Bass/Treble Roll Off On Mics

[soundguy]

derrick-

I think you can definitely hear 80 hz on a vocal track, especially if you have a male vocalist with a very deep voice who is way up on the mic (in proximity of, even) and it can be very useful to use that information especially if you have transformer coupled gear which can accentuate it more. Im not suggesting you just cut everything because there is info there which in many circumstances can help you. But it can also work against you as noted. If you are recording a dude singing with a light jazz ensemble, that bottom in the vocal can be just the thing that adds a lot of bottom to your mix, but if you are recording the standard rock affair, it can really get in the way of other stuff on the bottom like a bass guitar, etc. Another thing to consider is that you can spend a lot of time trying to get a lot of great 50 Hz onto your record and a mastering engineer can cut all that before it even gets into his console, so if you can communicate with the ME you'll be using to see where he likes to set his input filter (if any) you can also save yourself some trouble.

Just a disclaimer to note that those freq's are there and DO something positive before someone jumps all over me. It can serve you well to cut them if you are accumulating tracks for a thick mix.

dave

[joel hamilton]

I am surprised nobodys monkey mentioned GAIN STRUCTURE here. How about this:

A mic pre will reproduce(or attempt to) everythin coming down the wire from the microphone. Headroom is eaten up by floor rumble, excessive low end that has nothing to do with the violin you are recording, etc...

Also, a rolloff is exactly that, it is not an on /off switch for all frequencies below 80 hz.

You will still have an amazing amount of USABLE low end even with this "evil, bass killing" switch engaged. I have actually recorded bass with the low cut engaged, because magically, the growl and attack of the bass came right up without all the low end info cluttering up the mic pre, and channel i was printing to.

Gain structure (ie when where, how much at each point in the chain) is something you learn with experience IMO, and until then it is an elusive, snake oil type concept.

I am sticking with dave's disgruntled monkey on this one...

[Al]

I have an old AKG D224E that has a bass roll of dial on it, very handy, and a nice mic too, i'm actually thinking of selling it on soon!..plug plug!!..

Al

[Scodiddly]

Here's the typical scenario:

It's 1970, and you're lucky to have a mixer, never mind that it's only got a tone knob and not that fancy 3-band EQ that the big stars can afford. Luckily your MD-421 has a variable lo-cut, so you can get rid of some of that annoying mud on the bottom of the vocals, or to bring out a little click in the kick drum.

(flash-forward to the present)

Depends on the mixer EQ... I'm mostly a live engineer, so if I've got something like a variable lo-cut on the channel I'll probably leave any mic switches flat. If not... then I might want to tweak the mic settings a bit than have the same exact 80 (or maybe it's 100, depending on the board) cut on every channel. Needless to say if I want to tweak a kick drum mic with only a lo-cut switch I might need to use the mic's rolloff instead.

[jajjguy]

I suspect that Dave's monkey's excellent point (that removing bass before the signal hits various devices is different and often better) is less of an issue when dealing with modern, "clean, accurate" style analog gear and 24 bit digital recording than it is with "thick, colored" style gear and analog tape recording. I think traditional gain-structuring wisdom has to be adjusted a bit when dealing with modern gear as well -- hitting everything hot is not necessary or desirable with modern-type gear.

Comments? Am I up a tree?

[soundguy]

I dont know how much of monkeys argument is solely dependant on the use of old junky gear and certainly none of the points that chris or joel bring up have any bearing on what year your gear was made or what it is made out of. I only brought up transformers because they can sort of act like a natural limiter and do wierd shit when presented with alot of level at times but those analogies will all still hold true if you are on transformerless gear- low end rumble will cloud your shit if that low end passes into your system through transformers or chips, it will key compressors and do all the other stuff mentioned so far ono gear designed in 1970 or with an M box so I dont know.

dave