User`s manual

Realistic Expectations

• Microphone Technique In getting the best possible recorded

sound, mic technique and placement are at least as important

as mic choice (if not more so). A good engineer can record a

great track with an SM57 while a poor one can make a U47

sound like doo doo. If your audio is not well-recorded in the first

place, the Microphone Modeler can to do very little to improve

it. If you start with a poorly recorded track, all the Microphone

Modeler will do is make it sound like a track that was poorly

recorded with a great mic.

• Excessive Frequency Boost Although the Microphone Modeler’s

processing does not itself add noise to your signal, any noise in

your original audio or noise added by intervening processes

(e.g., A/D conversion, pre-Microphone Modeler dynamics pro-

cessing, etc.) will be accentuated by any large amount of fre-

quency boost. This should only be a problem when your source

mic has a substantial bass or treble roll-off and the modeled mic

has a corresponding boost or, more likely, when your audio was

recorded with a low-cut filter on the source mic and you do not

use a low-cut on the modeled mic. In both of these cases, the

models will apply substantial gain to the affected frequency

ranges, raising the level of added noise along with the desired

signal. If the resulting noise level is unacceptable, you should

choose a different combination of mics and/or turn on the

modeled mic’s low-cut filter.

• Polar Pattern Selection The Microphone Modeler can’t recover

information that was not recorded as part of the original signal.

For example, if the original audio was recorded with a highly

directional pattern (hence picking up little room tone), you can’t

set the modeled mic to Omni and expect the room tone that

would have been recorded if the original was set to Omni

suddenly to appear. You can however, simulate that effect with

some judicious use of reverb or an environmental simulator.

Conversely, if your source was recorded with an omni mic and it

picked up some unwanted audio from the rear, you can’t realisti-

cally expect to set the modeled mic to hypercardioid and have

the unwanted audio disappear.

• Off-Axis Response The purpose of the Pattern selection is to

model the varying frequency characteristics that result from

each of the available pattern settings, with the assumption that

the audio was recorded on axis (i.e., from the front of the

microphone). Since the Microphone Modeler has no way of

knowing the actual placement of the signal source, it does not

attempt to model off-axis performance.