Lets say i'm in a professional treated studio

I am recording a guitar amp lets say. I hear the sound its perfect

My question is:

Why do most microphones comes with EQ diagrams and such. What i mean is, Why don't they try to capture the sound as i'm listening it exactly. Why are there EQ diagrams involved for each mic.

Is the reason that mics have EQ diagrams is that they are meant to be recording in Non-professional spaces? Because in a professional space what you hear is correct therefore what would an EQ curve on a mic help with? Wouldn't it change the sound from what you're hearing?

If what you want to record is exactly what you are hearing

Thanks

 

I would just ignore this chart and rely on my ears.

HOW DOES FREQUENCY RESPONSE RELATE TO SOUND?
www.neumann.com/en-us/knowledge-base/neumann-im-homestudio/homestudio-academy/how-does-frequency-response-relate-to-sound

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2025

That's the frequency response of the microphone, also you will get polar patterns (i.e. how the microphone responds to the direction of the sound). You will also get various figures on sensitivity etc.

All of these is to help figure out the optimal use of the mic, because there isn't an ideal microphone. All of the microphone (and in reverse, speaker) designs are compromises in some way. Sure you can get better, but then you also get more hard to handle, more fragile, and most importantly, more expensive mics.

But anyway all mics are different since there can't physically be a "perfect" microphone. Learning to use the right ones for the right purposes, and how to place the mics is a skill and an art.

 

Microphones will never capture the sound exactly as it is, there will always be variations caused mostly by the way they are build and well, the physics of it's components, not because they just decided to add a built in "EQ shape" to help the little guy (although i'm sure some of them do). So yeah they are going to sound different, even if they wanted to make it perfectly flat, the chart is there to let you know how different (compared to a flat line) and hopefully help you decide which mic to use on what situation. Some mics even have extra switches for filtering and the chart will show you exactly how is that applied.

Not necessarily, and that has more to do with creative and practical decissions. If you're recording a trumpet or something like that, and in the room it sounds very bright, it may not fit well in the production itself, so for example you can pick a mic that tames it a little bit. It's not going to sound exactly as in the room, but it will fit better in the production as a whole.

Then sometimes you just need a different mic because it has a different polar pattern that's more useful for the situation, or maybe you need one that's more sensitive, or less sensitive. There's a lot going on in a mic, not just the frequency response.

 

Because it's difficult to do this. Voice profits from a bump in the 10kHz region.

The sound is defined via the polar pattern and the frequency response. It is not advisable to "trust your ears" - that's nonsense. The sound can be clearly defined with those two factors.

Audio processing is not so complicated as some people wish it was.

 

He wrote that the diagram annoys him and that he doesn't understand it, so I told him to ignore it and rely on his ears.
I've also attached a link for him: HOW DOES FREQUENCY RESPONSE RELATE TO SOUND? where he can look it up.

Your statement is highly contradictory and has little to do with the reality of users. What's easy for one person is very difficult for another.

 

Here are the official figures from Shure SM57:


The sensitivity is listed as: -56.0 dBV/Pa* (1.6 mV) @ 1000Hz


You know what that doesn't tell you? The frequency response dependent on the sound source distance (the proximity effect) and loudness, the frequency response dependent on the source location (mic angle), then the sensitivity all across the frequency range is not listed. Then these variables are not linear. Now these are good figures to know for sure, but those variables you can't extrapolate from these given figures, so you'd have to make a rough guess.

Now how do you figure a microphone out? You'll use it, listen, and learn from practice. It's not magic, nor is it complicated. But there's a handy tool for this process: it's called the ear.

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2025

HOW DOES FREQUENCY RESPONSE RELATE TO SOUND?
Frequency response is perhaps the most popular specification, because it relates to what’s most important to all of us: sound. But is a frequency response diagram really an accurate description of a microphone’s sound characteristics?

WHAT A RESPONSE CURVE CAN TELL YOU – AND WHAT IT WON’T
Generally, mere figures like “20 Hz – 20 kHz” are not very useful. A frequency response diagram will give you much more information, because it illustrates the microphone’s sound balance. For instance, if you see a rise in the upper frequencies of, say, 6 dB, you can expect the respective microphone to sound quite bright. However, a frequency response plot won’t tell you if you are going to like the character or “texture” of this brightness, whether it will sound silky or harsh to your ears.

HOW TO READ A FREQUENCY DIAGRAM
Let’s look at the X-axis: The frequencies are usually displayed on a logarithmic scale, which is closer to human perception than a linear scale. You might say, the logarithmic scale is spaced in octaves (which you get by doubling the frequency): the distance from 100 Hz to 200 Hz is just as wide as from 1000 Hz to 2000 Hz or from 10,000 Hz to 20,000 Hz.

Just to give you a rough idea of the various frequency ranges:

Below 40 Hz: Sub Bass. Apart from kick drum, the sub bass range contains little musical information.

40-200 Hz: Bass frequencies, the foundation. The lowest note of a 4-string bass is about 40 Hz, the lowest note on a guitar is about 80 Hz. The lowest note of a male singer (baritone) is about 100 Hz, although you rarely hear such low notes. Well, maybe from country singers. Most pop singing by men and women is above 150 Hz.

200-500 Hz: Low Mids. This is the “body” of most instruments. This is also where the human voice has most of its energy.

500-3000 Hz: Mid Range. This area is crucial for the sound character, because it’s where the human ear is most sensitive to even the smallest details. The telephone transmits little below or above this range, yet we are able to recognize callers by their “hello.”

3000-7000 Hz: Presence. This range is important for sound definition and good intelligibility. It is the area of many speech consonants.

7000-14000 Hz: Treble. This area is crucial for our sense of brightness. However, too much energy in this area can sound harsh and distracting. This is the area of speech sounds such as S and T, of cymbals, but also of string noises.

Above 14,000 Hz: Air band. This area is important for recordings that want to sound “expensive” and “super-hi-fi.” It gives voices and stringed instruments an airy feel, hence the name. It does not contain much musical information, though.

HOW DOES FREQUENCY RESPONSE RELATE TO SOUND?
Frequency response is perhaps the most popular specification, because it relates to what’s most important to all of us: sound. But is a frequency response diagram really an accurate description of a microphone’s sound characteristics?

WHAT A RESPONSE CURVE CAN TELL YOU – AND WHAT IT WON’T
Generally, mere figures like “20 Hz – 20 kHz” are not very useful. A frequency response diagram will give you much more information, because it illustrates the microphone’s sound balance. For instance, if you see a rise in the upper frequencies of, say, 6 dB, you can expect the respective microphone to sound quite bright. However, a frequency response plot won’t tell you if you are going to like the character or “texture” of this brightness, whether it will sound silky or harsh to your ears.

COMPARING FREQUENCY DIAGRAMS
When you compare frequency plots, always take note of the how the Y-axis is scaled. Some manufacturers use a very wide scale to make a jagged frequency response look nice and smooth. Also, some less reputable manufacturers more or less make up their frequency plots, as they don’t own the necessary gear. An anechoic room and measurement equipment are quite an investment; a pencil is so much cheaper!

Typically, a studio microphone is more balanced than a stage mic, but not exactly linear, either. Most microphones show a rise in the upper frequencies, .i.e. in the presence and treble regions. While frequency diagrams could be helpful, for instance to compare the location and magnitude of those boost frequencies, the published charts are often unreliable or mere wishful thinking, especially on lower end products.

www.neumann.com/en-us/knowledge-base/neumann-im-homestudio/homestudio-academy/how-does-frequency-response-relate-to-sound

 

Yes, placing a microphone properly is important. Does not have to do with the behavior of the microphone itself.

Yes, technical data will not provide information about perception. But we are leaving technical territory then anyways.

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2025

well yes and no,

one point of view indeed can be, most mics capture sound like shit, because physics - that answers your first question,

on the other hand, most sound engineers are lazy cunts, so if a certain mic has an EQ curve without need of additional heavy EQing (like most live drum mics, live vocal mics, basically any live mics lolz) then it saves time and money every time,

if you are asking such way, maybe you should ask why EQ is a thing to begin with, guess what - most stuff sounds like shit without EQ, so it's not a "problem" to have a mic that already does some kind of EQ
also if you ask about natural sound, then you might ask what's the purpose of speakers and rooms when every listening room is different than recording room, making the flat curve obsession and all kinds of speaker correction tools completely pathetic

 

A recent post on this subject by Dr. Floyd Toole - again:
https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...agnepan-lrs-speaker-review.16068/post-2260779
Also readable in his book.

 

On my Rode nt2a I set omni-directional (rarely cardioid). Omni is less harsh and less boomy, but captures almost silent pc noise bit more. Cardioid is more boomy and bit harsh. Less noise. Noise is solved by moving mineral wool cushions around pc.
Threatment is full of mineral wool (overall, walls, angles, etc), carpets, fat layers of foam on ceiling, cushions, sofa, soft toys, curtains. Small room.

 

The freq. response diagrams supplied with most microphones are not "eq curves". They are the result of a frequency sweep of the mic in an anechoic chamber. It's a visual plot of the response of the microphone to the entire audible spectrum in a "optimum operating environment". Obviously not everyone has access to an anechoic chamber to record in, nor would they necessarily want it. But it does give the engineer a visual representation of how the particular microphone responds to the audio frequency spectrum. Flatter may not always be better for a given situation. It's rather subjective and dependent upon the particular recording application.

As far as to why a mic is or isn't a totally flat response is mostly dependent on the kind of mic it is, its pickup pattern, and how well it is constructed. You should be aware that the human ear is not necessarily a "flat" device when it comes to frequency response either (e.g. fletcher-munson curves). In dealing with microphones, GENERALLY (using the term as a caveat) higher sound pressure levels are inclined to be captured with dynamic mics and more subtle levels with condenser types. Ribbon mics are definitely not made for high sound pressure levels. However, in reference to dynamics and condensers, the rule is broken almost as much as it's adhered to (especially with modern day advances in condenser type mic designs), but it's still a general rule of thumb.

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2025

Because they don't have a precise 3D model of your head, your pinna, your ear canal and the resonance chambers inside your head.

 

It's good to ask questions, it's better to know what questions to ask. To help you with a little foundation for said questions without going too deep into the laws of physics or acoustics, and electronics, I'd read each of these articles below, and keep clicking and reading, until you feel the need to read books on the matter.

I started by reading books (you know, the OG software upgrade), but there's good stuff online (and audio examples):

• Different types of Mics
• How to Mic Anything
• Microphone Polar Patterns
• Using Mic Polarity
• The Proximity Effect
• Near-field Miking
• Multi-Miking
  - Multi-Miking Audio Examples
• Mic Positions in a Session
  - Mic Positions Audio Examples
• Directional Mics Case Scenarios

Hope this helps (read a couple before you say no, maybe), and let me know if you'd like a list of recommended Audio/Mic books.