So, thanks to @LievenDV, I just watched this video by Jim Lill on microphone comparisons.
He used his SM57 as a control, which produced a flat line, then referenced the other mics to the SM57. At one point he shows the graph below comparing the microphones. I understand he had to normalise the output since some microphones will be louder or softer by comparison and he has to adjust for that. The arrow shows a point and he says āreferenced to an SM57and aligned in the middle at 1K.ā I understand this to mean that he plotted SM57 flat line (mic1), then overlaid the graph of mic2, then moved mic2 plot upper or down until it matched at the 1K spot. Then did that for all the mics.
I donāt fully understand it because Iām not 100% sure what the X-axis and Y-axis represent. Iām reading it as X-axis=frequency and Y-axis =volume. So that anything above zero on the Y-axis means itās louder than the SM57 at that frequency and everything below zero is lower than the SM57 at that frequency. Does that sound right?
People use so many different terms to describe pickups and guitars that it makes it difficult to understand what they are talking about. Going by the graph this means, to me, that
Fatter equals louder in the bass frequencies
Thinner equals quieter in the bass frequencies.
Brighter equals louder in the high frequencies
Darker equals quieter in the high frequencies.
If so, could these descriptions be used to describe the differences in guitar pickups or the differences in guitars (les paul vs strat) etc? It would simplify things alot.
yes, you have the right idea. āvolumeā is not quite right, but I think it is a minor point. a better term would be amplitude because he is measuring a voltage.
Also, the SM57 is not itself flat in frequency given a perfect input. It is the baseline, so compared to itself, it doesnāt deviate, creating the flat line. This is standard normalization to the chosen āstandardā. A standard can be known to be imperfect. Here, it is really hard to measure that with the tools he has, so he did the next best thing - used a product folks would agree is a good general purpose mic and then compared everything to it.
His terms are already used for a lot of things, pickups included. Those terms are not defined by a measurement and a hard line at some standard point. They are subjective to the listener, so much less control than he has here.
Iād argue that 1kHz is not a good guitar, or maybe not even a good audio center point. 1kHz is the outcome of our base-10 number system and a convenient position in that system numerically. It is quite far into the high-frequency end of our hearing, so I do not hink that number is a good one. The place I see it is in datasheet specifications as a common measurement point. For our ears, I think Iād bring that center point back to maybe around 300-400 Hz.
Thanks Sequences. It would be an interesting way to compare guitars and pickups. Youād just have agree on what the standard/neutral guitar/pickup setup would be.
It might be possible to actually create a reasonably flat input test jig and get the true response from the pickup.
Iām not so sure this is necessary. Placing the pickup in different guitars, using different strings, how the strings vibrate in the system they are in, pickup to string distance, where the user picks the string, what the string is picked with, these will all create a noticeable difference in the sound, so I think the sound samples we get on the manufacturer site are likely good enough.
Also, the minute you roll off the tone knob and introduce the tone cap, you mask the pickup sound a lot.
By the way, that guy does really interesting and pretty well reasoned out experiments. Watch his other videos if you found this one interesting.
ah - a cab.
and I see you are an early riser as well - sun isnāt even awake yet for us.
I havenāt seen much comparison between speaker diameters. Nothing that specifically tries to compare just diameter - yes, hard to make a direct comparison, so it needs to be over a group of speakers. I think this is part of what I like in some speakers compared to others.
Normally I am an regular morning time riser, but I was in the middle of a project so an extra pot of coffee and one of my duaghters monster drinks. Helped me.
I am definitely going ro make a cabinet, we have a memeber who made a very nice one also. So it seems why not. I am a DIY sort of guy anyway.
