Living Room Laboratory: The Sennheiser MD421-U-5

It's a beautiful day (windows wide open with 70 degree weather), Mrs. Audio Guy is outta town, and Biggs is being chill.

Let's play a little!

About two months before we moved, a reader of the blog sold me an old (OLD) used Sennheiser MD421-U-5. He was cleaning out his mic cabinet, and came across this old Senny, which he had purchased in the 90's, then just never really used. He was well stocked on SM7's and RE20's, so off this mic went. To me. For little more than the cost of shipping. Woot!

I don't know exactly how old it is, but it is a fairly early serial number for the U-5 (#2097, and I've seen serials as high 55,000 on ebay), so I'm thinking it was made in the early 80's or late 70's.

A little history, the MD421 is probably the microphone most responsible for Sennheiser having a presence in the US microphone market today. Thomas Schillinger sold 600 MD421's to NBC in the late 60's, getting the microphone into the hands of recording and broadcast engineers across the country, and to date, the MD421 (and it's updates) remains one of the highest selling microphones of all time.

I've NEVER used one before.

These days, the dynamic microphones of choice seem to be the Electrovoice RE20, or the Shure SM7B. Most VO pros I know go for those, a large diaphragm condenser, or Sennheiser's now ubiquitous shotgun, the MKH416.

I don't run a booth out of my home anymore, so I thought it would be fun to throw some kit out on the living room floor. I recorded a little Poe (you know me and Poe), and to compare I also recorded on another dynamic microphone, the Shure SM57 (my personal fave "do anything" mic). The recording chain was Microphone to ART Tube PAC to NRV10 to laptop.
So how did it sound?

Here's the MD421:

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And here's the SM57:

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First up, this mic is QUIET. I plugged it into my preamp, and dialed up about 20dB of gain, and saw nothing. I had to hit the MD421 with 45dB of input for it to register my voice at a comfortable speaking level. By comparison the SM57 needed only 30dB of gain to match the output of the MD421. I've never had to do that before. I'm pretty confident I could scream myself mute into this thing and be NOWHERE near damaging the cartridge.
The tone is pretty smooth, and I think it fattens up the bassier end of my thin little voice. From memory, I feel it exhibits more proximity effect than RE20's I've used. Good to know if you're going for an intense "trailer" sound.
The SM57 did a much better job with off-axis rejection (picking up little surrounding noise except for what's directly in front of it), but the MD421 was certainly no slouch (remember I was recording 4 feet from an open window overlooking a fairly busy street in Studio City). Also, the MD421 was MUCH more tolerant of plosive b's and p's (a problem of mine), and something the SM57 can be a little fragile about. I feel I could comfortably use the 421 without a pop shield or sock.

I'm really excited about this mic. It probably wont see tons of action as I prefer condensers for most of my VO, but the times I need to record really loud sessions, this baby's going right up front to the top of my list. I'm this mic's third owner, and I'm really stoked to be giving it a good home!

Are you looking for a NEW MD421?

New MP3 Might Revolutionize The Way You Listen to Music

Or it might not... Who knows?

From Digg:

A new file format that offers separate volume controls for each musical instrument, such as guitar, drum, base and voice, is being considered as a new Internet standard.The new .MT9 file format, which a commercial title of “Music 2.0″, was selected as a candidate for consideration at a regular meeting of Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG).

After reading the article, it looks like Music 2.0 is a way to deliver compressed multitrack recordings. From the article:

If you are a serious guitar-master wannabe and you want to focus on the tune of Brian May's guitar and don't want to hear Freddie Mercury's voice and Roger Tailor drumming in Queen songs, then this may be what you have been looking for.
Korean computer engineers are introducing a new digital music format that has separate controls on the sound volume for each musical instrument, such as guitar, drum, base and voice -- an ideal tool for music lovers of different tastes as well as karaoke fans.

That's not a bad idea. Actually, it is kind of cool. I think it would be inherently more flexible than the current EQ controls we stick onto music players. We fiddle with these controls to emphasize certain frequencies of sound (so I can pump the bass in my Corolla, HOT!). With Music 2.0 we could just control the entire mix in real time. There's something kind of sexy about that. Being able to custom tailor our music tastes down to the instruments we prefer.

My only real issue with the idea is my own personal desire to move away from compressed music. With storage getting cheaper and cheaper, the idea of ripping my music collection to flac or even wav, isn't unreasonable anymore. Wav files are usually 5-10 times the size of mp3's (depending on bit rate). If Music 2.0 were uncompressed, it's 6 channels of controllable audio would be a sizeable jump in storage. The average 3 minute pop tune would jump from about 3MB (128Kbps MP3) to approximately 180MB as an uncompressed MT9. If you even CAN rip to an uncompressed MT9...

The last paragraph of the story posted is pretty cool though:

Unlike other digital formats exclusively used by big companies such as SK Telecom, Audizen allows users to copy the MT9 files, making it a more attractive format. ``It's like having a CD or cassette tape. Once you buy it, you can lend it to your friends. We don't want to be too fussy about DRM (digital right management),'' he said.

Well said! Now all they have to do is unseat MP3.
I'm not holding my breath...

read more | digg story

My Interview with Tracy Pattin @ VoiceRegistry

Just a quick shameless self promotional plug...

Tracy and I had a chat about video games and animation a little while ago, and she decided to post it up on the VoiceRegistry blog!

It's almost like I'm becoming an authority or something.

That's much better than just being a video gaming geek who never grew up out of comics...

Check it out:

Recording Engineer Seques into Voice Directing

'Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' is fun, but MAN am I tired of crappy CG effects...

So before I jump in I want to make 2 points:

1. I'm going to try really hard to make spoilers avoidable. Any time I bring up specific plot points I'll blend the color of the text into the background, so you'll have to highlight that text to read it (if anyone REALLY cares what I have to say).

2. This is going to read A LOT like my diatribe on CG and Jurassic Park...

You've been warned!

I don't like to review movies here. Other places do that, so I'll try to stay focused on the technical aspects of the film. That said, the movie IS fun, and while I have some issues with the plot, the larger than life characters are so much fun to watch on screen (Karen Allen and Harrison Ford!?!?! COME ON!!!). It's hard not to get amped about a film like this.

Seriously, I was 8 when the last Indy movie came out.

My biggest problem with the film is I happen to hate LucasFilm visual effects. They look fake. REALLY fake. They look like giant cartoons. They DON'T relate to gravity. They become hyper-kinetic, moving in ways that real objects don't. LF relies on these effects as front and center visual pieces, and they just don't hold up. They're glaringly obvious.
Indy movies were always fantastic adventures taking us around the globe to exotic locations. Most of this movie felt like it was shot on a sound stage.

The most egregious for me (spoilers, highlight following text):
-GOD DAMNED CG GOPHER THINGS!?!?!
-After the bomb goes off, we really needed a bouncing cg fridge? Were refrigerators in the 50's made out of rubber? THEY COULDN'T HAVE JUST DROPPED A REAL FRIDGE?!?!
-CG Monkeys looked like crap. CG ants not much better. CG scorpions even worse. Even Temple of Doom had real bugs...
-Aliens? Sigh... Aside from just being plain lazy story telling, one of the worst Aliens I've ever seen. Why not just use a puppet like in Close Encounters?
-People in the showing I went to laughed at how Blanchett's character met her demise. Looked silly, made little sense.
-Flying saucer? Meh....

I think the problem here is laziness. Movies like Epsiodes 1-3 of Star Wars, Speed Racer (talk about vomiting cotton candy all over my childhood), King Kong (Jackson's) and now Indy 4 have failed to learn the lessons of movies that have come before (Jurassic Park still looks awesome and was made 15 years ago).
You can't make the whole movie up in post. CG only works to augment what you've already shot. The only exceptions are highly stylized movies like comic book films, and even then this stuff shouldn't be front and center.
Iron Man did a MUCH better job of tackling that. Even after seeing it a second time, there were still several moments where I had a really hard time figuring out if it was a guy in a suit, CG, or both.

Directors are going to have to relearn their craft IMHO. CG makes it WAY to easy to have your characters perform the impossible. Not the improbable, or the fantastic, but the impossible. The take-you-out-of-the-moment-and -break-suspension-of-disbelief-impossible. That moment where you go from having fun to realizing you're just watching some silly cartoon in a movie theater, and it doesn't matter what happens to the characters next because it's just going to be even more ridiculous then what they've already done.
Imagine if the boulder scene in Raiders had just been a wash of CG bouncing rocks and motion blurring effects.There's no fun in that...

So, all that above being said, Skywalker Sound did an AMAZING job. This movie sounded every bit like an Indy film. Great score, incredible mixing and ADR (Barbara Harris knows her shit), and the foley was incredible. I have to say I got a little giddy when I heard the classic Indiana Jones"punch" sound effect (sounds like a shotgun going off while breaking a 2x4).

All in all the movie is fun, with great performances, and is totally worth seeing. It is Indiana Jones after all, and it's been 20 years since the last one came out, so that's reason enough right there.

Having seen it though, I don't think I need to see it again.

A friend of mine still hasn't seen Iron Man though. I think I might be up for a third viewing there...

Seasoned voice actors make me happy...

Being a booth director can be REALLY tricky. I'd say I'm a pretty bright guy, and after years of theater and radio, I think I have a pretty good ear for how copy SHOULD sound. I was always pretty good at script analysis, and tearing into a :30 radio is something that comes natural to me (if you ever need anyone to OVER-analyze copy...).

I certainly don't think I'm special in any regard, but having been recording for ten years (the last five of which with an almost exclusive focus on VO) has left me with at least a little perspective.

I know the biggest challenge for me was getting out of my actors way. On stage or in the booth, I always had an idea of what a particular character should sound like. In my head that WAS the character, and it was so clear and apparent, how could an actor possibly come up with any other idea. It was very frustrating, and it took me a while before I learned how to communicate ideas, rather than just line reading the crap out of people.

It wasn't long before I started getting excited by the possibility of performance, what I wouldn't think of right away, and what a particular performer could bring to a role that I couldn't foresee. The unexpected, yet still appropriate.

It's sort of addictive. It's also very gratifying, that the better the performer I got, suddenly the better a director I became (partly because I had to up my game, but also because they made me look good on stage, lol).

Case in point, over the last week I've had the opportunity to help produce a union TV spot and a non-union internet spot. The union spot paid scale (about $600 for the session), and the producers had booked a studio for 1 hour to record. The non-union producers were going to pay talent $300 per hour of recording, but were assuming it would only take about 20 minutes to record.

I was brought in on both sessions pretty much just to push record, button-monkey that I am...

The union actor was a very experienced VO pro, easily 20 years of credits to his name. He read through the commercial three times (with one pick up), hit a legal-like disclaimer twice, and was out the door, about 15 minutes max. Everyone happy, session fee well spent, early lunches all around.

The non-union actor was a VERY nice guy, but was a TOTAL VO NEWB. This was his first ever voiceover session, or at least that was the impression I got from recording him. I can't remember how many takes we did, but what should've taken about thirty minutes, took over an hour and a half, and the end of the recording session boiled down to the director walking into the booth to line read the talent because the actor "wasn't getting the direction". The finished product (after a lot of editing) was merely acceptable. The bill for the talent came to about $600 (not to mention additional studio time), and no one was really happy about it.

Both sessions ended up paying their talent about the same for very different results...

My first thought looking back on these two wildly different experiences was "there you go, hire good talent, it'll save you in the long run", but after reflecting a bit, I've come to a slightly different conclusion.

I think a good director would've gotten a much better read out of the VO Newb, and much sooner. Letting the session drift on into line reading after line reading for an hour and a half was a bit unreasonable, and who's to say that if the non-union "director" had gotten his hands on Mr. VO Pro, that they wouldn't have had a similar melt down.

So what's my point with all of this? I guess I don't really have one. Really, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened...

We're FINALLY moved in!

Well, we still have a few boxes lying around, and there aren't any pictures on the wall, but we're finally all moved in, new couch and all!

We celebrated by buying Biggs a new doggy bed.



Hopefully, now I'll have a little more time to spend on this lil'blog...

So what DO your muscles sound like?

An engineering student at Cornell decided to find out, and ultimately turned his whole body into a theremin like thing.

Check it out:


Thanks Giz!

Help out RecordingReview, maybe win cool gear?

Brandon Drury has been hit with some major site costs. Apparently RecordingReview has crashed a server, and his new maintenance costs have jumped from about $10 a month to about $200 a month. RecordingReview is a great resource for us home recording closet booth junkies out there, and it would be a real shame if the site goes down.

Brandon's considering a raffle to try and raise some cash to keep the site up and running, and I think it's a great idea. He's wanting feed back on what prizes to put up, gift certificates to Musician's Friends, microphones, recording gear, cash, what have you.

He can definitely count me in for some tickets.

Please check out this forum thread, where he's planning what to do. Leave him some feedback, and help out a great site!
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My Friend Alex's Music Video! NSFW!

With a title like "Psycho Bitch Serenade", how could it be SFW?

My pal Alex is a really funny chick, and I swear I've been hounded by someone just like the girl in this vid...

hmmmm...

Anywho, check it out! A perfect funny little vid to wrap the week up!



Enjoy!

Do YOU rock the mic? Because I ROCK the mic!

In a social networking kinda way of course...


IRockTheMicVO.ning.com is a new social network just for VO people. Of course the focus is on actors, but I managed to sneak my way in too (I did just record that radio spot. What? THAT COUNTS!).
I've been using the site for about a week now, and have to say it's really well laid out. It's a little facebook-y, but in a good way, and many of the complaints I have with sites like MySpazz (downtime, bad page layout/formatting, slow to load, crashes often) haven't been an issue here.
Really the only issue I have so far is the community, in that it's so new it's a little quiet still. Like any good site or forum though, I think this project has legs, and I think we'll see some interesting and quick growth.
If VO is your thing, or if you're a fan, I would seriously consider checking this site out. I'll be adding my profile page to the SomeAudioGuy 'around the web' sidebar. --->

IRockTheMicVO.ning.com

An interesting side note, the site's creator Rick Party, also produced my favorite celebrity out take video, Jack Palance in Burnout!



Enjoy!
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Iron Man ROCKS! Go See it! Now!

I just got out of the midnight show at the Arclight.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

The cast was great! I was very proud of Shaun Toub, a gentleman it was my pleasure working with at Abram's. He did a great job opposite Downey.

I was the only person in the theater that laughed when Will Lyman's voice popped up. I'm SUCH a nerd...

I can't say anything else, as I refuse to do spoilers.

Go see it. Grab some popcorn. Have some fun!

I'm going to bed now...
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