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Double Bass NEW XLSON MICROPHONE COMING Watch this space SOUND SAMPLE

rickwolff

rickwolff

‘Leave the clams in, let ’em know we're human,'
Supporting Member
Dec 24, 2012
3,609
5,770
Hudson Wisconsin (15 miles from St. Paul/Mpls
#1
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Rumors of the Gear Junkies retirement may have been premature.

As some of you may know, I have been interested in All Things Transducer (Especially Microphones) in the search for the product that will:

A. Sound Just Like My Bass (as much as possible)

B. Reject Bleed (as much as possible)

C. Avoid Feedback, and

As a result of the above:

Will work LIVE on a gig.

I agree with the majority of players here (as it seems to me) that certain COMPROMISES are both necessary and acceptable when it comes to Live Sound.

That said, there are TWO USES for a bass microphone on a gig:

1. Is to get the MBOL sound to the audience (whether through an amp or powered speaker on stage or strictly through the Front Of House System).

2. The second use which isn't talked about much here on TB is of particular interest to me, and that is RECORDING A LIVE GIG. Even if you choose to use a pickup to send your bass sound to the house, If you are recording the gig you probably won't accept the same compromises you accept for your stage and house sound. I want my bass when recorded on a live gig to sound as much as possible like a studio recording.

I have been aware for some time that Peter at XLSON had new microphone in development, but I just received the first sound clip from this new mic. It is posted below.

To my ears, this recording sounds just like a very good studio recording. IF it can meet the requirements above (A,B,C) I am going to be really interested.

I hope to be getting a sample of this mic soon and will certainly be posting my own audio or video clips as well as putting it through a 'baptism by fire' on the gig.
 

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#2
Arco is the "real check" for my ears... I know "some" transducers, which sound pizz "not to bad", but the acid test for me is always the use with the arco and the change between the two
 
#3
LaFaro01 said:
Arco is the "real check" for my ears... I know "some" transducers, which sound pizz "not to bad", but the acid test for me is always the use with the arco and the change between the two
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll be sure and do both in my testing, including testing the changes between the two.
 
#5
hmm - that looks kind of invasive. What's the clamp looking thing on the G string side doing?

It took a lot of time and money but the best thing I did was find a piezo set-up that I am happy with. Nothing beats a nice mic in a nice room but part of what makes a mic, a mic is bleed.
 
#6
rickwolff said:
View attachment 5416728 View attachment 5416724 View attachment 5416725 Rumors of the Gear Junkies retirement may have been premature.

As some of you may know, I have been interested in All Things Transducer (Especially Microphones) in the search for the product that will:

A. Sound Just Like My Bass (as much as possible)

B. Reject Bleed (as much as possible)

C. Avoid Feedback, and

As a result of the above:

Will work LIVE on a gig.

I agree with the majority of players here (as it seems to me) that certain COMPROMISES are both necessary and acceptable when it comes to Live Sound.

That said, there are TWO USES for a bass microphone on a gig:

1. Is to get the MBOL sound to the audience (whether through an amp or powered speaker on stage or strictly through the Front Of House System).

2. The second use which isn't talked about much here on TB is of particular interest to me, and that is RECORDING A LIVE GIG. Even if you choose to use a pickup to send your bass sound to the house, If you are recording the gig you probably won't accept the same compromises you accept for your stage and house sound. I want my bass when recorded on a live gig to sound as much as possible like a studio recording.

I have been aware for some time that Peter at XLSON had new microphone in development, but I just received the first sound clip from this new mic. It is posted below.

To my ears, this recording sounds just like a very good studio recording. IF it can meet the requirements above (A,B,C) I am going to be really interested.

I hope to be getting a sample of this mic soon and will certainly be posting my own audio or video clips as well as putting it through a 'baptism by fire' on the gig.
Click to expand...
I would always have the "Opimizing Control" at max.
 
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#8
I see that Rick was fast with posting the info :-) I'm honored :-)
The idea of the Xlson microphone is to be a good blending microphone. Many use a pickup together with another acoustic microphone to get more of the character of the bass. One common use is in concert settings, where the pickup goes to the personal stage amplifier, and the microphone goes to the PA-system. Even if the microphone does not feed back, the whole orchestra might bleed into the microphone, creating a sound image in mono in the mix, blurring the sound presented by the PA-system.
If this bleed can be reduced, the whole sound situation changes for the mixing engineer.
But the other microphones in the concert room suffers from the same problem. Trumpets are heavily leaking into saxes and piano microphones, and creates imperfections in the sound , that we perceive as "punch" or power.
Hence the optimizing control , allows you to find the spot where the bass sound blends in with the sound of the orchestra.

One user of my earlier microphone, the "Chuck", played a concert in Istanbul, in a jazz club where the volume were cranked up to insane levels. He soon found out that my microphone was not useful in such a loud situation, and no other acoustic microphones either, but he kept it during the concert on a separate track on his zoom recorder. To his surprise, he had a useful bass track to take home.
I made a video clip of that. Here it is :

The second idea with the new Xlson, is to make it simple to apply, easy to connect to an amp which does not have a balanced input, and at the same time, give you a balanced output where the house engineer can plug in his microphone wire.

The Optimizing control also have another purpose. With an H-clamp and the special H-clamp adapter, you can put the microphone on a larger distance from the body, and adjust leakage compared to the sound you want.
Saying that, such solutions, you will have more leakage, But maybe a sound that fits your situation.

So my intention is not to compete with great manufacturers of microphones as Neumann, AKG, Sennheisser or the very fine microphones made by DPA.
It is more about creating some sort of a "Swiss Army Microphone" for difficult acoustic circumstances.

About leakage: If you compare my microphone with another directional microphone using the sound from your home speakers, you will find that there is no or not much difference. It is when the loudness reaches real levels, concert situations or studio situations, where the differences are apparent.

A similarity to the former "Chuck", is that this new microphone is made of western studio grade components.

Personally, I am retired, and I do this as a project. I guess I inherited my interest for amplifying my bass from my teacher Red Mitchell, who was working night and day to improve his sound.
Now the first batch of my little microphone is on its way, and I hope that it will match my expectations, and yours, and the performance of the prototypes.

I will try to organize so that there are a couple of microphones that you can borrow and test, whether it fits your needs or not.

All the best to you
Peter Axelsson (Xlson)
 
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#11
So the optimizing control is changing the mic pattern or is it an eq to take out bleed?

Mic to FOH and piezo to amp is a common and practical set up but I am sure I would call this a blending set-up. Some crazy people try and mix a mic and piezo into there amp. I would this of this as a blending setup.

(I have not an issue with using a mic FOH and bleed. Bleed into an amp is a problem but into the house PA not a problem.)
 

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