MicroTrack again

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hi everybody!

I was delighted to find this group after long and unsuccessful search
on any details (beyond scarce information provided by M-Audio) on
MicroTrack 24/96. I read your reviews and comments, and I am still not
sure if the device is good for me. Therefore, I'd like to ask you a few
questions. Some of them may be answered by current MicroTrack users,
some probably by anyone. Please forgive me if I ask any stupid question
- I am a newbie in audio recording and my knowledge is not only
limited, but purely theoretical. I would be also grateful for any
advice beyond answering the questions.

I need to record "environmental sounds" of events occuring in a room.
Examples: door closing, items dropped. The room is unfortunately quite
reverberant but the recording cannot be made elsewhere and the room
cannot be adapted acoustically.
The recorded sounds should sound as real as possible and the freuency
range must be up to 40 kHz.

After long research the solution I came to is M-Audio MicroTrack and
Schoeps MK41+CMC 6U xt. The MK41 (a supercardioid) was chosen instead
of an omni to help with the reverberation. The xt version of CMC 6 has
frequency response extended to 40 kHz.

I guess that MicroTrack will record with the 40 kHz bandwidth at 96 kHz
sampling rate, but I am not sure, and M-Audio keeps not responding to
my inquiries. Do you know if this is true? Can you check it for me?

I read that the phantom power provided by MT is 30V instead of normal
48V. Schoeps says about CMC 6 xt: "It can be driven by either 48 Volt
or 12 Volt supplies, retaining a very low output impedance either way
(25 Ohms for 12 Volt powering, 35 Ohms for 48 Volts). The required
current is 8 mA for 12 Volt powering and 4 mA at 48 Volts." Can you
offer any prediction if the Schoeps mic will work with 30V power?

As alternatives for MT, I considered also Marantz PMD 671 and Edirol
R-4. Both are capable of recording at 96 kHz, but Marantz is almost
three times more expensive than MT, and Edirol is almost five times
more expensive. Neither of their additional features (like Edirol's 4
channels - I need one) seems to be useful for me, but I don't want to
have my recordings done improperly beacuse I wanted to spare money
(though my budget is quite limited, and I have also deal with playback
up to 40 kHz, which is not cheap either). Can you advise if sticking to
MT is safe in my case?

If you offer any other advice or comments regarding my needs and using
MicroTrack with the Schoeps mic in this context, I will be extremely
grateful.

Pawel

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

I have a feeling Sanken do mics with a very extended frequency
response. in fact I've just found the blurb.

Sanken CO-100K is the first 100kHz microphone in the world which can be
used for real professional recording, not for measurement purpose. This
microphone is designed with NHK Science & Technical Research
Laboratories. This microphone is Sanken's answer for quite a few
enthusiastic engineers who want to record the sound until 100kHz.
Especially for classical music, acoustic instruments and sound effect
recording.
We have already done several test recordings using this Sanken CO-100K.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Thanks everyone for your input.

First, to clarify the 40 kHz thing. The sounds will be ultimately
listened to by animals whose hearing range extends up to approximately
45 kHz. Thus, for them the 40 kHz limit is probably soemthing like
17-18 kHz for humans. To ensure realistic sound of my "sound effects" I
think I need to stick to the 40k limit as much as I can.

>Arny pointed out that the M-Audio Delta series soundcards use AKM A/D
>chips that will record up to about 30k before anti-aliasing kicks in.

M-Audio says on their website
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en [...] focus.html that Deltas
44, 66 and 1010LT have input frequency response up to 40kHz +/- <1dB at
96 kHz. Are they lying again? Why everyone is complaining so much about
Creative lying in SoundBlaster cards specs if the more respectable
M-Audio does the same???
The Delta problem is really bothering me because I planned to use one
of these cards for playback.

By the way, I planned to use Tannoy Reveal 6D active monitors for
playback. According to Tannoy, these speakers can go up to 51k (though
probably at -10dB) and the frequency response curve published in the
manual seems to reach approximately 40k at -1 or -2 dB. Do you think
that at least Tannoy specifications are reliable, or they may be lying
as well?

I have already came upon the 'No' for 30V from Schoeps but thank you
for pointing it out.

>Schoeps also is now making some
>electronics that use equalization to squeak ultrasonic response out
>of their conventional capsules, but the ultrasonic S/N is poor and
>they sound definitely worse than the conventional electronics

Do you refer to the xt capsule?

>The regular old tried and true MK41 is a great mic, go with it and
>forget the XT version.

I prefer not to forget the xt because I really need 40k. But if xt
sounds bad... On the other hand, my (amateurish) experience is that the
realness (is it a proper noun in this context? or should realisticity?)
of metallic sounds depends on the top frequency band, but more on
anything happening here at the right time rather than on very correct
rendition of the band. [I 'reconstructed' the top band of a 16k
low-pass filtered mp3 recording by extracting the 8-16k band,
transposing it 1 octave up and mixing with the low-pass filtered
version. Listeners tended to say that the 'reconstructed' version
sounds better than the mp3 'original']

>Sanken CO-100K is the first 100kHz microphone

I have found the Sanken mic, but did not like its +10 dB boost in the
20-40 kHz range. And I preferred a cardioid or a supecardioid.
Moreover, no one has recommended it to me before, whereas Schoeps was
recommended.

Other options which I considered were:

Earthworks QTC50. This is an omni, and I was also advised that its
noise figure of 22 dBA may be to high (the same, actually, applies to
the Sanken mic). The noise, however, might not be a problem, because
the background noise in the room may be higher. Still, I may want to
use the mic in more quiet conditions in the future.

Sennheiser MKH800, switchable polar patterns, low noise - but I'd
prefer to spend up to around $1500 on the mic, rather than $2500-3000.

>I think if you really want extended ultrasonic response that you're
>going to have to go with a Type I omni capsule, like the B&K 4033.

That's an interesting idea. I probably could not buy a new B&K mic with
my current budget (their prices are as insane as the specs of their
mics [I love their mics long term stability value of ">1000years/dB"]).
But I have a B&K Sound Level Meter with two mics: a 4133 (up to 40k,
20dBA thermal noise) and a 4135 (up to >100k, 29.5 dBA thermal noise).
Maybe I could use these but I have no idea how to connect them to any
recording device. Suggestions, please...

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

No I don't think M-Audio is lying about the 40k response of their Delta
series...the discussion where this originally came up was about whether
any A/D's would impliment the anti-alias filter higher than the standard
20k (for 44.1 sampling rate)...."about 30k" was just picked
subjectively. I have no doubt that M-Audio's claims are true.

--

Jonny Durango

www.jdurango.com

"If the key of C is the people's key, what is the key of the bourgeoisie?"

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Pawel Kusmierek wrote:
>
> I probably could not buy a new B&K mic with
> my current budget (their prices are as insane as the specs of their
> mics [I love their mics long term stability value of ">1000years/dB"]).
> But I have a B&K Sound Level Meter with two mics: a 4133 (up to 40k,
> 20dBA thermal noise) and a 4135 (up to >100k, 29.5 dBA thermal noise).
> Maybe I could use these but I have no idea how to connect them to any
> recording device. Suggestions, please...

Jospehson C617 <http://www.josephson.com/pdf/C617set_ds.pdf>