fatiguing sound?

[guosh]

recently, i recorded a flute audition tape in a nice room. it sounded pretty good with my iems (etymotic er4s. had to use them as my setup was in the room) but now that i play it back it sounds rather fatiguing to my ears

i've attached a file from the session below, and was hoping to get your opinions on it - does it sound as fatiguing to you as it does to me?

one of my main concerns is that it could be mics - i'm running the hebden sound 3010 omnis on a homemade jecklin disk, and it just occurred to me that the mics have a rise from 1khz to a 10db(!) peak around 5khz, and starts to drop steadily till about 15khz. these seem pretty odd to me, as i always read the rise as beginning from 10khz (instead of 1) like a typical diffuse field mic

another issue could be my jecklin disk, as i used a foam with interesting characteristics, using k-flex sound absorbing foam that absorbs across most of the frequencies rather than just the high frequencies. could this be what is causing the anomaly? i'm currently operating on jecklin's old specs, with a 30.5cm diameter disk, mics 20 degrees and 16.5cm apart

thanks for any help!

[joelpatterson]

I wouldn't tag it with the word "fatiguing," but it does have an "indistinctness" and pretty exclusively midrange topography that might seem like kind of boring? It's just too distant and monochromatic to really capture the listener's attention-- but on the other hand it sounds perfectly wonderful.

[boojum]

It seems to be missing the bottom register(s). It is clear but sterile.

FWIW I have had mixed luck with Jecklin and rely on AB omni's now.

[Corran]

I find the flute breath sound a bit pronounced in this recording. That's the biggest thing that bugs me. Other than that there is something just a little "off" and I'm not sure what it is. That's probably what you hear?

Try just a spaced pair without the disc and see what happens, and maybe some mics without a lift like the Hebdens.

By the way I really like how this flutist is playing the Courante movement from the Partita. Currently writing two research papers on this piece!

[guosh]

thanks for the replies!

strangely, for me i felt there was this edge to the sound that i didn't really like. it only started when i connected my c84 pres to my profire mic inputs (the line inputs worked for monitoring, but for some reason didn't show up on my daw. weird, but i'm figuring it out now)

in the end i eq-ed down the peak in the mids and used a baxandall curve for the higher register, but i'm still really curious as to why my mics would have a 10db peak at 5khz. anyone seen anything like that before? its a first for me, and i really wonder what the reasoning behind it could be

as for the low register, i'm quite sure its my jecklin. apparently the foam i have was designed for noise isolation as well, so it absorbs low frequencies pretty heavily. without the jecklin the hebdens actually have quite a robust low end - i'll see if i can find a classical group that i recorded in AB and post it. for now, its an ambiance pair i left running for the university jazz band (though the file i'm attaching is an r&b interpretation actually - just to spice things up. don't mind the placement though, it was on a dpa bar taped to the soundboard just to see how the mics sounded)

guess its back to the drawing board with regards to the jecklin... have to find the right absorption characteristics to make it work. so far its made my mics perform more like a cardoid than anything. i'll probably use them as omni flankers for my next gig and see if its usable

btw, thanks bryan, i'll pass your compliments to the flutist! all the best with your research papers