Demonstration of the Heimu H800 instrument mic
An instrument mounted mic for the cello
The purpose of this demonstration is to give a basic understanding of how this microphone can work in a sound reinforcement (amplified cello) environment. The cello was recorded with the mic in two common placements often employed with the DPA 4099 microphone (a widely recognized industry standard), the first with the microphone about one inch above the bridge of the cello, pointed to the top of the cello. The second placement is about one inch above the top of the cello, pointed at the top of the cello. Both placements were recorded at the same amplification, with no equalization. As the mic has a hypercardioid (narrow unidirectional) capsule, it is subject to the proximity effect, an exaggeration of low frequencies. This effect was corrected after the recording by rolling off the low frequencies in preparation for this demonstration. There are a couple of examples where this was not quite as effective as it could have been (as there are some unnatural peaks that could have been corrected had the roll off occurred prior to the capture of the sound), but it is suitable enough for those interested to form an accurate idea of the performance of this microphone.
The first examples of each mic placement are of two octave scales on each of the cello’s four strings, followed by a short excerpt of the each of these examples combined with a 101dB peak volume excerpt from a Mahler Symphony (measured at the microphone capsule with a calibrated Digital Sound Level Meter). This last is to give an ideal of how the microphone will perform in a fairly loud ambient environment.
00:00 mic at bridge A string
00:14 mic at bridge D string
00:26 mic at bridge G string
00:41 mic at bridge C string
00:57 mic at bridge Brahms
02:44 mic at bridge A string with background
02:52 mic at bridge D string with background
03:00 mic at bridge G string with background
03:07 mic at bridge C string with background
03:14 mic at bridge Brahms with background
03:22 mic at top A string
03:35 mic at top D string
03:48 mic at top G string
04:03 mic at top C string
04:17 mic at top Brahms
06:06 mic at top A string with background
06:15 mic at top D string with background
06:24 mic at top G string with background
06:33 mic at top C string with background
06:42 mic at top Brahms with background
