Trying to track down 'sss' Syllabance sounds on RE-20 mic

[duckfan98]

Getting some pretty obvious 'sss' (syllabance) sounds on our announcers, coming through an RE-20 mic. I have looked at all connection points and everything seems okay.

Is there anything obvious that I should consider when trying to eliminate these high frequency 'ssss' sounds??? Thanks!

 

[frankberry]

You have not provided enough information for anyone to help.

 

[oldiesstation]

what mic processor are you using.Seems like a proper adjustment would fix that issue.

 

[duckfan98]

Right not not using any mic processing....might be obvious, but is that the issue? This is a new issue however, so wasnt thinking it was because of lack of processor

 

[ScottJ]

The word's "sibilance." RE-20s don't generally exhibit much of a problem with sibilance. If you'd like to reduce it a bit, try a foam windscreen first. If that's insufficient, you'll probably want a mic processor.

 

[Mike Phillips]

It sounds like a bad mic preamp to me.

 

[TomZ]

<forgive me Father fore I have sinned>

I quit listening to A Prairie Home Companion because of the horrific essssing as what's his name rambled on about something unimportant.

 

[dtube1]

If nothing has changed in your set-up, and this just started out of the blue - you either have a blown capsule or a problem with the board's mic preamp card on that channel. Do you have another RE to swap in -or any other mic, for that matter- for comparison purposes?
-D

 

[unitron]

Is it only happening with the one announcer?

Do they wear dentures?

 

[Denny E.]

If you don't hear the problem at the consoles headphone output, it's not the RE20. Look downstream a bit more. I've never had a sibilance problem with any RE20. Maybe it's the overall processing of the stations audio or studio transmitter link if you're hearing it on air.

Dennis

 

[RolfTaylor]

<forgive me Father fore I have sinned>

I quit listening to A Prairie Home Companion because of the horrific essssing as what's his name rambled on about something unimportant.

In this case the sssibilance is agravated by the perceptual coding used. When using codecs it is generally best to roll off the high end if in doubt.

Of course there are many other factors sduch as mic. technique, mic, voice processor, main processor, etc.

 

[taylorengineer]

<forgive me Father fore I have sinned>

I quit listening to A Prairie Home Companion because of the horrific essssing as what's his name rambled on about something unimportant.

I was having a conversation about audio and audio processing with another engineer the other day. I used "A Prarie Home Companion" as an example of excellence in audio mixing and processing. Making live audio sound like studio audio is almost magic!
I have never heard any mic issues but I have not heard every single show ever produced. It's possible one of the road trips was technically not up to par.
Speaking of public non comm radio, NPR has always had a very pristine sound - especially on speech.

 

[TomZ]

Thanks for your reply, taylor...

The last season's segments where he's story telling were horrible and I would push the button and wait the 5 or so many minutes to return... hopefully he'd already said: "and that's the way it is.."

I thought garrison had chipped a tooth.

 

[dtube1]

Btw, if anyone needs the repair information for EV stuff, I have an email contact there. Unlike Shure's historic, cut-n-dry repair policy, EV's isn't on the website. PM me for that.
-D

 

[taylorengineer]

Thanks for your reply, taylor...

The last season's segments where he's story telling were horrible and I would push the button and wait the 5 or so many minutes to return... hopefully he'd already said: "and that's the way it is.."

I thought garrison had chipped a tooth.

The only time I'm tempted to hit the "next" button is when he starts talking politics.
Dear radio/television/movie actors.........I don't care how incredibly talented you are......I'm not interested in your political bent! Goes for left/right wingers, gawd wingers, hum dingers, et.al.

 

[techie2]

Thanks for your reply, taylor...

The last season's segments where he's story telling were horrible and I would push the button and wait the 5 or so many minutes to return... hopefully he'd already said: "and that's the way it is.."

I thought garrison had chipped a tooth.

The only time I'm tempted to hit the "next" button is when he starts talking politics.
Dear radio/television/movie actors.........I don't care how incredibly talented you are......I'm not interested in your political bent! Goes for left/right wingers, gawd wingers, hum dingers, et.al.

Some voices just grate on my nerves, I guess because I do some voice work on my own. I hate to pile on, but I just can't stand to listen to Garrison speak...and especially not when politics are involved. Bad mic processing would definitely make it even worse.

 

[speakerman]

Plosives and sibilance are often hard to handle in mic circuits that don't have enough dynamic range or slew rate. Transformers have always been very good at passively limiting the bandwidth and thus rise time of the mic signals to make the electronics less critical. Transformers are also good at keeping out RF. RF leakage into a mic circuit (mucho gain) can also make the circuit behave badly to the point of causing audible artifacts from microphone speech. Most modern active mic pre-amps have all that is needed to handle what the mic feeds them if the RF is kept out.

The RE-20 is a workhorse microphone and as a large diaphragm dynamic should not have as much of a sibilance problem one would expect from a small diaphragm condenser mic.

Some voices are more difficult than others to process. The above vocal energy forms are likely the most difficult. Aphex has studied this since their beginning and offer the best (to my ears) for mic processing.

As far as voices go...Limbaugh rules the roost...Garrison is rather gravely...Savage has balls even without the mic processor and Levin needs to breath less helium air

Conservative radio seems to make money when the the other side can't.

The engineers at NPR are extremely fastidious about sound quality as they used to think they compete with PBS without video to work with. They want to paint an audibly accurate picture...(at least they used to think that way).