IK Multimedia Mic Room

[AudioGuy720]

Demoed Mic Room. I was surprised by how much I liked it! I wasn't even going to try it but watched this review and it piqued my interest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq53OgIoxAc

Next pay day I'm picking it up!

[fese]

I think it definitely needs more affordable (condenser) mikes on the input side, I mean how many of the people buying the plugin do have a C12, U67 or U87? How about some Røde or AT?

[whyterabbyt]

Doesnt seem to support the mics that comes with ARC which as known, calibrated neutral test mics, would actually make sense) Asked for confirmation on one of the other threads, no reply as yet. :sigh:

[Compyfox]

Now THAT would actually make sense. Good thinking, whyte.

The iRig are also small membrane mics. So why not use the ARC bundled ones as well? (v1 and v2)
That's a logical update for sure.

That they are onmi-directional doesn't matter IMO either. Use them with a Mic Shield or in close proximity - and you also get a somewhat cardioid behavior.


Definitely good thinking.

[jens]

sooo... if i get a sound in amplitube with an SM57, and use Mic Room to remodel it into an U87, it's supposed to sound identical to me just using the U87 in amplitube?

Now that would be something, wouldn't it?

Next big thing in their development pipeline is a Tardis, I've heard.

[Burillo]

i just did a few experiments.

first, have an amplitube sound, SM57 only, and feed it into the mic room and turn it into a U87. then, copy the track, remove the mic room, reverse its phase and use U87 in amplitube. it didn't cancel out, which is probably expected, but i wanted to check

what confused me is two things. first, the "IN" button - what does it do, exactly? i would expect it to be a bypass, but it doesn't work like a bypass, or at least the sound that comes out of bypassed Mic Room doesn't null with whatever is coming into it.

second, i would expect a "SM57-in SM57-out" set up (or any other setup with identical mics) not to touch the sound, but that's not the case either - it looks to be applying the processing, probably exaggerating whatever characteristics the original mic has. i guess it's understandable to apply some processing if one wants to keep the sound but add more proximity or harmonics, but still it's puzzling.

with regards to having more budget mics, i'm sure IK won't ever do that as they want you to buy their own mics.

tried it on some of my vocal recordings... not that i have any of the mics listed (closest i have is a chinese SM58), and this produces an effect not wildly different from Antares Mic Modeler - it works, but how useful the result will be is up for debate. it sure can be used as a shortcut to whatever EQ settings i usually apply, so i think i'll pick it up. 70 credits is fine by me, i still have almost 600 left. it'll certainly come cheaper than the always-upcoming Slate system of the same nature

[Compyfox]

Oh the Slate products will come. Fairly soon actually (according to hints at GS, and a couple of birds on my roof).

Though I don't think that we will see a iRig Mic XLR fairly soon (large membrane even). But then again, I agree with whyte - IKM could have included the ECMxxxx measurement mic (shipped with IKM ARC for example) into the "input mic" listing. Especially as "Vintage" and "Telephone" don't make sense if there is no reference given (could be anything really).

And considering this... er... minor flaw, the price of 70EUR plus VAT is now debatable.
Not everyone has the listed input mics - and the iRig concept nullified itself in a (larger) studio environment since it's USB only.


But who knows what the future will bring:
iRig mics now shipped with T-Racks CS and Mic Room bundled? If so... then the value for the mic rises, but the "regular users" will bleed for that.


So as good as this concept is on paper, and maybe even "sounding"... it is still flawed.
But YMMV.

[braj]

I'd like to have Behringer C-1 model on the input side, it would seem that would be at least part of what this plugin should do: nice up cheap gear as much as possible.

[jens]

Does any of you guys seriously expect this to sort of work?

Imagine five cows on a field somewhere - you zoom in on one of them with your camera and take a pic. Would you believe it if a software vendor claimed to have developed a program with which you can later on edit the photograph so that you can zoom out to make all five cows visible (and also some clouds and the trees in the background that were omitted in the orignal pic)?

All they need to know is what model of camera you used.

[Burillo]

Does any of you guys seriously expect this to sort of work?

Imagine five cows on a field somewhere - you zoom in on one of them with your camera and take a pic. Would you believe it if a software vendor claimed to have developed a program with which you can later on edit the photograph so that you can zoom out to make all five cows visible (and also some clouds and the trees in the background that were omitted in the orignal pic)?

All they need to know is what model of camera you used.

while i understand the sentiment, the analogy isn't valid. a more close analogy would be something akin to taking a photo with your phone and then expecting software to turn it into a full 50-MP picture as taken from an expensive DSLR. however, just because it may or may not bring about its intended effects, doesn't mean it can't still be a nice effect in and of itself.

[braj]

just because it may or may not bring about its intended effects, doesn't mean it can't still be a nice effect in and of itself.

Exactly.

[jens]

the analogy isn't valid. a more close analogy would be something akin to taking a photo with your phone and then expecting software to turn it into a full 50-MP picture as taken from an expensive DSLR.

Í used the analogy to illustrate that what has not been recorded can not be brought in later on.

http://www.shure.co.uk/support_download ... r_patterns

http://www.shure.co.uk/support_download ... y_response

http://www.shure.co.uk/support_download ... ucer_types

http://www.hometracked.com/2007/08/02/t ... selection/

[Burillo]

Í used the analogy to illustrate that what has not been recorded can not be brought in later on.

yes, but you have greatly overexaggerated the magnitude. your analogy would apply if Mic Room had tried to turn a single crappy mic recording into a full band in an Abbey Road studio (you know, the sounds/cows that weren't in the performance/frame in the first place). however, that's not what it does. instead, it promises to turn a picture taken with a lousy mobile phone sensor into a picture taken by a DSLR with a sensor the size of that phone, while keeping the same frame/performance. the details are still lost, sure, but those are details that were present in the original performance and could have been captured with a better/different mic. with your cow analogy, even if you shot that frame with a high-end DSLR, the cows and the clouds wouldn't be there regardless of its price.

[Compyfox]

Does any of you guys seriously expect this to sort of work?

Didn't it work for ANTARES (Mic Modeler) years ago?
And wasn't it just as praised, not to mention doubted?


What would you say to the Tokyo Dawn Laps "Proximity" concept? Does this "sort of work" as well in terms of variably changing the microphone proximity effect (which is highly dependent on the mic build)?

Are "Impulse Response Systems" or "Multi Impulse Response" (think Nebula) systems just as effective or even usable?

Valid questions, but in the end it's down to how it "sounds" for a user. And how this all has been integrated.


Slate for example will bundle "his" concept with hardware. So it's already set up accordingly, and the margin for "tone alterations" on the input side can be lower than just picking up a random mic that is listed in the IKM plugin's dropdown list and start editing.

IK Multimedia does somewhat the same - you can buy the "iRig" mics - but ultimately failed due to the fact that these microphones are USB only (since they were concepted to be used with an iOS device), and they also ignored their other "mic" in the collection: the ARC Measurement Mic v1 and v2 (both an ECMxxxx type).


In the end, it's down to usability and how you like the "effect" (sound). But this is always a subjective thing that we could debate for ages on end.

[whyterabbyt]

the analogy isn't valid. a more close analogy would be something akin to taking a photo with your phone and then expecting software to turn it into a full 50-MP picture as taken from an expensive DSLR.

Í used the analogy to illustrate that what has not been recorded can not be brought in later on.

Yes, but I'd imagine most of us knew that beforehand...

What we have here, though, is akin to the Photoshop Lens Correction Filter which removes the known lens/barrel/sensor artefacts etc of a camera, except that its also being used to apply a specific set of artefacts etc afterwards too. Its not somehow retroprocessing the recording so that it becomes transformed with all the characteristics of the second mic (dynamic range, transient response etc), instead its applying a modelled character of that mic.

Its not a new concept, and Antares Mic Modeller has sold well for 15 years, so it clearly has its uses.

(Here's a good article on that, btw including circumstances where it explains how that's useful eg matching an existing recording

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr00/a ... ntares.htm)

To my mind, I guess its main market would ostensibly be for folk with only a limited number of microphone options (hobbyist to small studio range, I guess) who maybe want to break up their recordings from sounding 'samey' by dint of always going through the same mic selection. In that respect its a shorthand for some specific pre-channel strip EQ and dynamics.

However to be more useful to more people, it really should be a lot less IK-proprietary in the input mic choice; the Antares' dwarfs it in variety. The limited choice there made some sense for the iOS versions, far less so for the T-Racks one. Supporting at least the twenty most common 'budget' studio mics would be smart. Oh yeah, and the ARC microphones, did I mention that?