Klarinet Archive - Posting 000067.txt from 1996/01

From: OLIVER SEELY <oliver@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Good Microphone for Clarinet ?
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 02:18:47 -0500

I'm embarrassed to say that I've never actually bought a
good microphone. I always end up borrowing one from a friend
or now that I'm a professor from my AV center.
I have always had excellent luck with the Shure dynamic microphones.
The old Shure was of a low impedence type and I had to buy an
impedence transformer so that I could use it with a high
impedence input. It also had rather low output, but the quality
was clean and not at all embarrassing. I did some recording
several months ago with the new Shure with boosted output (I guess
the internal battery-powered circuitry does that) and was
favorably impressed. I'll stop there and end with the caveat
that I've only done a couple of studio recordings in my life.
Each time I thought that I'd died and gone to heaven. I really
sounded GREAT! Most of my recordings are done in my 12 x 12
study at home, crammed with books and reflective surfaces and
the microphone about 3 feet from the horn. No wonder my
recordings mostly sound crappy. Still, that's not going
to stop me with music-1 on my mind all the time. I'm just
finishing up Mozart's Cassazione (it ought to be in my
subdirectory by February) and when that's finished I'm going
to make my first 90-minute cassette recording (with me on 1st,
of course) and sell it to myself. Then I can listen to me every day
to and from work. Well, me and the other guys in my
sili(con) symphony. I'm also going to include the Stamitz
double concerto, the Mozart Basset Horn/Clarinet Quintet,
the von Weber sextet and some Devienne or Crusell duets.
If I end up not being able to play some of the fast parts,
I'll just play them slow and do partial sampling to speed
them up 8-). What bliss. I can't wait. But I really ought
to find some good place to do the recording. My study ain't
going to cut it.

Oliver