Can you tell which are the ldc and sdc mics?

[TBman]

A comparison of SDC and LDC mics. The small condensers are an AKG Perception at the fret board side and a Rode NT-5 on the saddle side.

The large condensers are a pair of AT-2035.

Can you tell which mics are which? The second pair of mics start at about 51" in this mostly unedited track.

[Brent Hahn]

Nope, can't tell which is which. But the first ones have more going on in the warm lower mids; I like them better. The others are chilly by comparison. My opinion, of course.

[jim1960]

That first take has an enormous amount of hiss/noise. If you're going to do these kinds of comparisons, you should try to present the mics in their best light.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by jim1960

That first take has an enormous amount of hiss/noise. If you're going to do these kinds of comparisons, you should try to present the mics in their best light.

I really wanted people to hear the raw mics, not my lack of eq skills, but I did a bit of noise reduction to reduce the hiss.

[rick-slo]

First SD and second LD

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by TBman

I really wanted people to hear the raw mics, not my lack of eq skills, but I did a bit of noise reduction to reduce the hiss.

Just mix down to a mono WAV and post a dropbox link to that would be better I think, or enable download from the SC track.

There was some background noise in the 2nd half that was distracting - don't know if it was a TV in another room or a NR artifact.

Because I'm sure either can sound fine if you get all the other ducks lined up, and I'm not familiar with those particular mics, I'm totally guessing here - but I'm leaning to the opposite POV of rick-slo. (I would say if I had to vote for which was which I couldn't tell for certain, but there's certainly a difference between the recordings, so cast my vote LS.)

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by jim1960

That first take has an enormous amount of hiss/noise.

Do you mean electronic noise? Or the player breathing?

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

Do you mean electronic noise? Or the player breathing?

Sounds like either the mics were noisy or the gain was up very high bringing in preamp noise. You can hear it in the silence preceding the guitar kicking in. The hiss mostly goes away for the second take.

[TBman]

Ok, the first mics were the sdc. I didn't adjust the gain when I switched out the mics. The LDC have a low self noise.

To my ears the sdc were sharper, inspite of the lack of a quiet all around recording. I had the mics at about the same distance, so if I record with the sdc mics I'll have to remember to find the right distance and input gain.

To be honest, I guess my hearing is going because I don't hear a lot of the hissing and other noises others say are in those recordings.