PZM Experiments

[physics]

Almost made it within the week. I tried centering the mic on-axis with one of the speakers to get more presence and high-end, as opposed to being so far off-axis like I was previously. Boy, did that bring it back. Enough that with the settings I was running (EQ maxed) a beam blocker was necessary to kill icepick treble. The beam blocker I used was an open-cell, polyurethane, 1.4 lb/ft^3 density, foam disc sized to the speaker cut-out hole, with a 3" diameter hole cut in the center. The basic operational principle being that the disc makes the speaker behave like a smaller sound source at higher frequencies, killing off a good bit of the constructive interference patterns that cause beaming. At some other point I plan on doing some comprehensive tests to post for listening and/or discussion, but for now here's the clip. EQ maxed, Presence at 6/10, Pre-Vol at 7, MV just above 0 if I remember. https://soundcloud.com/grrrrr-662986275/...wAIpKmH4te

Here's another riff, played too slow and not perfect, but chasing "feel" is another thread, possibly another forum. I've included a "no-beam-blocker" version first to show how much it did. This particular riff brought out the worst in my setup I think. Pretty fizzy/shhhh-y and a bit hollow.

No beam blocker:
https://soundcloud.com/grrrrr-662986275/...Lv9jtYcxQ4
Beam blocker:
https://soundcloud.com/grrrrr-662986275/...2q08GFPJ0a

To try reducing the hollow and fizzy quality, I reduced the Treble from 10/10 to 7/10, and also moved the cab a little closer to the wall in case it was a resonance issue (but I don't think it was). Aside from that, and an even lower master volume, the settings were the same. Here are the two riffs from before, but with this new setup. https://soundcloud.com/grrrrr-662986275/...VOS2AaT84e https://soundcloud.com/grrrrr-662986275/...qo0Dt00POh

I think it sounds pretty darn good for the volume being somewhere below 0.5/10. Can't wait until I can do a MV and/or power scaling mod and build a detuned cab or two. I have some clips of riffs that I recorded with both the PZM and an SM57 for comparison which I'll post at some point, but for now I gotta get going. If anyone has critiques of the clip tones I'm happy to hear them.

Edit: Oh, and all clips were with 12dB of clean boost in front of the amp.