[Harp-L] Last JAYPHAT post, really: other mics/long cord

[HTownFess <Spschndr@xxxxxxx>]

Is anyone else sick of these yet?  I want to clarify that these posts/
sound clips are not announcing a commercial enterprise, as I am not
building JAYPHATs for sale and at this point might get very cross
indeed if you ask me to build one. This is the launch of a public
domain design for something cheap and potentially useful you can build
yourself.

Meanwhile back at the Files page: JAYPHATLongCord at
http://groups.google.com/group/harp-l/files/ is the equivalent of the
“wafer-thin mint” in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life movie, a quick
demo of a 5Meg MC-151 crystal mic with 30 feet of cord, without and
with the JAYPHAT box.  I was going to use 40’ of cord, but my 20’
cords were already involved in the recording rig, so I added a 10’
cord to the 20’ harp mic cable.  Trust me, the JAYPHAT helps even more
at 40’.

JAYPHATEV127CM is a file investigating impedance matching with some
other common vintage mic designs.  I had a switched EV605 dynamic, a
switched ceramic Astatic MC-127 biscuit, and a 1Meg CM GB on hand.
The first two are just A/Bed without/with the JAYPHAT; the CM is run
into a Danecho without/with the JAYPHAT to check the effect of
impedance matching there.   While editing these, I realized I should
have opened my hands more often while playing to check whether the
JAYPHAT enhances the hand wahs, but see what you think about what’s
there.  Preceding apologies about not having more mics/time/patience
still in effect.  I hope the voice-over explains things adequately;
there was some more shuffling segments while editing this one, and at
one point I punched in a clarifying blurb about what was going on--
you’ll hear that it’s straight into the computer rather than spoken
thru the harp mic.

The EV605 dynamic is the one mic in all this where normally I would
probably use the JAYPHAT’s level knob to crank a little extra gain to
send more signal to the amp.  Oddly enough, in all the excitement of
recording these stultifying repetitive clips, I forgot to.  The EV is
not terribly weak, but is not as hot as the other mics and pumps up
well with a touch of level added at the box to compensate for aging
(the mic’s, not mine).

About the recording rig: This is an old Audio-Technica ATM63 cardioid
mic with a Shure A95UF inline hi-Z transformer into a first-generation
Harp Commander, using the HC’s Instrument-level output into Audacity
on my laptop.  Mic’s around waist level, maybe six feet in front of
the amps.  The HC is used because it’s a high-quality SS preamp that
gives a needed level boost into the computer input, plus it fills in
the ATM63’s weak bass response.  The HC’s 5Meg input setting is used,
no compression, no treble cut, and ~only as much bass boost as sounded
realistic~ when recording Dave Nevling’s band live a few months back.
That bass setting seems correct in the home recording room also--what
you hear is what it sounds like to be in the room with the amp(s).
There is either 6 or 9dB of boost added to the track when exported as
an mp3, as I don’t try to push the recording input levels hard.  I
know this is a primitive recording method compared to, say, Richard
Hunter’s; but for these demos and  A/B tests it has a real virtue: if
you can’t hear a difference between A and B on the clip by the time
it‘s an mp3, then the difference isn’t worth bothering with.

OK, I think that’s really it.  If you have read all these posts and
listened to all these clips, right about now you are probably
realizing that it would have been quicker to just build a JAYPHAT box
and find out for yourself whether it does anything useful (cue
maniacal laughter).  As noted up front, I will post a revised JAYPHAT
schematic based on people’s input.   I hope to be able to park these
files/posts somewhere else as a resource if people find them useful,
will mention that onlist if it happens.  These posts close a circle
for me: impedance matching was an active thread when I first joined
Harp-L a decade ago, and if this doesn‘t beat it clean to death, I
don‘t know what will.  The JAYPHAT box has been very useful to me at
times and I wish I had figured out & shared its schematic sooner.
Biggest thanks to my friend Greg Schlacter, who maybe never actually
drew a schematic for it, I think, just looked at a generic circuit
online and used appropriate values for the JFET he decided to use.
Thanks also to Harp-L's worker bees for keeping the bandwidth alive.

Stephen Schneider