[SprintBob]

As we say in Louisiana, You DA man Doug. Thanks so much for the analysis above. It was enlightening for sure.

As a followup, I received my mic kit yesterday (a Rode NT1A and a pair of Shure KSM137's) and spent some time playing around with them. The setup was simple. I was going to play a couple of riffs via the mic into my H5, no I/O effects turned on in the H5. Good ambient conditions in the house with everything off and no one else home.

First up was the NT1A setup aiming at the neck/body junction about 18" away. When I turned the setup on, the room ambient noise level was around -45db to -48dB, a big improvement from a couple of nights ago where it was -32dB to -35dB. Did a couple of mono recording takes, sounds pretty good and balanced.

Second up were the KSM137's setup as an X-Y pair again about 18" away. When powered up, the room ambient level the mics picked up the same as the NT1A. Did a couple of recordings and the biggest impression is that these mics sounded a bit brighter than the NT1A.

So I came to a conclusion that the lower ambient noise level is due to the higher quality (i.e. more expensive) mics I just bought so hey, this is great.

But to really complete the analysis, I needed to duplicate what I did a couple of nights ago recording with the X-Y capsule on the H5. And guess what, the room ambient noise level was the same with the other two mic setups above! And after recording again, the cheaper capsule mics seem to hold their own well against the more expensive mics above but in fairness I have a lot to learn about the new mics.

So what I have seemed to learn about my recording environment is that even when I setup the house for minimum ambient noise production, the actual ambient noise is going to vary daily as there are probably exterior factors that will affect the response of the structure and what leaks in from outside. I'm lucky per Doug's help that my room acoustics are actually pretty good for doing home recording projects and as I learn to use my DAW software and it's edit and EQ/Mix features, I should be able to manage/minimize the ambient noise levels I seem to have at this point (without having to spend a lot of money on acoustic treatments).

This has been fun and educational so far.