Welcome to the pro Audio Suite. These guys are professional and motivator. Thanks to try Booth, the best vocal booth for home or on the road voice recording and Austrian Audio Making Passion Herd Introducing Robert Marshall from Source Elements and Someone Audio Post Chicago, Robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging Sydney to the vo Stars, George the Tech Bottom from La Andrew Peter's Voiceober Talents and Home Studio. Go and welcome to another pro audio suite thanks to Austrian Audio Making Passion heard try Booth, don't forget the code TI PAP two hundred to get two hundred dollars off your tri booth and Passport Vio a collaboration between the Pro Audio Suite That's us and Sentrance. The new dual interface for voiceover and podcasting out soon. Get yours. Go to our website, the prodiosweek dot com, find the link and get your order in. There's a handful left right no self noise. Everyone talks about it. What the hell is it? And how does it affect what we do? It's like when you walk around going like I'll do that. You're on the telephone with someone. You're like, I can't hear you when you say, oh, I'm to take out sorry boy. Well, I can tell you what products don't usually spec self noise, And when you look at specifications, it's almost always USB mics. Do you ever notice that. Yep, it's rare you'll see an actual spec on a USB specific MIC called self noise because they don't have to because the output of the MIC is after the preamp. It's it's an irrelevant spec in terms of the output. Maybe the fifth gen Road from the last podcast has it because it has an ex output. They spec it. They do have it on it. Good lunch dame for him, right, So they spec it at the XLR output and it's extremely low. It's only four dB self noise. I guess there is no proper way to spec self noise when the USB output is the output, because you can't differentiate the self noise of the MIC and the preamp of the MIC from the A D and the A D D converter, right, the whole system. Right. Well, it's it's interesting, yeah, I mean it seems that Road has set a benchmark, a benchmark for how quiet the self noise of a mic can practically be. There are mics that are branded as being quieter. There's one called the sub zero made by LeWitt, So that one is, you know, supposedly less than zero dB, but in real world practice it's more like four dB or five or something. So I think it's like card companies and there there's zero to sixty in top speed and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, right, these are numbers that we used to measure things and say, whoa, look how fast it has been in the real world. What's a light? Does it really do? So, like, I'm using a mic right now, and I and granted I am not in a studio, I'm not in an ultra low noise environment. I'm in my basement of my parents house. It's pretty quiet, right. That's where you ended up, man, Yeah, that's in the end. This is where in the end, that's where you ended up. Man, he could got in trouble today. Yeah, he was a naughty bad I'm talking into a mic that on paper has this sixteen dB self noise, which happens to be the same figure as the forty one six. So the question is is, like, is the self noise this mic is emitting? Right? Now in any way noticeable. Do you notice it above the noise of your headphone monitors and your other amplifiers. Do you notice the self noise of this kid screaming in the background? Well, I don't have any kids. I'm asking you guys, not the listeners, all the listeners. What do you guys hear? No? And it's also our listening environment too, that's clouding on exactly. You know George's point. And so it really doesn't actually make a huge difference. And what makes sometimes a bigger difference isn't how much the self noise is, but actually what's its particular sound? Is the energy more focused on the high frequencies? Does a hiss? Does it? Wine? Is it a very smooth broad just blanket that's kind of almost pleasing? You could almost have good noise? Yeah, yeah, you can just consider it dither Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, there's different, so many characteristics of noise. Some broadband noises actually have a name, like white noise, pink noise, brown noise. I don't know the technical differences between them, but I know they all have a different sort of it's lable power or equal energy, got it? Yeah, And so pink noise has like a is more jumps around more, the meters jump more, and it has a different distribution of the energy between the high and low frequencies. White noise is much more consistent and what people are more used to when they think of snow on a TV. I have a brown noise? Is that that another waiting? Like is that there might be something I don't have heard of? It is that like a loudness waiting, like the way, what's a Fletcher munch in Munson curve? So the Fletcher munchtion curve is just that at different volumes, your ears are better or worse at hearing high and low frequencies. So the loudness button on your amp is like the inverse Fletcher Munch Munson curves, so that it sort of makes quiet things sound loud. Um, it's the smiley facy q that we all like, you know right right, Brown don't like I'm hearing that. Brown noise is actually the bassiest according to some and the most soothing. So it sounds like a marketing turn. And it depends how it is, it'll be the new spec on the microphone, like well, it was a wet brown noise sixteen descipels. There's like a green noise I found. But I guess the question is is like when does a mic become too noisy? Like when it the application? Yeah, like when does it clearly stand out? Let's just say in the context of voiceover, you know, when does it become too noisy? Well, it has a lot to do with how much gain you have to apply to it, right the volume that you're working at in the first place. And also if you get the right preamp setting on your preamp, you're going to amplify less of that noise if you have to increase the game later, because once you set your level, all the noise and everything that's in that level goes up and down when you raise the volume. So you want to set your initial ratio between your noise and your voice to be the biggest ratio possible, so that the voice is really way above the noise. Is there any mics that when you think of, I can't use that for voiceover or it's too noisy? Do we dare call out any brands or models? Well, it's funny you should set it because there was one wasn't too noisy for voice that good, but it was audibly you could hear it. And that's my microtech Gefel the ninety two point one S which is the tube mic. And but you know you can hear there is a bit of noise in there. I'm trying to I'm actually trying to find some stats in it. I can't find anywhere. I'll look on recording hacks dot com and their mic database. Yeah. I just had to look there and I couldn't see it. Oh, here we go. Noise level? Wow, okay, noise level is it says twenty five dB or fifteen dba? So A is the waiting of it? Yeah? Yeah, what's what's what's the road measured and A weighted or is it just not the road but the earthwork. They don't always specify that, do they. Sometimes they decided to be confusing about it. Yeah. They won't put like they won't put A or it's going to be A or C. Right, Yeah, explain really clearly the difference between those two. I'm not good at this, but it's the waiting based on the frequency as I believe. It's a little bit like the Fletcher Munson curve. But to see, I think, is how we hear sound? Yeah, and A is sort of on an energy level more linear. That's my understanding. Well, just to give you an idea, that this microphone, the IC eighteen from Mustraine Audio, which is a lot I'm on now, that has a noise level of nine dbi in comparison with the Microtech, which has fifteen dba A waiting. A waiting is more like the human hearing. And that's interesting, right, because on paper or on specs, your Microtech give Fell is actually slightly quieter than this mic I'm using right now. But listening to this microphone, would you categorize this mic as noisy? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know. I mean you'd have to isolate the thing to hear it. But it doesn't sound that noisy. I mean right now, we're not picking anything. We're going through a lot of stuff. You guys all muted your own mic chain. I don't know if you can, but yeah, what do you hear? I got too much noise here on my own? Just yeah, Well, they do list it as a weighted so on on the Earthworks Ethos specs it's sixteen dBSPL a weighted. That's what it. So what's the what's the Gaffel A weighted fifteen, So they're pretty closed close. Yeah, And the A waiting right, and the awaiting is basically human hearing at low levels. C waiting is for things at high level, the noise as you will hear it. So it's the two ends of the Fletcher Munson curve in terms of loud and noisota Z Z waiting I never heard that is flat frequency response ten to twenty k plus or minus one point five. This response replaces the older linear or unweighted response, as these did not define the frequency range over which the meter would be linear. Crazy, So so Z weighting is like basically, well, it's interesting and comparing the specs if you look at if you're looking at mic specs on paper, this three hundred and fifty dollars Earthworks blows the fell out of the water in every possible way. Right. First of all, it's twenty to thirty killer her it's frequency response, right, it's super cardioid. It has a peak acoustic input of get this one hundred and forty five dB. Damn wow. Before clipping right. It has no pad switch obviously doesn't need one, and itself is sixteen dB self weighted right or self noise. And you look at the other mic. The max spl of the get Fell is one hundred and eighteen dB. Yeah, so you have to be careful what you mike that with that money. But it's just incredible that modern, because that would be is that considered the vintage mic, well, it would be a vintage and it's also I mean you can still buy them knee this the Gaffell, the M ninety two point one. You can either get the S. There's also the UM ninety two point one, which is the the multi pattern one mind is just a fixed cardioid. But um, I think the reason that it has a lower SPL is because the diaphragm in the Gaffel is the old M seven, which is that is that a plastic forty seven? Yeah? What tube is in this thing? Because that'll that'll tell us, Like it's the e F eighty six. Okay, so it's sort of like a bull and it's it's an e F eighty six with an M seven capsule. Yeah, okay, so that thing is like halfway a U forty seven and a halfway USE sixty seven. Correct. Yeah, it's like the fight or and I think the other mike to use. The e F eighty six might have been the bottle which was like the five something, but the CV five six four, CVM five six four, yes, or CMV five six four. I think that's a pretty sweet Mike, I burt that Cafell man. Oh, it's a beautiful Mike. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know the M seven And then the thing about the M seven capsule in that Gefell is because Gefell during the war, when Neuman moved out of Berlin and went to Gefell to when it was being bombed, all the machinery went across there. So when they went back to Berlin after the war, a lot of the machine machine stuff stayed in Gefell, and in fact that the original machining for tooling up the M seven capsules and stuff is still in Gefell and they still use it today to make those M seven capsules. It was the split but but they that ended up in East Germany for a while, right, like it was like the Communist Yeah, well that's that's what happened. Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't blow it all up. So, but that's the Is it a Milar capsule or is it? Yeah? Is it Milar I'm not. No, I don't think it is mine. It's funny because it's like, it's like you do and you don't want a Milar capsule. It's like you do if you want to be a purist about it. But if you wanted to wear out and fuck up one day, then get a Milar capsule, PBC capsule PBC, right, So I think PBC's, isn't it. PBC's the new one because Milar was the old one and the Milar would somehow wear out, I believe. I think, Well, the other cafella I've got has got the Milar capsule, so they're still using it. Well, I know, because the purists are like that that's the real capsule. It's sort of like the four four team with the brass capsule, but the brass isn't as like the Milar. I believe has a specific issue with those things, they just go bad. I believe they just deteriorate, you know. I don't know the nature of Milar, but I think they switched it to PBC or some other material that didn't break down the same way. But then all the purists went like, oh my good, it's not an m seven. It's not an original M seven or whatever. You have to do a bit of googling on the old Wikipedia or I think to find out what the story is. But yeah, anyway, that's the basic history of the gas fell. Well. I know the mics that I've heard over the years that stood out as noisy to me. One was like the first generation of the condenser mic that focus write was bundling with the scarlet. They had a very inexpensive, you know, starter kit with a condenser mike bundled with a scarlet. Whenever I heard that, I was like, Yake said, it's not gonna work. Got to replace that mic. It was quite audibly noisy. Then a few people all and you know, have had the same kit and I'm like, wow, that sounds good. And it turns out they did a revision on it and they improved it. So I guess the newer kit has a better mic and it's no longer like a thing where the hisses like oof. Another one was the twenty twenty USB. The original twenty twenty USB by at that one to me was always a pretty pronounced soft noise like it was just like you gotta upgrade that thing, you know, nice for podcasting or starting out as a you know, just as a beginner learning tool. But other than that, forget it. You know, noisy too noisy. But I can't think of too many other mics that are used on any regular basis where noise of the self noise of the mic becomes makes it a problem, at least a problem before the room to room tone itself is actually the problem. You know, their environment, the background noise of the space. That is what it would only be if you were like recording like fies eating and well ASMR and yeah, it's like it's like certain uses, you're gonna want something that has exceptionally low self noise because you're gonna be running the preum right really hot, and you're gonna be digging for gain. I mean, even even of a talent whispering at some moment, you're still pushing enough, you're still easily getting the minus twenty and then you can still gain it up in your preamp if you have one. So I think it's fringed. I need you know, those types of mics that have super quiet, you know, Yeah, low enough self noise is good enough. I mean it used to be like to blow the tape tis yeah, you know, yeah, I've even heard two tube mics that had different self noise characteristics. Like years ago at um Dona Lafontaine voiceover lab at SAG Foundation, we had two and they probably still do actually have two um Manly cardioid reference or Reference cardio or whatever they call it, that mike. One of them was brand new, donated to us by Ivana, and the other one was donated by bow Weaver. So the one from BO had new, you know, quite a few years on it, right, and the one from Manly was brand new. And I remember putting up the Manui and putting up bows and the Manly. The new man Lead, the newly donated Manly was quite a bit noisier, like an inaudible way than the old one. And I was like, what is going on? Right? And I took the bodies of the mics apart, and you could see that there were some differences in there, you know, and they had either they were forced to change the design or they chose to change the design. And I don't know the story on it, but I was really taken aback. I was surprised to hear what I thought was to be I thought it was kind of an unacceptable amount of self noise from the newer one, where you would think it would be the aged one, you know, the older one that would have been the noisier one. It was a very strange thing. It stands out in memory. It's been a long time, but I still remember that, and I think I have pictures of the two mics as well. I have to look. I think I think one of the things about like low self noise on a microphone is that most microphones, you plug them in and you hear all this stuff and already such detail that your mind forgives the noise. It's like you're just like, wow, holy cow. And you don't realize a really clean mike until you hear one and you've and you've been able to sort of remember what one sounds like over the other, or you're literally having in an A B situation, and it is a big difference. It can make things sound like that much more clean and good, but it never stops the recording from happening. And I think I think Mike's with surprisingly high noise clearly up to what is at twenty five on that cafel, because I don't think anybody's gonna be like that cafel is terrible. You know they won't, not because you hear other things what they say. No one's going to kick it out of bed for eating crackers. Yeah, right, there you go. The food audio Sweet and Austrian audio recorded using Source Connects, edited by Andrew Peachy bloodoo yeo imaging were texts apart from George the tech which I'm don't forget to subscribe to the show and joining the conversation on our Facebook group to leave a comment, suggest a topic, or just say today, drop us a note at our websites pro audio suite dot com
