EQing mics to come closer to another mic.

[LBTM]

This is not that good of an idea and won't work great, but if you head to recordinghacks.com and go to a microphone's page you can see EQ diagrams of every mic.

For example:

- SM57

- KSM44A

You can EQ each microphone to get closer to another one looking on these diagrams. That won't work really good but if you want to get closer to a particular mic it's a good way to start. It somewhat worked for me (trying to get a sm57 close to a beta98 - i have both mics so I could compare) so I though I should share.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

There's an app for that

 

[LBTM]

There's an app for that

I have seen it but I can't remember it's name and I if I recall correctly it isn't free. Did it work thought?

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Antares Mic Modeler, now it's called Mic Mod efx. Of course it doesn't really do what it pretends 100%, it's just impossible. Didn't bother to buy it either.

 

[botus99]

You can't match-EQ the transient response of a mic

 

[LBTM]

You can't match-EQ the transient response of a mic

I don't know many things about electronics and how a microphone picks-up sound but can't you get closer by EQing the mics based on these diagrams? Could you elaborate?

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

You can match EQ a snare all you want, it's not gonna sound like a kick. Same with microphones, and same with everything in fact.

 

[LBTM]

You can't turn a snare into a kick, but I tried to Match EQ with pink noise, tested it with vocals and I'm impressed I can say. I just did it on my home because I have 2 weeks off and the results were good enough! Try it yourself. Put 2 mics in front of your monitor, one at a time and match them with pink noise. They will not get perfectly the same but...

 

[Red Phoenix]

I match EQed an e906 to a md421. Its pretty close..depends on how precise you placed the mics. But with a sm57 it didn't worked that well.
The e906 sounds quite similar as a md421 anyway regarding the overall response so just EQ gets it even closer. Of course its still not 100% but ~95%

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Sorry I wasn't clear, the idea was that a microphone is not just about an EQ colour.

 

[LBTM]

I match EQed an e906 to a md421. Its pretty close..depends on how precise you placed the mics. But with a sm57 it didn't worked that well.
The e906 sounds quite similar as a md421 anyway regarding the overall response so just EQ gets it even closer. Of course its still not 100% but ~95%

I matched a cheap but decent mic, with really bad low end and flat highs, to a sm57. The low end smoothed out and the highs were colored like the sm57. Still not the same, I'd give a 85% if you want a percentage but the placement wasn't the same so... I was still impressed thought...

Sorry I wasn't clear, the idea was that a microphone is not just about an EQ colour.

I agree. There's the polar patter too, pop filter...what else? It's always better to get the real thing but I wouldn't spend $1200 for a mic that I can borrow, get an impulse and get close to with another one

 

[LBTM]

You can do this also...

 

[PeterFranks]

You can't turn a snare into a kick, but I tried to Match EQ with pink noise, tested it with vocals and I'm impressed I can say. I just did it on my home because I have 2 weeks off and the results were good enough! Try it yourself. Put 2 mics in front of your monitor, one at a time and match them with pink noise. They will not get perfectly the same but...

The fact is, as other people tried to explain before, is that making music is different to recording pink noise!
Frequency charts is one thing, but the way the mic transcribes those frequencies, the transients... are another important thing.
A 50$ mic with an EQ will never sound like a vintage Neumann mic.

 

[LBTM]

After messing up more with EQ Matching microphones with 60 points, I can say that you can get good results if done right but you will never match the real thing. I've got close to SM58 with a 20$ decent dynamic without doing a super careful matching. It would be really useful if you've got one 57 and a cheap pack of dynamic mics recording drums. You can match all to the 57 and at least you'll surely get better results. What'd you say?

 

[Kohugaly]

concept of linear devices (those that only boost or cut specific parts of the sound) is just an approximation. You always get nonlinearities when using real devices. In fact that's mayor part of the color of the device. You'd have to use dynamic convolution (like the one in nebula) to capture this character and yet, it's still just an approximation.
+consider the phase response not just frequency response.
Anyway I agree that you can get pretty close by using just an EQ.... but what's the point... you'll probably have to EQ the track again at some point during the mix.

 

[FrankTheSmith]

I match eq'd a 30 dollar nady mic to sound like a Rode nt1a. Holy cow it worked so good!

 

[Mago]

that is only usefull to give you kind of an idea of how it might could sound different with another mic.
better to try to get comparison clips of the 2 real mics, if you want to judge how you'd like that mic, if you want to get it.

Doesn't really make a lot of sense for working with it though I think.
maybe only if you want to get it close to another mic that is similar built, and sounds at least somewhat similar to begin with...but still, what's the point then?
Just EQ it the way you want it to sound, if you couldn't capture it that way during recording for some reason.
That is allready a not so nice solution, imagine another instance of EQ before that....won't help from keeping you eq-ing it to death.

A 57 is allready cheap as fuck, you can never have too many of those anyway.

 

[LBTM]

I'll try to make a quality comparison in a few weeks guys.

I match eq'd a 30 dollar nady mic to sound like a Rode nt1a. Holy cow it worked so good!

Not sure if you're serious but please post some clips.

A 57 is allready cheap as fuck, you can never have too many of those anyway.

I've got many microphones dropped from bands in gigs so instead of using 58s and other good mics fuck it, I can use $20 decent dynamics and later while mixing match eq them to the 58 or anything else. I'll try it.

 

[RedDog]

Match EQ EVERYTHING.

Profit.

 

[thefalloftheheretic]

Match EQ EVERYTHING.

Profit.

Who are you, Clark Kent? :hotjump::hotjump: