Okay, so in this in this little bit, I want to talk a little bit about the sound of the guitar itself. irrespective of what what microphone we're going to use. I'm going to get us where to where to where to play a little bit of guitar. And what I'm going to do with with my omnidirectional microphone, I'm going to scan around the instruments. And I'm going to find a spot where we think that the guitar sounds best. And first of all, I want you to be aware of and listen.

And I'm going to deliberately go all over the place here, but I want you to, to, to see and hear the situation right if you move the microphone a little bit, what how enormously. The quality of the sound can can change. Yeah, now for these experiments. Yeah. I'm using deliberately pressure operators on the microphone. Yeah, the reason for that is because, you know, I want to I want to be able to freely move the mic around without it changing in Tom bruh.

If I did that with that little moment, yeah, I had to be I would have to make sure that because of the proximity effect, I would always stay the same distance here. In order to give myself a bit of freedom. I'm deliberately choosing pressure operated microphone with no proximity effect. So we're just going to freely scan the sound of the instrument without the mic stand. And and and, and we're going to see if everybody agrees if we can find the perfect spot. Yeah.

Now for this, I need to put my headphones on so I can hear it and ask it if you would be so kind, just to play a little bit anything you like. Yeah. So and I'm going to move the microphone around. And for you guys in the control room. It's probably a good idea right now to mute my vocal microphone so you don't hear the guitar in mind. In my vocal microphone, just in the chef's so we have the chef's omni directional microphone and just listen to that and I'll stop talking.

Clearly hear that if he moves a little bit yeah, there's an immediate change in sounds and the guitar sounds pretty much different everywhere. But typically, most most of the time when you do this, it's usually around Arms here. So looking at this part of the guitar around there, so where, where you have the most natural balance between older older, all the frequencies. And if you didn't have a microphone, you could do exactly the same thing with your ears usually usually around here where you want to end up. So at this stage, I also want to show you an idea that this microphone has no proximity effects. If you go closer and further away, you'll hear a dropping level.

And you'll hear an increasing level. Which is Sonic signature of the instrument stays the same. Yeah. So I would say more or less here. Yeah. It's sort of a pretty good spot.

Yeah. So we're going to remember that Yeah. And I'm going to show you a little bit later. What this would sound like with a car. Okay, so what I have now is is a diamond. Okay, and 184 cardioid microphone l. so so we can expect a certain amount of proximity effects.

And that is indeed, this is what I want to demonstrate. Now I'm not saying you cannot record a guitar with this. That's, that's, that's nonsense. Yeah. But I just want you to be aware of some of the pitfalls. And the biggest pitfall is the proximity effect.

And that's I'm not going to demonstrate we saw that that's, that's still the same performer, the same guitar. So nothing has changed in the setup, right? So we remember that this was the area where sort of the guitar sounds at best so I'm going to stay there with my enjoyment. But I'm going to get closer and go go further away. And I want you to listen how this time not only the level changes, but also the Tambora. As I get closer, we're going to pick up more low end here, and it's going to change the tambour of the guitar and the NF is a move further away, and we're going to lose low end That's going to change the tambour of the guitar.

And so so I'll just play it and I'll try and demonstrate that. That sounds quite nice because a little bit further away from the instrument. So now get closer. Get some bass here. And bass here. And bass.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like I have a low end EQ. And you see that, especially when you come real close. And I'm talking about a few inches away still. The proximity effect is really good sounding. It really sounds unnatural.

Yeah, so here you see it. If I move further away, the guitar starts to sound thinner and closer. It becomes a naturally Basie so like I said, it doesn't mean it's always a bad choice of microphone because if you're certainly This is a way you can get a decent recording I think you're gonna get a better recording with the pressure operators on the microphones because that has no proximity effects at all. So let's just have a listen to what the guitar would sound like using a dynamic microphone is short sm 57 now you'll never see me slide one off there are really useful in lots of applications, but these are all like the examples are by dealing with real loud sounds and distorted sounds. As you said those kinds of sounds were by by by the the increased mass increase the weight of the moving coil is less of an issue and in certain cases even advantageous.

But but but not so with a beautiful acoustic guitar. Oh, well, let's see. Let's just have a listen as you played it So just by no means does it sound awful. Yeah. And but, but we shall see that if we're going to compare this to a to a high quality condenser microphone, we're going to pick up a lot more detail a lot more of the the the intimate D'Ambra of the acoustic guitar. Also, of course, because we are dealing with a directional microphone, we're dealing with proximity effects, more low end, close, less low end as it gets further away.

Alright, now I'd like to demonstrate that same proximity effects but this time I've chosen a AKG four and four microphone large diaphragm microphone, I've selected it to be a cardioid. And I want to were to demonstrate that that with a microphone like this beautiful microphone, I love it. But because of the larger diaphragm, we can we can expect to even more proximity effects so so for this For this reason to to demonstrate it, I deliberately disengage the high pass filter that's on the microphone so we can hear the lower frequencies. And I want you to hear how as we get close to the instruments, then then we can expect even more proximity effect is what we heard just just a second ago with anointment. I said, Could you play video? So we're still in the same space.

And we know the guitar sounds nice here. But if I now get closer, you see the lift in low end. goes even quicker as I get closer. He's really sort of low mid low frequencies. That's not what the guitar sounds like. Yeah.

If you were to hold your head here, then then then that's totally unnatural. very exaggerated is low and lower mids and that goes away as I move further away, of course. Yes, you can make a decent recording like so. Right. But, but, but I think the point is already clear that you're gonna make the best recording with the pressure operator on the directional microphone. Now there's one more thing I wanted to say about about the 414.

Like I said, it's a great microphone, but perhaps in this specific application, it's it's not the best. But but you might think okay, so these are only directional microphones. They have no proximity effect. These directional microphones they have proximity effect, but but surely, oh my 414 I can switch it to become an omni. Yeah. Now here's the thing.

You can switch four and four to Omni but the truth is that said that that four and four is not a real pressure operators microphone, because there is no pressure chamber as we saw with the with the ship's microphone here you can see you can see how the sound waves can only get to the From the diaphragm, and not to the rear, you can see with with the four and four, clearly the wave has has free access, right? So that's a yes, it is possible to switch this microphone to only, but it's not a real only what's going on with with a microphone like this is that the truth is that four and four is not one microphone, but it's two, it has one die from facing forwards, one facing rear words. And it just so happens that when you switch it to only it essentially merges the front with the rear microphone together.

So you will listen to both. So what kind of tricking the only a little bit by having two separate cardioids. So but of course, since they're both cardioids we're still going to have proximity effects. So So that's something I thought that deserves a mention. All right, so now we're back to the shops. The pressure operator microphone, by the way, this is a CMC six body with a m K two heads.

So this is the ship's Colette series you can put different capsules on it. This is a proper omni directional capsule you could you could stick other ones on there too. And so and so we're going to finalize our our, our microphone position and remember we know are here in this area that's where the guitar sounds sounds at its best. And we're going to set the microphones so that we can pretty much get as close as near as we want. And at this stage it is very important to make sure that the performer is going to be comfortable is able to move around at different different musicians they are they they have different needs. Now after the Cesar is very, very easy.

She doesn't move around much here but that's a consideration the beauty button only because there is no proximity effect that you'll find. It's not even that precise. You can you can be a little bit further away or a little bit closer. It doesn't change the Tambora it only changes the level. Yeah. So So and of course you hear more room sound, the further you go away and you hear less room sounds and more guitar You are, but like I said, if you're in a, you know, a reasonably good sounding space like this one, then then then then you have a certain amount of freedom here.

So So let's do this one more time. Yeah. I said, Could you play with me here? Yeah, I could get closer if I wanted to see there's no lifting low ends and it just gets louder. Around here, this sort of space, this sort of piece of air to me, headphones. Sounds very natural, really nice.

You guys agree in there. So when I look at this here, I'm going to sort of visually memorize that. Yeah, it's around here somewhere. So we're gonna get my mic sense. And that's where the microphone is going to live. And to adjust for for this world.

But you can show here that the main even only direction, okay, you pointed at a microphone at the instrument because it kind of looks right but you can see it moving it. It doesn't really change. The sound is proper omnidirectional microphones. So, so So there you go.