singing voice sounds without bass, mid exageration. So tghe high frequency sparcle is retained and not masked. It is supposed to simulate in an analog but perhaps simpler way the Cinema Eng. 4031-B program ewqualizer at setting:-12dB at 100Hz, +2dB or 4dB at 10KHz. It is to be used connected directly to microphone as there is no insertion loss. 58ohms will be split in 2 ie 2 resistors of 29ohm or 28 ohm will be connected in series to inductor on each side of it for balanced symetry. The total is connected in parallel with microphone ie at pins 2,3 of XLR input. XLR input pins 2,3 are connected with XLR out pins 2,3 so that the EQed mic signal passes. Neutrik XLR modules are to be used, mid module strip color may be orange.

Analog modeling of an analog filter or EQ in analog domain

At your risk. For example creating an analog filter that may be simpler, portable and be close in freuquency respone to a preffered setting of the Cinema Engineering 4031-B program Equalizer. For example a resistor in series with an inductor and the total connected across the mic output. See next post. Usefdul reference: A Brief History of Early Motion Picture Recording and Reproducing Practices - John K. Hilliard

The Pleiades (130ohm,20mH) bass, mid correcting microphone shelving filter is gentle slope

At your risk. Frequency response measurment with a driving signal generator impedance of 190ohms, referenced to 10KHz: -3dB at 2KHz, -8dB at 300Hz then shelving to flat. So there is also a very gentle boost at 10KHz. The low and mid cut is gentle too due to the 2 time constants. So in order to further improve it and making it closer to a say prefared sewtting of the Cineme Eng. 4031-B equalizer of -12dB at 100Hz and +4dB at 10KHz, series resistance was decreased until -12dB was achived at 100Hz. Using Danbridge decade inductor and resistance boxes the new values found are (54ohms,25mH). A new inductor of 25mH was wound on a small Siemens Epcos toroid that can fit inside an XLR to XLR Neutrik Module tube adaptor. So it would be nice to add 27ohms resistors in series with said inductor on either side and connecting the total to pins 2,3 of input XLR and connecting cables from pin 2 to pin 2 and from pin 3 to pin 3 from input XLR to output XLR. Would this create a portable, no insirtion loss fantastically sounding microphone filter? A plug in microphone filter able to give flat frequency response from record producer's brain to listene's brain. Something that sounds at least as good in frequency response as Something Stupid - Sinatra? Usefdul reference: A brief History of Early Motion Picture Recording and Reproducing Practices - John K. Hilliard

What are the best 5 Hellenic songs to send over to Clive Davis?

Should for example: M' Anasthses Kardia Mou - Plessas (Voskopoulos singing), To Megalo Mustiko Mou - Kapnisis, (Xomata singing), Agkistri - Xatzinasios, Annabel - Xarhakos (Dimitriadi singing)