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Old 10-17-2018, 09:14 PM
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Doug Young Doug Young is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Mountain View, CA
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Glad this demo is prompting so much discussion. I once ask Pete Huttlinger for some advice on recording. I was expecting something concrete, like "buy these mics" or something. But he came back with "everything matters" :-) Totally true, tho I think it ignores that some things matter more than others. It's all relative, and there's sort of a Maslow's hierarchy. If you have a terrible preamp, or converters, or mics, then getting a better one will make an immense difference. But at some point, the differences get small. Doesn't mean you shouldn't focus on on each detail and try to improve them, but there is a diminishing return, and if some other larger factor is missing, a small improvement may not matter.

One interesting example is in these mic samples - the Gefell's and Schoeps are going thru a pretty solid preamp - the Apogee Ensemble, but the other mics are going thru much "better" preamps, and I doubt you can call out the contribution of those preamps separate from the mics, even tho they should be significantly better, at least just based on price. So do the preamps matter the most, or are they trumped by mics and mic placement?

For what it's worth, my experience is that of the recording chain aspect, what matters most is the room acoustics and mic placement. Everything else is minor in comparison, even tho there are differences.
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