Mike's Oud Forums
Not logged in [Login - Register]
Go To Bottom

Printable Version  
 Pages:  1    3  4
Author: Subject: big thread on pickups
fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Member Is Offline

Mood: m'Oudy

[*] posted on 4-17-2010 at 02:21 AM
The 2 dollar pickup vs. 2 grand mics on a 2 bit oud


I thought I'd put up a little Suzdal sound sample, using an oud that Alfaraby identified as "worths about a hundred buck or so", recorded with 2 large condenser mics in M/S mode, then with a $1.99 Radio Shack piezo sensor attached to the face with 2 cents worth of double-sided tape.

First of all, I quite like the sound of this oud. I'm not sure why it is below Alfaraby's standards, probably its proletarian appearance. The action is good and coating/sealing/leveling the fingerboard brought out a nice sizzly sustain as a bonus. The olivewood pegs do need re-shaping, but other than that, it's gradually opening up and I'm happier with it than expected. I must be maaad :rolleyes:

For the recordings everything ran into the DAW through a little Behringer mixer. The stereo Mic track is completely dry, no reverb, no EQ, only the M/S matrix decoder was used. Good mics do simplify the task.

The Piezo signal was fed into a $60 ART Project Studio Tube Preamp used as a Direct Input box. The frequency response of any piezo can be HUGELY affected by the smallest detail in positioning on the instrument, a millimeter changes everything, as does the tack of the adhesive. A piezo usually requires significant EQ to compensate, and a deep notch in the midrange was needed for this position. A little short delay was also added to create a sense of depth out of the mono pickup.

Using pickups on an oud is tricky and usually require processing to make the best of it. You don't have to spend a fortune as long as you work at it. If I had spent an extra hour or two, it could have sounded much more open, and with less finger noise ;) , this isn't a solo Taqsim sound, but it's usable in a mix.

Microphones
Attachment: Suznaki004tX2b.mp3 (974kB)
This file has been downloaded 335 times

Piezo
Attachment: Suznaki007t2X2.mp3 (543kB)
This file has been downloaded 335 times
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Aymara
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1162
Registered: 10-14-2009
Location: Germany / Ruhr Region
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 4-17-2010 at 09:25 AM


Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud  
I thought I'd put up a little Suzdal sound sample, ...


Interesting comparison. There are two things that astonish me, first the good bass response of the piezos and second their bad signal-noise ratio compared to the mics that are nearly noise free.

Is the background noise caused by the ART Tube MP?




Greetings from Germany

Chris
View user's profile View All Posts By User
fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Member Is Offline

Mood: m'Oudy

[*] posted on 4-17-2010 at 01:40 PM


Interesting issue. But it's not primarily the ART.

I personally think a lot of people are way too concerned with noise. After working with audio for a long time you realize a lot of what we consider noise doesn't matter. It only matters if it detracts from the material. People don't normally listen FOR noise.

First of all, there are different kinds of noise. Transients like clicks are hard to eliminate and are disturbing. But steady noise, like hum and white noise, are easy to get rid of IF IT'S NEEDED, when it's needed. I don't even think twice about it.

If I wanted to use that piezo for a Taqsim solo, it would need to take on a different character. I'd get the noise down a bit and work on a sense of openness and create an artificial room in which it would live. But paradoxically, to create a sense of ambience you often add white noise.

The approach of vigorously combating noise, which I used to practice, or judging a piece of equipment primarily on its S/N ratio is a mistake. Some "linear" Op-amps used in mixers have a great a meaty sound but have a little more self-noise than some FETs that sound lifeless.

Here is the beginning of the piezo recording, with the native noise (whose spectrum is shown also) and then after reducing it. Where it came from in the first place was likely the noise of the PC fans picked up by the oud right next to the PC, with too much gain in some stage. Semiconductor and resistor noise are as inevitable as life, it's just a matter of when it becomes noticeable. The mic recording was done far from the PC and the mics were driven hard, so the gain could be kept lower.

Easy to cut noise down with today's technology. But notice that reducing that noise also affected the audio a bit, and the decision has to be made in the context of the total purpose. You would NEVER notice that noise in a mix, but you MIGHT notice some artifacts of vigorous noise reduction, so I would defer the decision until much later, not attack the noise at the outset.

Noise at the threshold of perceptibility is very useful to mask some problems, just as signal in turn masks noise. Whenever you decimate a recording from 24 bit down to CD 16 bit you HAVE to add a touch of noise called "dither" so you don't hear the artifacts of this reduction.

All the traditional analog systems of noise reduction rely on the fact that you only hear noise when it's naked, that's where the noise reduction operates. When the music is loud enough, nothing need be done. Modern digital algorithms take a snapshot of the noise, compute a FFT, and add its inverse to the material, with or without taking the total level into account. By storing the sound data in a "look ahead buffer", they can also "predict" clicks and transients and subtract them out precisely when they occur. If you really work at it, you can restore music from wax cylinders almost to perfection. And that's when you realize that going too far is a mistake, it sounds better with some of its original noise.

There is also something in the air of the quietest rooms that is audible as a sort of white noise. Of course you can completely muffle and soundproof the room until it is dead. A recording that is completely stripped of noise sounds dead and unnatural. As usual, things are complicated.

The bass of piezos is generally very good, but you often have to equalize if the treble is too strong.


Original
Attachment: Suznaki007begNoise.mp3 (952kB)
This file has been downloaded 284 times


Noise spectrum: SuzNoisePiezo1.jpg - 48kB

Noise Reduced
Attachment: Suznaki007BegNoiseRed.mp3 (952kB)
This file has been downloaded 333 times
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Aymara
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1162
Registered: 10-14-2009
Location: Germany / Ruhr Region
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 4-18-2010 at 12:35 AM


Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud  
People don't normally listen FOR noise.


And why then did the CD replace vinyl? ;)

Quote:
But paradoxically, to create a sense of ambience you often add white noise.


I would NEVER do it that way.

Quote:
Here is the beginning of the piezo recording, with the native noise (whose spectrum is shown also) and then after reducing it.


Thanks ... very nice demonstration, how powerful a DAW is.

Quote:
... the PC fans picked up by the oud right next to the PC...


OK, I know, that piezos can show something like a "microphone effect", but hey ... how loud is your PC's fan? I would have expected such a problem with a large diaphragm condenser microphone, which is highly sensitive, but not with a piezo. That's why I asked about the ART amp as the noise source.

Quote:
But notice that reducing that noise also affected the audio a bit, ...


Bingo ... that's it ... and this is the reason, why I try to avoid noise while recording as good as possible. A further reason is, that noise sums up and can make a good mastering impossible because the sound overall becomes too muddy after noise reduction.

Quote:
A recording that is completely stripped of noise sounds dead and unnatural.


NO ... a clean recording is a must for professional high end recording and ambience (e.g. room size) will be added in the mix, where it can be better controlled. But in home recording with imperfect room acoustics and limited budget equipment, it's nearly impossible.

But all this is more a topic for the DAW thread ;)




Greetings from Germany

Chris
View user's profile View All Posts By User
eliot
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 252
Registered: 1-5-2005
Location: The Gorges
Member Is Offline

Mood: Aksak

[*] posted on 4-19-2010 at 06:10 PM


Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud  

The Piezo signal was fed into a $60 ART Project Studio Tube Preamp used as a Direct Input box. The frequency response of any piezo can be HUGELY affected by the smallest detail in positioning on the instrument, a millimeter changes everything, as does the tack of the adhesive. A piezo usually requires significant EQ to compensate, and a deep notch in the midrange was needed for this position. A little short delay was also added to create a sense of depth out of the mono pickup.

Using pickups on an oud is tricky and usually require processing to make the best of it. You don't have to spend a fortune as long as you work at it. If I had spent an extra hour or two, it could have sounded much more open, and with less finger noise ;) , this isn't a solo Taqsim sound, but it's usable in a mix.

Thanks for posting the files - this sounds very much like what I would expect from a piezo button - strong bass notes, anything over the open D string has a very aggressive edge and has no acoustic character of the oud itself. There's no signal (only noise) above 6khz from what I can see/hear. I've found that piezo buttons work better on ouds with less sustain than on those with a long sustain and deeper resonance, but to me, the piezo track doesn't really sound like an oud at all. You could do a lot of signal processing to improve this, but my general question is, why start with a source signal that has a poor signal to noise ratio, that needs extreme EQ and perhaps other signal processing, and that doesn't sound like an oud?




+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
on soundcloud
on myspace
my homepage
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Member Is Offline

Mood: m'Oudy

[*] posted on 4-19-2010 at 07:41 PM


There are so many topics here. Using MP3s I don't think we can be talking meaningfully about whether there's real signal above 6 Khz.

Both dither and ambience are standard studio applications of certain types of noise to enhance a recording. I'm not saying recording next to automobile traffic is preferable to a quiet location.

The issue of vinyl vs CD is not at all clear. I'm afraid the answer is mostly "marketing". When CDs appeared they were touted as sonically much better than they turned out to be. CDs haven't even lived up to their "scratch-proof" property-ty-ty-ty-ty. Most of the high end techno venues in California wouldn't dream of choosing CDs, they use vinyl whenever possible, because vinyl demonstrably sounds better. I have never heard anything on CD sound as alive and real as a vinyl record in good condition. I'm not quite sure why, there are so many specific weaknesses in the CD format.

But it's a little like that with analog tape. Some people who know what they're doing have gone back to making albums on analog 16 track recorders. Here the reasons are a little clearer. And tape hiss is certainly not as terrible as we used to think.

A number of years ago I was more into comparing S/N ratios and micro-examining sound quality. At this point I believe most anything can be made to serve the purpose, and it's the purpose that matters.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
eliot
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 252
Registered: 1-5-2005
Location: The Gorges
Member Is Offline

Mood: Aksak

[*] posted on 4-19-2010 at 08:16 PM


Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud  
There are so many topics here. Using MP3s I don't think we can be talking meaningfully about whether there's real signal above 6 Khz.

MP3s, depending on the compression ratio, most profoundly affect the frequencies above 15khz (160kbps and higher stereo/80kbps mono), or 12.5khz (128kbps and higher stereo/ 64kbps mono). There's obviously signal in the 6-12k band on the mic recording you made, but not on the pickup one.

Quote:

The issue of vinyl vs CD is not at all clear. I'm afraid the answer is mostly "marketing". When CDs appeared they were touted as sonically much better than they turned out to be. CDs haven't even lived up to their "scratch-proof" property-ty-ty-ty-ty. Most of the high end techno venues in California wouldn't dream of choosing CDs, they use vinyl whenever possible, because vinyl demonstrably sounds better. I have never heard anything on CD sound as alive and real as a vinyl record in good condition. I'm not quite sure why, there are so many specific weaknesses in the CD format.


I love vinyl and have a large collection of records I cherish and listen to not frequently enough. But it's not so clear that the delivery medium is really responsible for the sound that we hear on vinyl records. Today's CDs are highly compressed, and digitally processed before they even get to their final delivery medium much more than earlier eras of recordings. However, you can't make a vinyl record that will even play back if one uses the levels of compression used for CDs. They're mastered differently - with less dynamic range compression - and it's partly due to that that the sound is different. Digital made right sounds great.

And it can't be because of the inferiority of the sound of CDs that techno DJs choose vinyl records, since 99.9999999% of all commercially released techno music heard in clubs today that is played on vinyl records was sent to the pressing plants in 16 bit, 44.1khz CD format before being made into metal parts to stamp vinyl records. Many consumers really don't experience what their CDs can sound like through a better set of Digital to Analog converters (that is, the ones that have a chance of sounding good). The tactility of vinyl records is very useful to techno DJs, and there is a lot of nostalgia for vinyl and near-obsession with obscure white-label releases that don't exist in digital formats.




+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
on soundcloud
on myspace
my homepage
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Member Is Offline

Mood: m'Oudy

[*] posted on 4-19-2010 at 11:38 PM


Everything is a filter. Vinyl works exceptionally for some material, it's not because of the "tactility" of the media. Analog tape is a wonderful compressor. Tube mics have a specific sound, as do some types of cable. My point was that I think everything can be exploited, and I don't find S/N as important as I once did.

But I also think this is way too technical for an oud forum.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Aymara
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1162
Registered: 10-14-2009
Location: Germany / Ruhr Region
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 4-20-2010 at 12:34 AM


Quote: Originally posted by eliot  
MP3s, depending on the compression ratio, most profoundly affect the frequencies above 15khz (160kbps and higher stereo/80kbps mono), or 12.5khz (128kbps and higher stereo/ 64kbps mono).


Absolutely correct, even at highest bitrate (320 kbps) the trebbles are nearly completely cut off above 16 kHz. But there's also another downside of MP3 ... you have a lot of distortion in the bass bands.

That's why I always use Ogg Vorbis instead. Most modern MP3-Players nowadays can play Ogg Vorbis and even this junk-software called Windows Media Player can play them since version 11. At 224 kbps (stereo) you get a much superior sound quality than with MP3 with much less distortion problems and a frequency range nearly identical to CD.

Quote:
I love vinyl and have a large collection of records ...


Me too, but my vinyls are clean and dustfree and I have a good Shibata needle. That was not the case with the standard music consumer ... there were usually fingerprints and dust on their vinyls and they used cheap turn tables with cheap needles resulting in the typical campfire ambience ;)

That's why CDs superceded vinyl, not because the sound quality was so much superior ... the standard consumer who uses MP3 nowadays doesn't hear the real sound difference on his/her el cheapo HiFi. If we examine closer, we'll notice that the CD isn't superior to vinyl soundwise, if you handle vinyl correctly and have a good turn table. That's the reason why even nowadays real HiFi enthusiast prefer vinyl over CDs ... too bad that SACD didn't win the fight against the standard audio CD.

But that's a different story ;)

Quote:
And it can't be because of the inferiority of the sound of CDs that techno DJs choose vinyl records, ...


The main reason, why DJs use vinyl is, that it's easier to pitch control ... in a disco club the BPM counts. A second reason is, that vinyl is used for sratching ... and handling vinyl looks cooler ... it impresses young people more.

But back to the pickup topic:

In my opinion even the best pickups on acoustic instruments are ALWAYS inferior soundwise compared to a good microphone.

That's why I would NEVER use a pickup for serious recording.

Many musicians even hate using pickups on stage, but here it's often a real struggle working with mics. This is not seldom a problem with less experienced sound engineers or horrible room acoustics.

Ooh ... sound engineers and mastering engineers ... a further horrible topic ... Fernand already mentioned the compression topic. Many of these engineers ... maybe mainly driven by the music industry demanding louder recordings ... produce real junk.

But this is a different story too ;)




Greetings from Germany

Chris
View user's profile View All Posts By User
fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Member Is Offline

Mood: m'Oudy

[*] posted on 4-20-2010 at 04:40 AM


There's a store in Berkeley that sells nothing but vinyl, they cater to top notch rave sound people, and I've had some good conversations with people there. The mechanics of handling vinyl are not the reason, in fact vinyl is a pain compared to all digital systems that do pitch control and cueing much easier. Most everybody is using Ableton Live and loop files as much as possible anyway, nobody's cuing up songs. The reason for vinyl is the killer sound. Most noticeable in the bass and the top. So: bass & drums. Don't forget I play bass. I've seen rigs where they use vinyl for the bass and drums tracks and layer the rest with ACIDized WAV files.

I have an old pair of ALtec A7-500A (each the size of a refrigerator) and if you cue up one of these custom bass & drums loop albums on a table with an Ortofon cartridge, the house shakes in a special way. I was playing one of these D&B loop albums and me and a friend were playing guitar and synth on top through a Fender Twin with EV-12s (whose magnets weight like 50 lbs each), and the windows were rattling, and coffee mugs sliding around on the tables, but it was a Sunday afternoon so nobody complained. It's amazing what a Fender Twin tube amp will put out! I've never run it higher than an 8, I think at 10 it causes structural damage to most buildings. And out of the blue these two skinny kids that live a block away heard it loud and clear and came over with their guitars to jam! Ha! Now I just have to figure out how best to get pickups working without feedback on one of the ouds, and I'm gonna turn that Twin up until people from Cairo come over! :)) Mehdi's got the right idea :bowdown:

No way it sounds the same from CDs. I don't really know why, but CDs sound dry and painful. The fact there's snob appeal is another story.

View user's profile View All Posts By User
Aymara
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1162
Registered: 10-14-2009
Location: Germany / Ruhr Region
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 4-20-2010 at 05:59 AM


Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud  
I don't really know why, but CDs sound dry and painful.


It's easy explained ... there are two reasons:

1. The frequency range ... CD has 20-20.000 Hz and vinyl can have up to 5-50.000 Hz ... you might not hear it, but you feel it (especially the bass) ;)

2. 16Bit at 44.1 kHz isn't enough to compete with an analog signal ... too much dithering!




Greetings from Germany

Chris
View user's profile View All Posts By User
fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Member Is Offline

Mood: m'Oudy

[*] posted on 4-20-2010 at 08:29 PM


CDs have shortcomings in other more important areas. For what it's worth I can tell you of a strange experience, many years ago. I was playing a CD track leaning over the console, with good near-field time-aligned monitors, and the console output was routed to a PCM mastering converter operating in tandem with a VCR (as you normally did in CD mastering). At one point I was amazed at the fact the CD sounded very different, instead of sounding painted on a curtain, it had suddenly acquired that depth that it normally lacks. I started looking at what had happened. The routing had been switched so that it was running through the A/D converters of the PCM unit and back out its D/As, so I was hearing it after an additional A/D/A conversion. These were ordinary 16 bit 44.1 converters on a Sony 501 or 701 PCM unit. I have NO idea why that does what it does. But I can reproduce it any day. The reason CDs sound as they do is much more complicated than what you cite.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Aymara
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1162
Registered: 10-14-2009
Location: Germany / Ruhr Region
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 4-20-2010 at 11:17 PM


Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud  
The reason CDs sound as they do is much more complicated than what you cite.


Yes, shure ... this could become a very looong discussion, but because it is off-topic here, I tried to make a long story short ;)




Greetings from Germany

Chris
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Sazi
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 786
Registered: 9-17-2007
Location: Behind my oud
Member Is Offline

Mood: مبتهج ; ))

[*] posted on 9-10-2010 at 04:04 AM


Somewhere in this thread there was something about pick-ups:rolleyes:

I have had a Fishman SBT for a while now, never liked the way it sounded... but I just picked up a Fishman ProEQII and it makes quite a difference.
Obviously I still prefer mic's when the situation allows/warrants, but it's definitely usable, and while the eq is not as comprehensive as the Platinum version it is enough to do some serious tone sculpting, the sliders are quite sensitive, you only have to make a very small adjustment for noticeable effect, so luckily it's pretty much set & forget, only requiring adjustment of the volume.

http://www.fishman.com/uploads/products/documents/69.pdf





http://www.youtube.com/Sazi369

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Microber
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 853
Registered: 1-20-2006
Location: Belgium - Liège
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 4-25-2012 at 09:16 AM


Is there a problem to paste a pickup (even temporarily) directly on a non protected soundboard?
I am afraid to damage it.
Any experience ?

Robert
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 2916
Registered: 1-30-2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Member Is Offline

Mood: Stringish

[*] posted on 4-25-2012 at 09:37 AM


Quote: Originally posted by Aymara  


1. The frequency range ... CD has 20-20.000 Hz and vinyl can have up to 5-50.000 Hz ... you might not hear it, but you feel it (especially the bass) ;)


The frequency response of vinyl is dependent on the size of the grooves and the RPMs. In addition, it has very poor ability to reproduce bass notes at louder volumes because it tends to make the needle jump (because of the logarithmic nature of perceived loudness at different frequencies).

In practice, the frequency response of vinyl of a typical small-groove 33.5rpm LP is much worse than a CD. However, though CD has greater dynamic range in theory, LPs tend to have more pleasing dynamics.

Since bass frequencies can't be made as "loud" on the disc itself, they are a benchmark for other frequencies (ie., you can't over-compress the high frequencies, because it would make the bass seem very weak). In addition, the soft clipping of analog makes loud passages less startling.

While CD could do the same, in practice all frequencies are usually over-compressed because of sheer stupidity on the part of musicians and consumers.

The fact is that once the signal gets to your speakers, it becomes analog anyway--a speaker is incapable of vibrating in a digital way. A well-produced CD sounds as good or better than standard vinyl. A badly produced CD sounds bad, but most of the complaints about CDs are really referring to either the early days of CDs when no one had any idea what they were doing or to the idiotic over-compression of modern popular recordings.

It's true that very high quality vinyl recorded with wide grooves at fast RPMs can outperform CDs, but that is not a typical scenario--you might as well be comparing it with 24/96 audio on SACD.

That said, I listen to vinyl all the time, there are many reasons to like it without all the pseudoscientific attempts to quantify it.





YouTube lessons and resources
______________________

Follow on Instagram
My oud music on YouTube
www.brianprunka.com

My u2u inbox is over capacity, please contact me through my website
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
Microber
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 853
Registered: 1-20-2006
Location: Belgium - Liège
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

exclamation.gif posted on 4-28-2012 at 09:16 AM
Nobody ?


:)

Quote: Originally posted by Microber  
Is there a problem to paste a pickup (even temporarily) directly on a non protected soundboard?
I am afraid to damage it.
Any experience ?

Robert
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 2916
Registered: 1-30-2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Member Is Offline

Mood: Stringish

[*] posted on 4-28-2012 at 01:38 PM


Depends on what you use to paste it.
Most adhesives can damage a sound board. Most adhesives also won't cause as much damage if only left for s short time.

In general, I would say it's not a good idea to stick a pickup on the face of the oud unless you intend it to be a permanent installation or don't care if there is some damage to the face.. On the other hand, if you're installing it permanently, you should probably put it inside.

I haven't found an adhesive that is completely safe to use on a soundboard, maybe others have.





YouTube lessons and resources
______________________

Follow on Instagram
My oud music on YouTube
www.brianprunka.com

My u2u inbox is over capacity, please contact me through my website
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
Multi Kulti
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 252
Registered: 1-27-2004
Member Is Offline

Mood: skaataa!

[*] posted on 4-29-2012 at 03:21 AM


I used to stick the AKG C411 on the face (before i found out that the sound of it when i stick it on the bridge is better for my taste...so on the bridge is no problem to use the adhesive) using the TESA POWERSTRIPS double face sticks...


they are very very easy to use and they dont damage in any way the unfinished face of an oud.



6762_0.jpg - 23kB
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Microber
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 853
Registered: 1-20-2006
Location: Belgium - Liège
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 4-29-2012 at 07:25 AM


Thank you Brian and Multi Kulti for your answers.
Actually I can't make easily a permanent installation with the pick up inside because of the rosette.
So the option is to paste for a short time.
Yesterday I did a test with the AKG C411. I pasted it with PRITT Poster Buddies with no dammage. But I used it only for half an hour. The result was fairly good. I have searched for the good spot. But haven't tried the bridge.
Multi Kulti do you have a floating bridge or not. Mine is floating bridge. I will try the bridge.
Another question about the AKG C411, do you use it with the B29L box, or maybe another preamp could be better?

Robert




Pritt poster buddies.jpg - 9kB
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Multi Kulti
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 252
Registered: 1-27-2004
Member Is Offline

Mood: skaataa!

[*] posted on 4-29-2012 at 08:28 AM


I use it with the b29.So you could combine the c411 with any other mic with a mini-xlr adapter. My idea is to combine it with one of the lavaliers from DPA.
Its nit necessary to use another preamp,although a preamp with eq is always a good solution. I use the platinum Eq from fishman ,which has an antifeedback function too. But there are a lot of nice preamps out there (boss,lrbaggs etc etc).

Nikos
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Microber
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 853
Registered: 1-20-2006
Location: Belgium - Liège
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 5-12-2012 at 04:57 AM


Hi Nikos,
I finally gave a try with the AKG c411 on the bridge.
But the result was very bad.
Probably because I have a floating bridge.

Anybody has an idea of which sort of pick up Ara Dinkjian uses in this video? It sounds great.

Ara Dinkjian

Robert
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Matthias
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 473
Registered: 1-24-2007
Location: Badenweiler, Germany
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 5-12-2012 at 10:58 AM


Quote: Originally posted by Microber  
Hi Nikos,
I finally gave a try with the AKG c411 on the bridge.
But the result was very bad.
Probably because I have a floating bridge.

Anybody has an idea of which sort of pick up Ara Dinkjian uses in this video? It sounds great.

Ara Dinkjian

Robert


Hello Robert,

that looks like a small mic at the rose. But I do not have an idea which it is. I will discover it.

For a floating bridge I have a very good systrem here in my workshop. You can try it in august when you come.

Best regards
Matthias




Matthias Wagner
lutes - ouds - guitars & music-strings onlineshop
http://www.lutes-strings.de ( instruments )
http://www.music-strings.de ( strings )
http://www.facebook.com/Matth.Wagner
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ 9th Oriental music-summeracademy 1.8. - 4. 8. 2019
+ http://www.oriental-music-summeracademy.de
+ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4WC3bzeF38yuVfMGB8T1Vg/videos
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 2916
Registered: 1-30-2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Member Is Offline

Mood: Stringish

[*] posted on 5-12-2012 at 11:50 AM


I use the AKG411 with a fixed bridge, I put it inside the oud underneath the bridge. I am not sure how it would work with a fixed bridge, but I would guess that if you attached it to the soundboard inside it would work well.




YouTube lessons and resources
______________________

Follow on Instagram
My oud music on YouTube
www.brianprunka.com

My u2u inbox is over capacity, please contact me through my website
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
Microber
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 853
Registered: 1-20-2006
Location: Belgium - Liège
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 5-13-2012 at 02:10 AM


Matthias,
Thank you for your suggestion. I 'll give a try when I come in august.
By the way, is it a secret weapon?
Tell us all a little more.

Brian,
As I already said, my oud has a rosette and I can't reach the inside. But with the AKG C411 on the sounboard, the result was quite satisfactory.
Wich preamp do you use with the AKG ? The AKG B29 or another one?
Any idea of the pick up used by Ara Dinkjian ?

Robert
View user's profile View All Posts By User
 Pages:  1    3  4

  Go To Top

Powered by XMB
XMB Forum Software © 2001-2011 The XMB Group