Distance miking

    Quote from DocLine6forum

    Interesting article here:
    http://www.premierguitar.com/M…e_of_the_Moon.aspx?Page=1


    Definitely calls for some more experimentation with distance miking...

    I've been an advocate of distance micing for years, my preferred way of micing. It gives very rewarding results, much more so than just sticking the mic right up against the speaker. Unfortunately distance micing does not work very well with the KPA as it just can't capture enough of the room.


    edit: I also like to mic the back of cabs too, you can get some nice sounds there (I'm not talking about very high gain sounds here)

    Edited once, last by JonG ().

    Quote from DocLine6forum

    Interesting article here:
    http://www.premierguitar.com/M…e_of_the_Moon.aspx?Page=1


    Definitely calls for some more experimentation with distance miking...

    Very nice article, thanks :thumbup:


    I lately experimented a little with distant miking. I used al little than those "18 inches" that AP mentioned there. I found the results different but not necessarily better than close miking.


    http://www.kemper-amps.com/for…page=Thread&threadID=4037

    I guess farfield is something that the kpa is just not bulit for. It's not recording sounds, it's meassuring parameters of sounds. It can not capture something unexspected and works only for things that the programmer allowed to be meassured.

    I've tried some profiles with a distant mic, but the results weren't very good, not sure how far you can go with the mic, will experiment some more when I have time, maybe Mr Kemper can give us some tips if it's possible to get good sounds that way, but probably not possible.

    Distance miking is possible. The profiler will compensate for the latency.
    The reverb tail of the room will shrink, which can be of an advantage, since the sound will be more direct.
    If desired, reverberation can be added afterwards.


    What is more important: the frequency responce of the room is fully captured.

    Hey CK, Do you mean you feel it's possible right now, or that it's a feature that could be added?


    I'd love to be able to capture the rooms tone curve and map that onto a reverb that's added.


    Right now I find that the actual tone changes quite a bit when distance micing, and my Kemper isn't really able to capture it that, the softening in the treble end from the diffusion of sound I guess. If you want I can post some clips against the profile it makes.

    ... But as you read in this great Alan Parsons article: If the distance is not more than 30 - 40 cm, you will hardly catch any other signal by the microphone, such as other instruments or the surrounding room.

    Quote from ckemper

    Distance miking is possible. The profiler will compensate for the latency.
    The reverb tail of the room will shrink, which can be of an advantage, since the sound will be more direct.
    If desired, reverberation can be added afterwards.


    What is more important: the frequency responce of the room is fully captured.


    Thanks, that's good to hear, my initial test didn't sound too good, but i didn't spend enough time, I'll experiment with this some more.

    Quote from Per

    Hey CK, Do you mean you feel it's possible right now, or that it's a feature that could be added?


    I'd love to be able to capture the rooms tone curve and map that onto a reverb that's added.


    Right now I find that the actual tone changes quite a bit when distance micing, and my Kemper isn't really able to capture it that, the softening in the treble end from the diffusion of sound I guess. If you want I can post some clips against the profile it makes.


    It has always been possible. I don't expect problems.
    Do your close mic profiles sound closer to the original?

    Yes, close mic sounds very... er... close, but distant micing the KPA still retains its top end and sounds harsh and close miced compared to the result recorded from amp+room, even with reverb.

    OK, I very quickly did a small profiling session here that shows what happens, this is probably a worst case scenario, it's an SM58 (rather than a 57) so it's picking up plenty of room, and the room is as you can tell completely untreated. The close mic had it right up against the grill pointing directly in at the center, the far i pulled it back a full meter but kept it's alignment and relative position (so still looking straight on at the center of the cone).


    With the far test I then tried to get a reverb (KPA's own) to give the rough effect of the room. Finally I tried an additional Match EQ in Logic. Signal chain was Guitar -> Ensemble -(SPDIF)> KPA -> Mesa -> SM58 -> Ensemble -(Analog Out)> KPA -(SPDIF)> Ensemble.


    Basically as you drop further back the KPA gets more and more brittle and "clipping like" the distortion becomes, regardless of the source sound. It seems to have difficulty working out the correct distortion characteristic, maybe too many reflections, which to be fair is kinda what you'd expect I mean it's only got the one "ear" (mic) to listen with, however it seems to add more treble bite and lose more mids than I'd expect. The Logic Match EQ interestingly also couldn't seem to tame the treble harshness or bring back the mids.


    Is there a possibility it's a phase issue? You mentioned that the Kemper will compensate for latency so I'd assume that also means compensating for phase. But is there a possibility that in this instance it's just having a hard time working out which is the right waveform to lock onto, so in this situation it might be necessary to have a manual phase control?


    Anyhow, here's the file, it contains an AIF with audio explaining what the upcoming section is (near or far, KPA or Mesa) and starts out with the dry guitar that was reaped throughout to make comparing easier.


    http://www.peranders.com/general/nearfarkempertest.zip


    Hope that helps.

    Thanks for that file.
    The distant miking is quite far away from the speaker, so you catch loads of room.
    As mentioned earlier the profile will not capture the reverb tail, but only the frequency responce of the room. Still there is no dissipation at this short distance.


    The difference between the original and profile is caused by a psychological effect: The diffusion of the room seems to soften the high end, even though it doesn't (as you have checked with the match eq).
    I believe you could even come closer by creating more diffusion in the KPA. This is by better adapting the KPA's reverb to the original room. The reverb should be a bit louder and a bit longer.


    Btw. Your file is very noisy!

    Quote from ckemper

    Distance miking is possible. The profiler will compensate for the latency.
    The reverb tail of the room will shrink, which can be of an advantage, since the sound will be more direct.
    If desired, reverberation can be added afterwards.


    What is more important: the frequency responce of the room is fully captured.

    I see it as a complete disadvantage that the reverb tail of the room shrinks as that is where a lot of the good stuff is when distance miking. Does this mean that you are only capturing EQ parameters during the profiling process? It would be good if you were able to introduce some room capture during the profiling process but I guess that would mean capturing an IR which you say you do not use, but would it be possible?

    Quote from ckemper

    Thanks for that file.
    The distant miking is quite far away from the speaker, so you catch loads of room.
    As mentioned earlier the profile will not capture the reverb tail, but only the frequency responce of the room. Still there is no dissipation at this short distance.


    The difference between the original and profile is caused by a psychological effect: The diffusion of the room seems to soften the high end, even though it doesn't (as you have checked with the match eq).
    I believe you could even come closer by creating more diffusion in the KPA. This is by better adapting the KPA's reverb to the original room. The reverb should be a bit louder and a bit longer.


    Btw. Your file is very noisy!


    Heh yeah, lots of noise unfortunately. That's partly from the amp (which is known to be pretty noisy) but a lot more from general noise floor with the ensemble and mic in this instance, I'm not sure why as the pre wasn't adding that much gain.


    Anyhow, is there any chance (and I know you're very busy so it's OK if not) that you could maybe tweak that verb in there to match better as you say?


    I tried pretty much everything and I have it mixed up very very high in order to try to get the correct diffusion, but I just couldn't seem to get it right there without it becoming either muffled or too echo-ey (is there a particular parameter that adjusts how fast the reverb trails off? I assumed dampening but it didn't seem to change anything for me here in 1.0.6).


    Thanks!