Hello all: I am now using a Yamaha CM-500 headset in my station, replacing a Heil ProSet DX4. The Heil was a very close talking mic, where the Yamaha likes to be operated at some distance from my mouth for good response (it has a pronounced bass enhancing proximity effect and "breath pops" easily).
Unfortunately, I have a very noisy shack environment, being in the garage with a rather loud window air conditioner about four feet from my operating position. While this was not an issue with the Heil, it is with the Yamaha. It has a very pronounced bass proximity effect and I have to place it farther away from my mouth to not sound muddy. Therefore, I have to run the mic gain higher for the same levels. The A/C makes a white noise like sound which is noticeable when the PTT is engaged and since the mic has a very omnidirectional pattern, it picks up a lot of extaneous noise from the A/C fan. To "fix" things like this in the past, I used a Behringer audio compressor/limiter (MDX-2600) and set its downward expander to gate the audio between spaces in my speech. I have also used a RDL GCA2 AGC which also features a gate. Both of these units "soft cut" the gate in. The audio chain in the K3 is so good, I have found that I dont need the external gear, and have dismantled the rack that contained these devices and gained some room. I had to replace the A/C unit, and the new one is much stronger than the old one, but its louder too. So, in order to mitigate this, I tried to employ the TX Gate feature. As it is currently implemented, The TX Gate has some issues that need to be addressed. I find it almost unuseable because of the following two issues. First, there is a noticeable "leakage crackle" right at the mute threshold. Its really annoying, sounds like a bad cable! Turning the threshold up simply clips more of my voice, so that is not a solution (I run TX Gate at 15 to 18 now). Second, the Gate's muting takes effect *immediately*, harshly clipping the audio out in silent spaces. It sounds rather unnatural and harsh, again, especially with the white noise generated by the A/C. Would it be possible to include an adjustable "soft mute" decay curve in the gate? What I mean is, have a control that ramps the muting in at an adjustable rate, fading the muting effect in instead of cutting it on and off. This would be for the "decay" part of the gate only... The Attack part is just fine! The adjustability would allow for different sound environments, such as background noise in a Mult Multi, wall reberberations and things like fan noise. A "soft mute" effect would also probably mitigate the crackle at the same time (or hide it). TX Gate is a great built in feature... Adding this adjustment would go far in enhancing the capabilities of the already excellent audio chain inside the K3 (now that I figured out how not to punch audio holes in the processor!). Thanks for the consideration of my suggestion. If anybody has figured out how to deal with my issue in the existing software implementation, I would love to hear your technique. If you want to hear my problem youself, I can send you a MP3 sample. Lu Romero - W4LT K3 # 3192 ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
