Is it true nobody talks about you?
Koz
All good! Thanks 
I hope you’re doing well too.
That’s how I did it.
The future plan is to get a second mic. Not sure which one yet… Currently I have only a large condenser T.Bone SC-1100.
I’m thinking about getting a small condenser. Or maybe even a dynamic one such as the famous SM57 or similar. Though I’m leaning more towards the small condenser. I’ve read good things about people using a combination of one large and one small condenser mics for recording acoustic guitar (but there’s a million theories about it). Maybe something like a Rode M3, but I haven’t really started searching yet…
Anyway that’s probably going to be for another (long?) thread 
In the meanwhile I’ll try some mono recordings with the T.Bone and try to figure out what it lacks that another mic could fill in.
Not true 
I’ve heard about the movie, but I haven’t watched it.
I’ve heard about the movie
It’s not whether it’s going to win awards, it’s how many.
“We don’t talk about Bru-no-no-no.”
Koz
bgravato wrote:
The future plan is to get a second mic. Not sure which one yet…
Can’t go wrong with this one…
Neumann U67.
Hahaha sure 
Even the KM184 is quite a bit out of my league…
My “movie quote” would be “We don’t talk about Neumann mics” 
That’s probably what this is, right?
That’s from the Pomplamoose studio recordings.
It passes the Koz Rating.
It’s dented, it’s scratched, some of the paint is missing, you can’t read the knobs and dials any more, and you can’t have it right now because it’s on a show.
Koz
I do have a cautionary tale. I bought an AKG C 414 B large condenser Vocal Microphone. I stopped using it because what they meant by “vocal” was spoken word that was no-nonsense, aggressive, crisp, and hard, not something to sing a ballad into and fall in love with. There is a non-vocal version of this microphone and I believe that’s the respected, popular one.
On a whim, I did frequency runs and sure enough, it has a built-in sibilant “haystack” around 3000-4000Hz. So if you already have a crisp voice, this one is deadly.
Quick specification note. Insanely Popular Microphones aren’t flat and perfect. They’re lightly distorted so they love your voice.
Koz
Here’s the promised recorded audio sample of the Motu M2 with T.Bone SC-1100 mic.
No processing. Mic input gain knob at about half-way. I think peak was about -24dB, so I could probably give it a bit more gain and aim for -12dB, but this isn’t supposed to be a studio recording or anything… Just a sample.
By the way, the room has bad acoustics and there’s some background noises (such as a computer fan, some very light coil whining from a power supply, etc), but I don’t think the mic picked much of that.
I forgot to check the recording sampling rate/depth, not sure if it was 16 or 24 bit, the sampling rate I think was 44.1 kHz. Exported FLAC is 16 bit/44.1 kHz.
Anyway, here’s the file:
So what happened? Didn’t we leave you cranking out stunningly beautiful tunes in a stairwell in Porto?
Koz
Koz wrote:
That’s probably what this is, right? … That’s from the Pomplamoose studio recordings.
A bit difficult to tell from that angle, it could be a “clone”.
There are some very good clones and an equal amount of bad ones too.
However, I doubt very much Pomplamoose would use an el-cheapo one.
The real McCoy has the well known company logo at the bottom…not that it can’t be copied unfortunately.
I could never afford one, but have had the pleasure of using one a few times, an absolute glorious mic.
BTW, isn’t one of the guys from the group the same guy that founded or co-founded Patreon?
Koz wrote:
So what happened? Didn’t we leave you cranking out stunningly beautiful tunes in a stairwell in Porto?
Was he about to break out into another Fado song?
The recording sounds nice, maybe next you want to get two identical mics and try your hand at some stereo recordings.
Perhaps try the X/Y method as that gives you some stereo, not too much room tone but also keeps mono compatibility.
As for your recordings, I think you may have some USB noise in there.
(Quite a few harmonics but the predominant ones seem to be at 7, 9 and 11 KHz.
Also check your pass band, you may be getting some aliasing.
Found it.
This is a “fake” 150 Ohm microphone for noise measurements. Brown, Green, Brown, Gold. One Five One at 5% accuracy and it’s a well behaved metal film resistor. It’s mounted between pins 2 and 3 which is where the actual sound element connects.
There was a Public Address sound standard that wasn’t wired like this, but that hasn’t been common in years.
BTW, isn’t one of the guys from the group the same guy that founded or co-founded Patreon?
Correct. In his TED talk Jack Conte described working his butt off for weeks to get paid $12.63. Maybe we should work on this “Pay The Artist” thing.
I didn’t hear USB Whine. Can you actually hear it? USB whine tends to follow 1000, 2000, etc.
This damage is super difficult to fix with conventional noise reduction, at least without destroying the performance. We publish a filter specifically for Mosquito Whine (Yeti Curse).
There is a caution that this only works if the whine is USB and that it follows the conventional tonal pattern.
After struggling to fix Mosquito Whine in the field, it was determined that by far the best and most reliable way was change the computer.
We should wait for Bruno to get closer to his “studio recording”.
Koz
The “fake” microphone thing works well, I have built a couple myself to check pre-amp stages, etc.
I normally use 560 ohm (close enough to 600 ohm) 1% metal film resistors as opposed to carbon, find them less noisy.
Since studio mics are normally balanced, I use 2 x resistors, one between pins 1 and 2 and another between pins 1 and 3.
Important to switch phantom power off if the unit being tested can supply it.
As to the USB whine, I couldn’t hear it but there are definitely harmonics present, which seem to start at around 1 KHz, they are weak, but there.
The strongest ones seem to be in the 7-11 KHz range.
I suspect that if Bruno (I assume that is bgravato’s first name) turns up the mic gain to get to around the -12/-10 dB mark,
it will go a long way in masking most of the noise.
Perhaps even getting a USB filter may be just the ticket.
I certainly would not say that the noise is bad, but it may just start to create problems when he starts to apply EQ, gain, compression, etc
to his recordings.
Thank you guys for all the comments!
Yes, Bruno’s my first name 
I haven’t done any analysis yet, just a quick recording. Comparing to the AudioBox 96 I tried last year, this Motu M2 has much less noise. The AudioBox 96 had very audible USB noise/hiss which was quite annoying… The Motu is quite a lot better in that matter. I wasn’t expecting it to be perfect for the price tag, but it’s good enough for my expectations.
That sample was recorded with it connected to my NUC mini-pc, which is a bit of a noise nightmare… I’ll try it with a laptop running on batteries next to see if there’s a difference.
Koz, the stairwell is still there, but I was a bit in a hurry and this was faster.
My final goal though is to eventually prepare an echo-free room (which is quite the opposite of the stairwell). Nothing too fancy, hanging some blankets around, etc… should do a fairly decent job, I guess.
Paul, yes 2 matching mics in XY setup is one way of doing it… My idea is a bit different though… I want to try two different mics, probably one LDC and one SDC, with significantly different signatures, to capture different details. Not sure about the positioning yet, I want to try different ones…
Something along these lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dsR03JSE0o
This guy also does a good job on showing a few different positioning options: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du07aMdkG44&t=585s
And I have a PDF somewhere of an article about the subject that I bought from SOS a few years ago…
As for stereo, I can always resort to Steve’s pseudo-stereo plugin 
NUC mini-pc, which is a bit of a noise nightmare…
Aggressively “affordable” computers tend to have sloppy USB connections, and the damage is sneaky. Nobody cares if the connection to a keyboard or mouse is a little sloppy, but sound connections can care a lot. A soft or sloppy battery connection in a USB cable can pick up a little buzz and whine from the data cables right next door. Nobody cares about that until you get to the aggressively affordable microphone which cut corners by applying the USB battery directly to the diaphragm. Now, suddenly, the USB whine and your voice are the same volume.
We’ve been through all the fixes. Change the cable, shorten the cable, install a USB Filter, run on batteries, run on shore power, Install a wall-powered USB hub. Each has about a 20% success rate. Nobody wants to bump up their machine to a more expensive one, so the analysts and developers generated the Frying Mosquitoes filter. The only time that fails is if your machine uses non-standard USB. If that’s the case, we can’t help you.
If you get a new machine, try a recording without the filter and see if you still need it. If you don’t, leave it out.
Koz
should do a fairly decent job, I guess.
I’m a big fan of furniture moving blankets.
Here’s a kitchen table sound studio.
Portable voice studio.
That’s one wall, double thick. Use three or four walls for a shoot.
People do something similar with plastic pipes.
Don’t forget to put one of these blankets on the floor if you don’t have carpeting.
Looks easy doesn’t it? That’s totally soudproofed Conference Room One in the El Segundo building. I pushed a lot of shows through that room. It has padded air conditioning ducts.
Koz
That’s the AKG microphone. I may still have Tim’s guitar performance here somewhere.
Koz
@Koz and Bruno,
The use of different mics to capture different details will work.
When I do sfx, will often use a shotgun mic and a PZM mic to capture different details
of say something scrapping against a rough floor.
Only thing to watch out for are, phase delays which if not correct, will wreak havoc in post.
As to sound treating a room, blankets, duvets, soft furniture, insulation, etc all do help with reflections
but mainly in the mid to high frequencies only.
If you have a room that is very boomy, only thing that is going to work is adding mass.
Things like bass traps and thick layers of rockwool are the way to go.
(BTW over doing mid and high absorption and leaving the lows untreated, will make a room sound very boxy).
What is also nice is adding a bit of diffusion along with absorption, it makes the room sound larger
without the nasty reverb and bass build up, especially in corners where a wall meets a wall or walls
meet ceilings.
These techniques are all “velocity” based treatments, there are also “pressure” based treatments like
Helmholtz resonators/absorbers but those are tricky to manufacture (and position) at home and best avoided.
With regards to the USB noise, it certainly ain’t bad and like you say, most of it could be caused by the NUC.
Found it. This is Tim noodling on his guitar.
This is a plain signal pathway into Audacity on that laptop to the right.
Later I thought of something dancy with a little more rhythm to it. I’ve heard his doing stuff like that in his room between edit sessions, but then he got stuck on a movie and we never got there.
It’s an AKG C 414B-XLII
Koz
Thank you for the suggestions!
Nice guitar recording Koz.
Paul, yes phase issues are a concern, especially in A-B setup, probably not so much in mid-side setup.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but phase is only an issue if you mix both mics into the same channel, if you put each mic on a different channel for stereo that shouldn’t be a problem, right?