Category: Uncategorized

I wrote briefly about Cairo Egypt in an earlier post. As usually happens on our vacations, I try to seek out whatever regional audio-oddities I can.  Cairo did not offer much in this regard, but I managed to find a few items of interest.

Most of what I came across was public-address equipment and rudimentary recording gear.  This caught my eye in a shop beneath a highway overpass in the center of the city.

It was a new microphone in a shopworn box.  It cost me about $15.  Meet the Shour Beta 57.

Look familiar?  Yes it does.  Today we will take a listen to this marvel of copyright infringement and see how it compares to it’s Shure-brand inspiration.

*************

*******

***

When is an object a copy?  What defines a fake versus an imitation?  Deception, or the desire to deceive, is certainly a factor.  I think that our friends as Shour INC probably had deception in mind, especially since Roman characters are likely as inscrutable to most Egyptian residents as Arabic is to me.

There is no Shour dot com, btw.  And there is absolutely nothing on Google relating to Shour Microphones.  It’s not a bad attempt at a name, though.  Sort of suggests ‘Shure’ (the world’s best-known microphone manufacturer) and ‘Shout’ (the most basic of spoken signals) combined into one convenient brand.

I think the fact that they actually go so far as to tout (highly doubtful) Mexican manufacture (as actual Shure mics are made in Mexico) is pretty telling. I am going to assume that the Shour was birthed in China, but I have no way of knowing.  Oh and no word on the availability of the rest of the Shour line.  OK!  On to the sound.

I did not have a Shure Beta 57 in the house today, so I used a regular Shure SM57, which I imagine sounds pretty similar…  I think the polar pattern rather than frequency response is more of a factor in distinguishing an SM 57 from a Shure Beta 57 (Cardiod vs Hypercardiod).

Despite having an XLR-M output jack, the Shour is a high-Z, unbalanced mic.  Connecting it to the DI input of the MBOX and cranking the gain resulted in audible digital inteference noise (sounded similar to iPhone interference), so in order to nullify this, I instead used a direct-box inline.  This DI is one of my own, from a series that I built using 1970’s AKG UT-330 matching transformers.

OK here’s the sound clips.  Have a listen.  First, the SM57.

Shure_SM57

…and now the Shour (through the Direct-Inject box):

Shour_Beta_57A

A few things are obvious:  The Shure 57 has much better low-end response evident, even with the signal being an acoustic guitar mic’d at 2-feet.  I would imagine that if you stuck these mics on a bass guitar amp or floor tom, the difference would be much more dramatic.  On the other hand, this could be due to the Direct Inject box, and not the mic itself.  I have never measured the response of this DI box.

The other clear difference is the noise level.  Since I am using the DI box, I needed to boost the gain on the Shour input to 100%.  Anyone who has used an M-Box will know that this basically creates a White-Noise-Generator.  Those preamps are terrible.

Overall, though, the basic sound is similar.  I was surprised.  Of course, there are a whole wealth of other characteristics that distinguish microphone quality, such as feedback resistance, durability, and SPL handling ability, but I think it’s safe to say that I got my full $15 worth of microphone here.

Anyone have a similar knock-off mic story?

The Advent 300 FM stereo receiver was introduced in 1976.  In audio-speak, ‘Receiver’ indicates a device which combines a tuner (radio receiver), a pre-amplifier (a device which governs audio control functions such as level, source selection, etc), and a power amplifier (a device with high current output in order to drive speakers to a listening level).

I have always admired the design of this piece, and I was excited to pick one up today (in the box, no less) at an Estate Sale for a few dollars.

The ‘industrial’ styling of the piece is striking considering the era.  It almost looks like a piece of industrial paging-equipment.  IT stands to reason that the design was motivated by the fact that the major selling point of the unit was a sort of ‘less-is-more’ attitude.  This unit sacrifices high-wattage-output (which few people ever use anyway) in order to devote more dollar-value to a higher-quality signal path throughout, and more R+D efforts.  Advent clearly knew that the design was stellar; they even included a graphic representation on the box of the unit.

Here is a scan of the entire manual, in case you want to check out the details.  I really like the way that this manual is written.  The writing is very much in-line with the electronic philosophy of the unit.  For instance, there is basically no ‘instruction’ to it – the unit is so simple that it hardly needs any explanation.  Instead, the manual focuses on the ‘why’ of the unit.

Manual: Advent300_Manual

There is a schematic printed on the bottom of the unit, which is a good thing, because my 300 did not work when i hooked it up.  The schematic revealed a likely culprit, and after opening the unit and replacing a few internal fuses (located AFTER the power lamp!), it was cooking.  And it works well, especially the tuner.

The best part of the manual is the ‘in-situation’ ‘serving suggestions’ that Advent offers.  Enjoy a trip to Tasteful Contemporary Home c. 1976:

Been recording today.

We spent last evening setting up, running cables, tuning the drum kit, and getting some basic drum sounds going.

Trying to get drums down for 6 songs today.  The material has a loose, laid-back feel, so it’s not too tall an order.

One of my all-time favorite TV shows is The Rockford Files.  James Garner plays a laid-back ex-con private eye.  He’s an old-fashioned guy kinda coasting around half-confused amid all the far-out hippies and irresponsible bon vivants of mid-seventies Los Angeles.

He’s kinda like If Johnny Cash Was A Detective.  He drives a gold Firebird (NOT a Trans-Am – too tarty-) and he’s generally pretty alright.

Since our show is set in mid-seventies LA, there is plenty of music-biz shenanigans throughout the series.  In one of my favorite scenes, Rockford impersonates (oh-btw- his general workflow consists of 70% impersonating fictional people and 30% fast driving) an A+R guy who proposes remixing an ex-con’s old record with new string overdubs ETC…  another one has him head-to-head with a squirrelly label head with a payola/coke/murder problem.  it’s all pretty great.  ANYHOW.  in the scene below, Gandolf Finch (played by issac hayes) describes doing something that no one really does anymore…  he BUYS USED STEREO COMPONENTS thru the classifieds.  IN THE PAPER.

Wow.  people used to actually needed to buy an amp, a tape deck, a tuner, a record player, speakers…  crazy.  Nowadays it’s an ipod dock with a lil amp built in.  Would a 12 yr old kid even understand WTF Gandy is talking about here?   Components?  Furthermore, the whole plot of this episode hinges on the fact that the used speakers turn out to contain a shit ton of stolen money/drugs ETC.  What could u fit in one of those ipod docks?  a few roaches and a coupla nickels?  Certainly not enough to get Rockford out of his trailer.  (oh yeah- Rockford lives in a mobile home on the beach).  Check out the clip below, and check out The Rockford Files streaming on Netflix. Season 2 is the best season, IMO.

GandyGetsAUsedStereo-desktop

This is a website about audio.  More specifically, the history of audio, and our relationship to audio.  Audio, broadly defined, is the electrical representation of sound.  Sound has existed for at least as long as anyone has been around to hear it, but audio is a relatively new technology.  The ability to ‘capture’ sound and then ‘play it back’ divorced from its origin in time and/or space is the most basic function of audio technology.   In addition to this role, audio technology can also be an instrument; a tool to create unique sounds that do not originate as acoustic sound.  I do not mean to imply that these are separate functions; capturing and playing back sound will always change the sound, regardless of the intent of the audio operator.   There is always a grey area between documentation and manipulation; every audio operation creates the potential for a new sound.  We have developed a great many audio tools and technologies to maintain the ‘fidelity’ of audio: that is to say, maintain a ‘true-to-the-original-sound’ quality in our audio signals.  We have also developed a great number of tools and technologies to enhance, distort, combine, separate, and generally manipulate audio.  It is these tools and technologies that I am interested in exploring.  I am interested in their effects, their methods, and their development.  Most of all, I am interested in their potential to create meaning for the people who experience these new sounds.  Sounds that have been brought across great distances, through spans of time, bearing the artifacts of the particular tools that have crafted them.

I will not be presenting a chronological narrative.  I am not attempting to offer a comprehensive or thorough treatment of audio history.  Instead I will focus each post on a particular subject: a technology, a technique, an individual, a recording, a piece of hardware.  I will provide historical context, and offer my thoughts about what significance the subject may have.  Some posts will be very broad in nature, and some will be fairly technical.  Much of what I write about will stem from my own experiments with audio hardware and techniques.  I hope you find the information useful.