M-Audio Microphone manual Recording Environment, Revolutionary New Tampa Preamp

The Recording Environment

Professional studios often have several different acoustic spaces available￿from small, relatively dead isolation booth to cavernous rooms with natural reflections and long delay times. Home recordists have fewer options, yet experimenting with recording in different rooms may yield interesting results. Large rooms and tall ceilings will give a more open sound than small rooms and low ceilings. The amount of furniture and reflectivity of various surfaces is also an influence. A carpeted floor, for example, has a damping effect as opposed to the reflectivity

of a wood or tile floor.

There are many times when it is beneficial to create methods of isolating the microphones or otherwise controlling the room acoustics. Such scenarios include having a poor sounding room, having an open mic in the same room as recording gear exhibiting fan noise, or recording multiple performers simultaneously. In cases like these, consider solutions such as applying acoustic treatment to the room, creating a temporary isolation booth by hanging or ￿tenting￿ blankets, or building movable partitions. Moving blankets,￿egg-crate￿ foam and carpet are

It is often beneficial to devise methods of

controlling room acoustics such as constructing a tent using blankets

The Revolutionary New TAMPA Preamp

Reflecting back on our discussion about tube versus solid state electronics, most highly revered mic preamps are based on tube technology. Unfortunately tubes are part of what typically drives the price of preamps into thousands of dollars.That￿s why our design team set out to find out just why tubes sound so good, and devise a way to land that sound at solid state prices. The result is far beyond tube modeling;￿it￿s a whole new technology we call Temporal Harmonic Alignment.

Natural sound sources such as strings, drum heads and vocal chords share a characteristic temporal or phase relationship of harmonics to the fundamental when vibrating. Not coincidentally, our ears exhibit the same qualities. Electronic circuitry induces distortion in the form of additional harmonics that do not exhibit that relationship.Tubes strike the ear as having such a warm sound because the added harmonics have the same temporal relationship as natural mechanisms￿although predominantly in the midrange. This results in a sweet spot that makes things like vocals and guitars sound especially pleasing. We designed TAMPA technology to produce that same phase relationship found in both tubes and nature. And unlike tubes,TAMPA￿s sweet spot spans the full spectrum of your sound.

TAMPA also includes a dual optical servo compressor that alone is worth the price of admission.Three fundamental problems plague engineers in designing compressors￿distortion, noise and accuracy. The VCA technology used in inexpensive compressors exhibits less than professional specs on all counts. Simple optical servo technology is much more quiet and accurate, yet has its own issues with distortion. The dual optical servo technology we use in TAMPA yields low noise, consistent accuracy and low distortion￿and it comes built into a killer preamp.

TAMPA￿s entire signal path is designed to yield maximum fidelity without compromise, including discrete Class A circuitry throughout.You also get tons of other professional features like an impedance selector for optimizing vintage mics, and a massive 30dB of headroom. Audition a TAMPA for yourself and you￿ll see what all the fuss is about.

Choosing & Using Microphones 17