Dual Shure SM58 stereo mic ukulele test demo

Booli

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Hi there UU!

How's your Saturday going? Well, I've been busy today as you will see below.

Not willing to leave well enough alone, I have made another video with 'actual' stereo recording this time, instead of simulated like my previous video.

This video was made as a demo to show how it sounds to record a ukulele with two identical dynamic microphones, in 'stereo' to add depth, presence and realism without adding any reverb or ambience and simulation effects. What you hear is the dry, unprocessed sound.

This video is also done for comparison purposes to another recording I made previously, which uses a single mic, the Apogee MiC, and 'simulates' stereo.

That video can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfud4AX9woo
,

and accompanying thread here:

http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?109516-Audio-Tutorial-1-Howto-EASY-simulated-stereo-from-a-mono-audio-file


I encourage you to listen to both and compare for yourself which sounds better to you.

This new video (which is the reason for THIS thread) is here:


https://youtu.be/q2v62BFnoRk

Feel free to tell me which one you like better in the comments below.


For my next two video demos, I will be recording with a Mi-Si pickup that has an under-saddle transducer, and then with a surface-mount transducer.

After that I plan to make four more videos, but each blending both the different mic sounds with each of the pickup sounds.

Thanks for watching!
 
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is there a Mac Option for this set-up

Yes, of course, since Audacity runs on Mac, Windows and Linux (as well as FreeBSD), and any USB or other audio device that has at least 2 mic input channels can be used.

You can even use GarageBand or Logic Pro or ProTools to do the exact same thing as the software part is not the main function, but just a means to capture the sound.

Have you had a chance to listen to the other video and compare the sound?

Which one sounds more natural to you, like you were sitting there with me while I was playing?
 
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Thanks for sharing this information Booli, very interesting comparison. To my ears the audio in the first video has a more natural sound and based on that, I'll go with that as my choice.

I'm actually far more excited about how well you are playing these days! I haven't heard you play for quite some time and the gains you have made are truly wonderful!
 
Thanks for sharing this information Booli, very interesting comparison. To my ears the audio in the first video has a more natural sound and based on that, I'll go with that as my choice.

So does that mean that you prefer the 'single mic/simulated stereo' recording or the 'dual mic actual stereo' recording? I'm a bit confused which one.

I'm actually far more excited about how well you are playing these days! I haven't heard you play for quite some time and the gains you have made are truly wonderful!

Wow, Cam, thanks so much for the compliment. It means a lot to me for you to say that.

This was the first-take recording, and as usual, I suffer from 'Red Light Stage Fright' (as in when it's recording [red light is ON] there's always a bit of unsteadiness in playing that does NOT occur during normal play and practice, and it's something I'm working on BTW).

I could have rehearsed and re-recorded over-and-over until it was 'perfect' but I wanted to show the sound when mere mortals are playing (of which I am a member, as I never claimed to be a virtuoso), and not try too hard, and just leave it be, as is.

I usually get in at least 30-60 mins per day of play time, but have been away from it for about 5 days now (work is crazy), and had minimal practice (only about 5 mins to lock in the tuning) before the recording, so my playing is pretty raw here from that as well.

Also, I debated with using a noise-removal plugin to eliminate the sound of the 2 fans running in the background, but that would not be a totally unprocessed recording, and using such a tool is kind of a devil's art since it also somewhat degrades the sound quality afterwards.
 
Nicely, done. I enjoyed your playing, Booli. I think you did a great job on the "How To" for creating the stereo effect from the single mic. Even I understood it! ;-)

Regarding sound, I preferred the one with two mics, but was impressed with how effective the single mic was with the echo added.

Best, Eddie
 
Nicely, done. I enjoyed your playing, Booli. I think you did a great job on the "How To" for creating the stereo effect from the single mic. Even I understood it! ;-)

Regarding sound, I preferred the one with two mics, but was impressed with how effective the single mic was with the echo added.

Thank you for your comments and feedback :)

I'm not sure yet which setup I prefer right now.

I need some time away from it and will come back and listen again in a few days with fresh ears and a clear head.
 
A little beyond my technical capabilities, but a wonderful comparison. Can't get this good stuff just anywhere. There's an SM 57 or 58 in my future eventually. Thank you for sharing. I'll remember where to get this info when I get my mic.
 
I enjoyed both videos. The first one was more even between right and left(probably to be expected.) I also think the playing was a bit better on it for the "Ain't She Sweet" part. That being said I preferred the sound of the microphones in the second video. The second recording had more ambiance, mids and life to the recording IMHO.
 
Great demos (and playing!) - I left comments on YouTube but will say here that I prefer the Apogee Mic with the 'Haas Effect' sound the best. The true stereo is great (perhaps more 'nuanced' if that's really a word...) but I think the Apogee Mic is simply better (cleaner & more accurate) in a studio setting than the SM58's... and I think the hardware, cables, etc. necessary for the "true stereo" recording may add some not-so-desireable (to my ears) electronic 'clutter' (or maybe that's A.R.T. tube effect) to the recording. (I confess I only listened to the YouTubes and not the Sound Cloud versions.)

This is a valuable demonstration project for anyone who is doing home recordings; it shows very effectively what a great sound (such as you achieved with Apogee Virtual Stereo track) can be achieved without a lot of DAW effects & processing. Really a nice job done here and I thank you.
 
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Very cool and informative demos, Booli, thanks for uploading.

I listened with my old 280 pros and also on my desktop system. There is something about the sound of the 58s I liked for the fingerpicking especially. Did you record the 58s at a much higher gain level? There was a lot more hiss or maybe fan noise.

I preferred the mono to the simulated stereo. The stereo had some kind of weird effects in my headphones--but then those are kind of weird cans and maybe that was what happened. The mono strumming comes dead center out of my monitor (an illusion, of course, since I have two bookshelf speakers on either side), which I like; but the simulated stereo gave the impression of a _huge!_ ukulele :). It did make the room seem a bit more realistic and live--I wonder if that's the echo acting like reverb? I wonder how it would sound if you only panned a bit instead of full left and right.

Thanks again, it was good to put a voice to the screen name.
 
I enjoyed both videos. The first one was more even between right and left(probably to be expected.) I also think the playing was a bit better on it for the "Ain't She Sweet" part. That being said I preferred the sound of the microphones in the second video. The second recording had more ambiance, mids and life to the recording IMHO.

Hi ohmless!

Thanks for the feedback. With the first video, the tutorial was more of a testing-the-waters and proof of concept of the HaaS effect.

The SM58 mics in the second video unfortunately also captured the background noise from two 16" oscillating pedestal fans that were running (was still humid until it rained today).

The liveliness you refer to in the second video I think is a combination of the fact that this was recorded in a room with hardwood floors, and about 4ft from the corner on each side, so possibly some high-frequency reflection going on, and despite the cardioid nature of the SM58s, the sound that leaked in from the ambiance, seems to be pleasing to my ear as well.


Great demos (and playing!) - I left comments on YouTube but will say here that I prefer the Apogee Mic with the 'Haas Effect' sound the best. The true stereo is great (perhaps more 'nuanced' if that's really a word...) but I think the Apogee Mic is simply better (cleaner & more accurate) in a studio setting than the SM58's... and I think the hardware, cables, etc. necessary for the "true stereo" recording may add some not-so-desireable (to my ears) electronic 'clutter' (or maybe that's A.R.T. tube effect) to the recording. (I confess I only listened to the YouTubes and not the Sound Cloud versions.)

This is a valuable demonstration project for anyone who is doing home recordings; it shows very effectively what a great sound (such as you achieved with Apogee Virtual Stereo track) can be achieved without a lot of DAW effects & processing. Really a nice job done here and I thank you.

Hi Surly-Mac!

Thanks for the feedback. Yes in the first video there was only the tiny amount of echo added only to the right channel, so there was less gear the signal had to run through, as well as only a tiny amount of post-processing.

Very cool and informative demos, Booli, thanks for uploading.

I listened with my old 280 pros and also on my desktop system. There is something about the sound of the 58s I liked for the fingerpicking especially. Did you record the 58s at a much higher gain level? There was a lot more hiss or maybe fan noise.

I preferred the mono to the simulated stereo. The stereo had some kind of weird effects in my headphones--but then those are kind of weird cans and maybe that was what happened. The mono strumming comes dead center out of my monitor (an illusion, of course, since I have two bookshelf speakers on either side), which I like; but the simulated stereo gave the impression of a _huge!_ ukulele :). It did make the room seem a bit more realistic and live--I wonder if that's the echo acting like reverb? I wonder how it would sound if you only panned a bit instead of full left and right.

Thanks again, it was good to put a voice to the screen name.

Hi Miguel, and thank you also for your feedback and kind words.

Yes, the SM58s that I have are an oddball set, in that they measure out to 1kOhm impedance instead of they typical 250 Ohm of most other dynamic mics or the 600 Ohm of most other SM58s. As such they need more boost to the signal to achieve unity gain.

That is why I had to use two preamps in a daisy-chain in order to get a usable signal. With either preamp alone the sound is way too quiet to get a usable signal, and only gets up to around -25 db, but with both together I can go up to +4db if I needed to for 'pro' gear connectivity.

The first preamp is a small solid-state 2-channel unit (now discontinued) made by M-Audio called the AudioBuddy ($69), The the output of the audio buddy goes into the A.R.T. USB Dual Tube Pre (also now discontinued, $129), which is a pretty nice unit on it's own. The tube I have inside is an Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 and really makes a difference if you run a piezo through it, as I've found that there's nothing like 'hot glass' to tame the piezo issues and beautify the sound.

The A.R.T. also has an independent adjustable optical limiter for each channel, but I left it disengaged for these recordings, as it tends to be overly sensitive when percussively strumming, regardless of the settings, and acts more like a 'brick-wall' limiter and flattens the sound such that you have no dynamic range, i.e., the difference betw the softer parts and louder parts of what you are recording is so small that the music captured sounds uninteresting and lifeless.

Running some test tones through the mics, of 100hz, 1khz and 8kz I was able to pretty easily achieve unity gain, and then verified with my own ears when playing.

Lots of folks say you cannot use SM58 or SM57 mics to RECORD a ukulele, but remember that the human vocal range is wider than the range of most ukuleles and even though these Shure mics tend to have a 1-2db boost at around 1kz with a Q o bandwidth of about 20 hz, which is great for a vocal to cut through the mix, it also works well for the ukulele. Most tenor ukes seem to have a usable frequency range of about 100 to 2kz, and I rather like the way these mics capture the sound. It's a different color than if I use my AKG Perception 200 or AKG C414 MKII mics, but as condensers, even with a cardioid pattern they pick up EVERYTHING - that is why I will eventually have some form of sound-proofed environment, or one of those Kaotica Eyeball type things.

Also, I should mention for all those reading this thread, that I made another recording today, that I will likely upload tomorrow (it's 3:30AM NOW!!! LOL), that is a second comparison of the Apogee MiC in mono, vs. the same mic with a slightly more intense version of synthetic stereo processing.

For me, the goal is to try and capture the intimacy of sitting near someone playing, and not have the recording sound either too dry and sterile or too syrupy and dripping with over-use of reverb.

I used no reverb on these previous recordings, nor on the new one I made today. Novice recordists tend to have the wet/dry settings for reverb like 60% wet/40% dry and this sounds like your are in either a deep cave or empty swimming pool, both unnatural. A more natural sound is typically had with a 15% wet/85% dry effect setting, regardless of pre-delay, HF/LF damping and other twisty (virtual) knob settings.


Sometime tomorrow (SUNDAY, Sept 13), I will post back to this thread with the new recording I made today.

Again, thanks everyone for your kind words, encouragement and otherwise meaningful feedback.

Once I go through all of these things and find the sweet spot, I will likely also make more tutorials, either using Audacity or Garageband so that other folks can benefit from my recording experiments, and maybe don't have to get talked in to taking a second mortgage to afford some decent recording gear - it's really not necessary in 2015.

Mahalo!
 
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Very interesting videos, Booli!

Just listened to both videos, using Ultrasone HFI-15G headphones (not perfect, but it's what I have on the laptop usually). It's not easy to pick a favorite, because they are different ukuleles (interesting tuning of the tenor!) and different content, but I preferred the "genuine" stereo recording with the two Shure microphones. I don't know how much that opinion is colored by knowing that this is the genuine stereo recording, though. A blind test would make for an interesting video!

The Apogee sounded really good also, however, I couldn't as clearly tell the difference between the simulated stereo and the mono. Again, that may be a biased view that's more about what I know than what I hear, but I didn't experience it as "stereo-y".

I actually generally find it challenging to distinguish between stereo and mono when it comes to recordings of acoustic instruments where the sound comes from a "focused" source (as opposed to, say, a piano or an array mbira). The method of simulating stereo with a mono recording was clever, though -- learned new things! :)
 
I think this was an interesting and useful exercise. I listened to both recordings several times and tried to filter out in my mind the variations introduced by using different microphones for each recording and also the different ambient noise levels in each.

I was surprised by how well the Haas simulated stereo effect worked using a single sound source like the ukulele at close range. As you know I do like the Apogee's clarity and transparency so I initially gravitated to that familiar quality. The true stereo setup sounded a little muddier to me and the ambient noise was more prominent.

On closer listening however I began to discern that the imaging from the twin mic arrangement was clearly superior. When listening to the finger style section I got a much better sense of placement in space within the sound field. Subtle changes in volume between left and right as you moved the instrument slightly from side to side while playing were evident. The whole thing gave me more a feeling of presence and immediacy.

Thanks for sharing this experiment with us. Your thoughtful posts are an asset to this community!
 
Very cool sir!

This may be an odd observation, but the 58s give me a better sense of where you're playing on the uke as far as the strumming, fretting and picking. I'll reserve further observations until I get into the studio Monday and give it a listen on the monitors.

One thing I've found with 58s on acoustic instruments is that getting the correct distance from the instrument is key to getting the right overall tonal balance. They are famous for their proximity effect, i.e., the closer to the source the stronger the bass response. Also, the further you are from the instrument, the more room sound you pick up and the more likely you are to have a room node color the sound in an untreated space (especially one with parallel walls).

One experiment you may find interesting is doing an XY stereo recording sitting close to one of the walls. Do one facing out into the room and another facing the wall, using the same microphone setup (distance from the instrument, etc.) for each. If you have a rectangular room try on bot a long wall and a short wall. The differences while often somewhat subtle, are quite noticeable especially if you're working in a less than perfect untreated space (which is what the vast majority of us have).

I picked up a halfway decent Blue with multiple pickup patterns about a year ago with the intention of using it in figure 8 mode to do similar experments in mid/side recording, but have ended up using it exclusively for vocals so far.
 
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