Hey all. i'm a new guy to this site but i'm having a slight problem. I have a michael joly modded octava 319 that I purchased after doing a lot of listening to a lot of other mics. Now to my problem...i'm getting a very "boxy" type sound almost like being in a bathroom but without the reverb. I can't really tell if it's the room or the mic and how would I go about determining which. I hope this makes sense. If it ends up being the room has anyone evr used one of those SE Electronics reflexion filters and do they help or sound good. Thanks for any help.

did you tell Michael Joly about it?

No, not yet. I figured i'd come here first to see if there was a way to determine if it's the room or the mic. The listening tests I heard with it were not boxy.

Try the mic in a larger room. You will know right away. What is the size of the room you are recording in? My vocal booth is 7x10x 7.5'. It is a little boxy around the 750hz range. I needed to added absorbers that effect that freq to fix the issue.

JD

I'm no good at determining that sort of thing, but there are cats around here who are. I'd imagine they'd be able to better assist you if you could post a sound clip or two.

Hang Blankets around you on stands (not against a wall) to make a dead space and listen that way.

Are you singing into the right side of the mic?

jmp

Could it be a phasing problem?

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try the larger room. The room I was in,i'm ashamed to say, was a hallway in my apt. I did hang heavy blankets around the mic to the rear and to the left of it but nothing behind the vocalist or to the right. I figured there'd be no need to have anything behind the vocalist but it sounds like the mic was picking up the hallway behind the vocalist. Hmmm.

don't forget the ceiling. are you close enough to the mic?

the hallway is absolutely your problem. I made the same mistake in one of my first projects. I would suggest setting up in a bedroom or in the living room, even those rooms untreated can give you some weird phase issues. Tell me about the project. Are you an artist, or leaning more toward learning the craft of engineering?

quote:

Originally posted by Kel:
don't forget the ceiling. are you close enough to the mic?

space away from the mic is definetly something to check, how big is the proximity effect compared to other marks? it might help narrow down what you don't like about it

I am an artist and i studied engineering as my second major in college,although for many years i've focused only on being the best pianist I could be. Now i am recording some tracks for my own album. I don't think proximity was an issue because that mainly relates to increasing or decreasing lower freq.s(i.e. the radio type voice)and i wouldn't assume that it would affect that unpleasant "hallway" type sound. I think i might also build some diffusers out of the corning 703/705 stuff to help. I am going to a friends studio this week to test the mic in his iso booth which is as dead as a doornail to see if i still get the boxyiness.

But to answer the question how close was the mic about 4-6" maybe closer to the vocals...i thought, at the time, enough to not need to worry about the dreaded "hallway" effect. guess i was wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by Jazz:
I don't think proximity was an issue because that mainly relates to increasing or decreasing lower freq.s(i.e. the radio type voice)and i wouldn't assume that it would affect that unpleasant "hallway" type sound. I think i might also build some diffusers out of the corning 703/705 stuff to help. I am going to a friends studio this week to test the mic in his iso booth which is as dead as a doornail to see if i still get the boxyiness.

It most definitely affects the "hallway sound". the proximity to the mic also relates to how much gain the mic preamp needed to capture at the best level, not just a tone issue. Closer needs less gain and the mic will hear less room. Yes it will be bigger on the bottom. When you say the mic was 4-6" closer to the vocals what does that mean? how far was it from your mouth? Are you a loud or soft vocalist?

a lot depends on the mic you choose too. Some reach out and pick up off axis sounds more than others. I found the Oktava fairly directional, similar in off-axis sensitivity to other LD mics. Better than AT40 series, especially the 4033.
I take a 219 out to some of my livesound gigs from time to time. If it gets too big on the bottom engage the lowcut or handle that at the board.

in poor acoustic environments the closer the mic can get, the better. For vocals, going to a dynamic mic and "eating" it is a solution to troubling spaces sometimes.

the 703 type ridged fiberglass would be absorbers(albeit better ones than foam or blankets), but not diffusion. You can't quite make diffusion work in really small spaces, although something like a "poly" would help.

Thanks Kel for the help. I meant to say that the mic was 4-6" from my mouth. And sorry about calling the 703 fiber diffusers i did mean to say absorbers. Do you think the absorbers could help in this situation? The vocals were of a friend of mine who was rapping somewhat loud. But when I did some vocals on a tune of mine(I was singing) there was none of the boxyness but then again I was singing softer so maybe the louder volume created more "hallway" sound.

i've heard of a bathroom or a kitchen but never a hallway??

Jazz, can you post a soundclip?

Hey Dot. it won't let me post a clip. I've tried several times. The clip is mp3 it's only 10 seconds long and it done at 320kbps. how do upload this thing?

Hey Dot, I think i figured it out. Here's a link to a 10 second clip of just the vocal rap. It's .mp3 at 320kbps. I think it's long enough to hear what i'm talking about.

http://boxstr.com/files/1413096_ep6ha/Vox01.mp3

Oops! the first sound clip is using a multiband comp. to get rid of some of the boxy sound. Here is the unprocessed sound.
http://boxstr.com/files/1413299_uhcl4/Vox01.mp3

sorry about my confusion.