Microphone-tailored equalizing system

Abstract

A method and system is described to improve the reproduction of sound of an acoustic musical instrument. According to one embodiment, a first microphone is placed at a proximate location to the musical instrument to pick up the sound of the musical instrument. The sound as picked up by the first microphone is compared to a reference sound of the instrument (e.g., the sound of the instrument as perceived at a normal listening position). Based on this comparison, a tailor-made equalizer is designed to compensate for the differences between the sounds as picked up by the first microphone and the reference sounds of the musical instrument. Accordingly, using the tailor-made equalizer allows the reproduction of sound from the first microphone to have a quality similar to that of the reference sound of the musical instrument. In an implementation of the above system, a filter arrangement is provided having a low-pass and a high-pass filter that allows separate control of the frequency and/or gain for each filter.

1 . A method for providing a system for high fidelity reproduction of an acoustic signal comprising: 
 (1) placing a microphone at a selected location proximate to a musical instrument;    (2) playing the musical instrument to produce sounds as picked up by the microphone;    (3) applying a composite algorithm from a processor coupled to the microphone; and    (4) modifying the sounds picked up by the microphone.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the composite algorithm is derived from at least one reference sound of the instrument.  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the composite algorithm of the processor compensates for the differences between the sounds as picked up by the microphone and at least one reference sound of the instrument.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the composite algorithm is the average of a plurality of stored algorithms.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the composite algorithm is average of a plurality of stored algorithms of a first instrument.  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the composite algorithm is average of a stored algorithm of a first instrument and a stored algorithm of a second instrument.  
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the user may select individual stored algorithms to average.  
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the processor contains at least one plurality of instrument-specific stored algorithms.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein each of the plurality of stored algorithms compensates for the differences between the musical instrument's sound at a normal listening spot and the microphone's placement.  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the processor further comprises a predetermined number of electronic filter elements, controls, and control ranges optimized to compensate for differences in sounds from the musical instrument compared with corresponding reference sounds of the musical instrument.  
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising generating one of the plurality of stored algorithms, said generating comprising: 
 placing a first reference microphone and a second reference microphone at a reference location;    playing reference sounds of a reference musical instrument same as the musical instrument;    comparing with a processor the signals from the first reference microphone and the second reference microphone;    matching the signals from the first microphone and the second microphone.