Shure Sm 57-58

   Sm58                           Sm57

These microphones are simply brilliant!

58: Is perfect for live vocals as its durable, has a mesh screen with foam pop filter on the inside. The frequency response is 50 Hz to 15000 Hz, This mic can be used in many ways in the studio as well, for example a performer may feel uncomfortable singing into a condenser with a pop filter so to make the feel at ease wack this beauty in front on them and there you go!

57: Exactly the same as the 58 but without the mesh ball around it, generally used for instrument mic in a live setting as well as the studio. again being a dynamic mic its durable and able to be used for almost instruments.

Both of these mics are relatively cheap and easy to access at any music store.... if you have a home studio or are planning to build one do yourself a favour and buy one of these if not both!!!

Digidesign .... now known as AVID.

Digidesign, the creators of SoundTools and ProTools. Technological masters!




There creation of sound tools in 1989, has sparked the revolution of the DAW (digital audio workstation.)
We have now seen the effects of this as almost every recording studio in the world will own one digital studio equipped with Pro Tools or a similar program e.g. Live 8 or Logic Pro.

With this we can edit audio to a degree that was not possible on tape!  in saying this i am aware that there are a lot of purist analogue recording geniuses out there and i know that there are sounds that cannot be replicated digitally... yet! but i believe the extent in which we can play with the audio has increased immeasurably.

With digital recordings comes digital formats of audio and with this portable music player such as Ipods and MP3's have taken of....

A recent trend with these DAW's is to produce electronic music entirely made up of  MIDI instruments. (see my post on MIDI.)

What i am trying to say is that with out Evan Brooks and Peter Gotcher and their company Digidesign none of these things would be avaliable to us!



Here is a link to an interview with Evan Brooks, he talks on how the company came about i highly recommend this!

Steve Jobs 1955 -2011.

Steve Jobs was the founder of Apple, and the ex CEO after stepping down earlier this year. Jobs was a revolutionary thinker for his time and the company Apple reflects his ideas.

The most stand out idea to me was in 1997 while the internet was very new to the world and sever based computing or 'cloud computing' as referred to today, was only ever seen in large scale businesses with huge databases of information. Jobs was seen to be thinking into the future and thinking wouldn't it be great if we could do all of our computing from an online server. He thought that this idea would take off as you could have all your storage online or on a sever and your computer could now be the portal in which you access it so no matter where you went you always have your information.

While earlier this year Jobs was seen again presenting on apples product iCloud, where it took the PC or Mac from being this so called portal or hub to being another device so now the cloud was your digital presence and you would use your computer, phone, tablet and any other device to access the your digital information literally anywhere you like.

As many will know Jobs passed away recently, this is a sad moment indeed to lose someone of such genius. i would like to finish this post on ...

RIP Steve Jobs.

First Recording Device:

Phonautograph:

Invented in 1857, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville invented the phonautograph, the first device to record sound. it used a membrane (which vibrated in response to sound.) attached to a pen, which traced a line roughly corresponding to the sounds waveform onto a roll of paper. although  able to record sound, this machine was unable to immediately play back the recording. however   in one experiment it was recorded onto a metal plate which was then able to be played back. 


Issues with this technology:


Photography, was still in its infancy, improvements to this inventions were required in order to make it as a sound recording and reproduction medium. 

Dynamic/Condensor microphones:

Dynamic microphones:


The dynamic microphone, extremely versatile and great for general purpose use. They feature a very simple design that works by a single coil that is attached to the diaphragm, when sound waves hit the diaphragm it moves the coil forward and backwards past the magnet, it creates a current in the coil which is channelled from the microphone along wires.


(As shown above.)


Common uses for the dynamic microphone/ examples:


Almost every microphone, in live sound is a dynamic mic and in the studio instrument mics are usually dynamic mics. (for example the sm57 or the AKG d112.) These microphones are usually used on the such instruments as the kick drum/ snare drum. But for a high hat a condenser mic is usually used. 


A Dynamic microphone is often preferred in a live setting because they are robust and do not require external power. Mics such as the sm58 are the most common mic used for vocals in a live setting however their poor high frequency response makes them lacking in the studio. (this is why in the studio you would usually find a condenser as they have a much wider frequency response.)


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Condenser Microphones:

A condensor requires an external power such as a battery or phantom power from a mixing console. The audio signal is stronger than the signal of that from a dynamic. Condensers tend to be more sensitive and more responsive than dynamic mics, however they are not ideal for high volume work as their sensitivity makes them prone to distort and clip.


How condensers work:


A capacitor has two plates with a voltage between. in the condenser mic, one of these plates is made of very light material and act as the diaphragm. the diaphragm vibrates when struck by sound waves, changing the distance between the two plates and therefore changing the capacitance. specifically, when the plates are closer together, capacitance increases and a charge current occurs. when the plates are further apart the capacitance decreases and a discharge current occurs.
    
A voltage is required across the capacitor for this to work. This voltage is supplied either by a battery in the mic or by external phantom power.


Common uses: 

Condenser mics are commonly used in the studio environment, for vocals and high frequencies. condenser mics are useful in a studio environment because they are very sensitive and in a studio you are not aiming for volume, but to get the best sound possible. 

Audio timeline!

History of the microphone!

1878- David Edward Hughes: First invented the carbon microphone. (this microphone was developed over the years up until the 1920's)

Carbon is a resistor, meaning it conducts electricity, but not very well. A current runs from one plate through the carbon to the other plate. The carbon molecules normally resist it somewhat, lowering the power flow. When a sound wave pushes down on the top plate, however, it squeezes the carbon molecules more tightly between the two plates. This increases their conductivity, creating more electric current. As the plate moves up and down with the sound wave, the current increases and decreases, creating an electric wave in the shape of the sound wave.


1920's-1942. with the invention of radio, new broadcasting microphones were invented. Drs. Walter H Schottky and Erwin Gerlach co invented ribbon loudspeaker technology, while Dr Harry F Olson began development of ribbon microphones. these mic's  set a new standard in frequency response. (a type of dynamic mic.)


1964- James West and Gerhard Sessler create the electroacoustic transducer, an electret microphone. (a type of condenser.) the electret mic offers greater reliability, higher precision and lower cost. 


1970's- Dynamic and Condenser microphones were developed and have have formed into what we use today.

Remix culture: 2

Dave Smith: The creator of MIDI.

Dave smith is a Audio engineer and guitarist, who's groundbreaking technology led to the creation of the 'prophet 5' and is commonly referred to as the father of MIDI. 

In 1981 Smith started developing the idea of MIDI. He presented a paper outlining the idea of a Universal Synthesiser Interface (USI) to the Audio Engineering Society in 1981 after meetings with Tom Oberheim and Roland's Ikutaro Kakehashi. The plan was to create a standard communications protocol between electronic instruments and equipment from different manufacturers around the world. The result was MIDI. MIDI was first publicly demonstrated at the Winter NAMM Show in 1983, when a Sequential Circuits Prophet-600 was successfully connected to a Roland Jupiter-6. In 1987 he was named a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) for his continuing work in the area of music synthesis.

After Sequential, Smith was President of DSD, Inc, a Research and Development Division of Yamaha, where he worked on physical modeling synthesis and software synthesiser concepts. In May 1989 he started the Korg R&D group in California, which went on to produce the innovative and commercially successful Wavestation synthesizer and other technology.

Needless to say anyone that remixes music or uses sampling in society today has used/ uses or at the very least used MIDI, it is a format that revolutionised electronic music. 

( if you wish to read about MIDI, i posted earlier about it heres a link: http://3spada.blogspot.com/2011/08/midi-platform-that-survived.html and http://3spada.blogspot.com/2011/08/moar-midi-p.html )