Muff's Modules & More

reignbear

a bit lost in the land of microphones and looking for a bit of a nudge in the right direction. I've been working on some projects which consist of recording and processing the physical sounds from the drawing process.

I was using some homemade contact mics, but couldn't deal with the ground-ish sounding hum and noise (did some research and it seems to be an impedance issue possibly?). i was then using an old sony stereo mic that i got with my minidisc recorder years ago with decent results, but it recently crapped out.

I'm not looking to spend a ton as these aren't meant to be super hi-fi recordings, but i'd still like something that's at least decent.

any suggestions? looking to spend $1-200 tops right now, but possibly more down the road...

numan7 · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:56 pm Post subject:

i have a cad glx1200 sdc's that do a great job at capturing high frequency transients (which is what i imagine the majority of "the sounds of drawing" consist of). the mic pair was less than $100. and getting michael joly's "ultimate km-84 sdc mod" for them was somewhere around $200-$300.

i also have some sahiaman 'little blondie' omni-electric condensors. they'd probably work even better for this application. and it's nice not having to worry about direction, especially when the audio source is prone to moving around during the recording!

cheers

hiawog · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 3:19 pm Post subject:

hmmm. since these are going to be very soft sounds, hopefully you can avoid a/c and other background noises. my suggestion would be whatever condenser you have that has the best s/n ratio, with whatever pre gives you the most headroom. because you're going to need everything hot to capture pencil scratching page. sorry if this is all obvious.

Orbless · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 3:30 pm Post subject:

I have one of these
http://www.bluestarmusic.com/Shadow-SH-711-Singleducer-Single-Piezo-Pi ckup-wJack-P744.aspx
I have used it for picking up the sound of a pencil on paper amongst other things. It is super great quality and night and day difference between this and a diy contact mic.
Shadow Electronics makes a lot of different transducers that are worth checking out.
http://www.shadow-electronics.com/catalog/index.html?ig=4096&lang_id=2 &PHPSESSID=8a6bd3214a2d138512da6752d97a6a66

Check out this video. The audio in it was recorded with one Shadow SH 711 to pick up the sounds of the pencil and two diy contact mics that were on a large plate glass window picking up audio from the street along with a Zoom H4 recording sounds inside of the building.

reignbear · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 4:48 pm Post subject:

all good suggestions, really liking the little blondie and those shadow transducers after some quick googling around. i'll check them out more in-depth when i get home tonight.

thanks again and feel free to suggest anything else!
Guinness ftw!

jonah · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 5:04 pm Post subject:

Not a mic, but this this might be something to mess with to turn drawings into sound. Maybe you could convert it to CV?

solaris · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 5:20 pm Post subject:

I may suggest the AKG C411, condenser contact mic:
http://www.akg.com/site/products/powerslave,id,272,pid,272,nodeid,2,_l anguage,EN.html

amazing.
And nowadays costs less than 200$...
Since is a condenser mic and not a piezo transducer, it may be prone to feedback under certain circumstances.

b3nsf · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 5:50 pm Post subject:

These would be perfect as you would hear the pencil in 3D as your head acts as the baffle..

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-TFB-2

I own them and love the recordings done with minidisc

worstofthewurst · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 6:13 pm Post subject:

I built an M/S mic from a Paia kit, and it's pretty decent, it might work for you.

futuresoundsystems · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:54 pm Post subject:

Any good high-sensitivity cardioid (presumably it's just one pencil against paper right?) condenser mic.

reignbear · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:20 pm Post subject:

shaft9000 · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:12 pm Post subject:

worstofthewurst · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 3:31 pm Post subject:

criticalmonkey · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 10:50 pm Post subject:

i've done this for writing using a shotgun mic placed close and keeping the hand out of the way
any good condenser should work - hyper cardiod pattern is best to minimize body movement sounds and such

btw - try different pencil sizes
lead vs other materials
and how sharp really changes the nature
as does the paper

amazing how much range in sound there is - you probably know this

iconic for me was really light paper with a fatter pencil with a really sharp lead writing on a hollow wood box (for a resonator)

catchpenny · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:17 am Post subject:

I did this recently using a Nuemann KM130 omni placed directly above me. worked pretty well.

first post here, so hi there!

a8252359 · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 12:44 pm Post subject:

Depending on the surface you're using you'll probably want to use a contact mic, as people have said.

They're very easy to make if you're into that sort of thing