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  #31  
Old 07-16-2017, 03:52 PM
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Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
I would just ask, do you think there can phase interference in different points around the guitar between the wavelengths emanating from different areas of the guitar? Yea or nay?
We know that guitar tops move in various phases. There are probably better papers on it that this, but here's an example: http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/guit...mmingbird.html

But that's what makes a guitar sound like a guitar, and makes different guitars sound different (among other things). It's not a problem, and if you somehow had a mic that canceled those phase differences out or was able to ignore them, it wouldn't sound like the same guitar, right? The mic's job is to pick up what's there, and those phase movements of the top are there - waiting to be heard and captured on a recording. Even with spaced pairs, the sound from every part of the top reaches both mics, so if this is some sort of problem, it'd be the same issue there, too - even worse, because the differences in mic placement will interact with the top motion in all kinds of ways. It kind of sounds like maybe guitar's a defective design that just can't be recorded :-)

This is getting way off topic... I didn't set out to do some justification of XY recording, I just used a portable recorder as an example of how easy it was to move between spaces when you use one - and they all tend to have XY mics built-in, which is convenient! I could certainly do a similar experiment with spaced pairs, but I'm not sure I want to setup all the gear required in the laundry room.
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  #32  
Old 07-16-2017, 05:11 PM
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The software programmer that develops a vst plugin for "room removal and replacement" will be famous....
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  #33  
Old 07-16-2017, 06:05 PM
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Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
It's not a problem, and if you somehow had a mic that canceled those phase differences out or was able to ignore them, it wouldn't sound like the same guitar, right? The mic's job is to pick up what's there, and those phase movements of the top are there - waiting to be heard and captured on a recording. Even with spaced pairs, the sound from every part of the top reaches both mics, so if this is some sort of problem, it'd be the same issue there, too - even worse, because the differences in mic placement will interact with the top motion in all kinds of ways. It kind of sounds like maybe guitar's a defective design that just can't be recorded :-)
No doubt off topic (sort of) from the original thread intent.

For this discussion I don't care about the vibrational modes of a guitar top and how it helps determine its tone. I am focusing on what are the dimensions of the areas of the guitar that put out those vibrations and the length the resulting air mediated wavelengths travel from various places on the guitar to certain points in space, i.e. the phase issues inherent in path length differences around a broad sound source such as an acoustic guitar.

The reason XY has more of a problem with this then AB, ORTF, etc. is that each mike is picking up nearly the same phase anomalies and at the same time. The mikes are doubling down on the anomalies - no mercy.

With non coincident mikes you usually will have a different set of phase anomalies at each mike and at different arrival times. Without the brain of the listener there is no sound, just the wave patterns. Our brain processes the difference of sound arriving at one ear from that arriving at the other ear into distance and location and in the process solidifies and rounds out the tone - within limits of course, but with mono and largely with XY there is no chance for this auditory processing to occur.
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  #34  
Old 07-16-2017, 06:37 PM
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Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
With non coincident mikes you usually will have a different set of phase anomalies at each mike and at different arrival times. Without the brain of the listener there is no sound, just the wave patterns. Our brain processes the difference of sound arriving at one ear from that arriving at the other ear into distance and location and in the process solidifies and rounds out the tone - within limits of course, but with mono and largely with XY there is no chance for this auditory processing to occur.
I have no idea, this is kind of way beyond my expertise (or interest, really) :-) I'd pass this by some pro recording engineers and see if they agree. All I can really say is that XY recordings sound fine to me; it may be in spite of what you are talking about, or maybe even because of it. Some of my favorite recordings are done with XY, and I don't hear any problems with them. But maybe I'm just not tuned in. You might try raising this theory over on gearslutz and see what they think - if anyone would have informed opinions on this, I'd think you'd find them there.
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  #35  
Old 07-16-2017, 06:45 PM
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The software programmer that develops a vst plugin for "room removal and replacement" will be famous....
Well, there are a few that claim to do this, sort of. The one's I've tried have been just sort of dynamic compressors/expanders that allow you to truncate the tail of a sound, to reduce the room reverb. Theres this:

http://www.sonible.com/proximityeq/

and this:

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/p...verb_plus.html

and others. In fact, I think Audacity has a de-verb plugin.

I'd guess that someone could do a processor sort of like ToneDexter, where you could train a DSP process to convert your bad sound to a good sound. But the more typical approach is to make your room as dead as possible, and then impose the sound of a good sounding room on that - there are tons of plugins that do that. UAD has a fun one that puts you in the Oceans Way studio and lets you pick a room, change the mic placement, etc:

http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/re...y-studios.html

but there are many. TC's VSS3 plugin has lots of spaces you can impose on your sound, often used in film production. Like would you like to sound like you're in a phone booth, or a gym, or the back of a volkswagon beetle? There are plugins that will let you do that, but they're going to work best on a dry direct sound with as little of it's own "room sound" as possible.

Last edited by Doug Young; 07-16-2017 at 11:07 PM.
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  #36  
Old 07-17-2017, 08:10 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
Well, there are a few that claim to do this, sort of. The one's I've tried have been just sort of dynamic compressors/expanders that allow you to truncate the tail of a sound, to reduce the room reverb. Theres this:

http://www.sonible.com/proximityeq/

and this:

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/p...verb_plus.html

and others. In fact, I think Audacity has a de-verb plugin.

I'd guess that someone could do a processor sort of like ToneDexter, where you could train a DSP process to convert your bad sound to a good sound. But the more typical approach is to make your room as dead as possible, and then impose the sound of a good sounding room on that - there are tons of plugins that do that. UAD has a fun one that puts you in the Oceans Way studio and lets you pick a room, change the mic placement, etc:

http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/re...y-studios.html

but there are many. TC's VSS3 plugin has lots of spaces you can impose on your sound, often used in film production. Like would you like to sound like you're in a phone booth, or a gym, or the back of a volkswagon beetle? There are plugins that will let you do that, but they're going to work best on a dry direct sound with as little of it's own "room sound" as possible.
iZotope RX has a de-reverb module as well
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  #37  
Old 07-17-2017, 08:49 AM
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Doug, I remember years ago your telling me about a conversation with Joe Weed http://www.joeweed.com/studiopages/highlandstudio.htm where he said recording quality was something like 90 percent performance, 5 percent mic placement, 3 percent instrument, and 2 percent everything else (mic choice, preamps, a/d converters, etc. etc.)

The trouble with your demos is that the 90 percent is so darned good the rest doesn't matter, at least as long as the mics are pointed at the guitar.

Fran
Hi Fran
I've seen you at Healdsburg with a DSLR and know your love and appreciation for quality.

I shot portraits for $$$ for over 40 years, and know that there are times when my wife & I are being tourists, or I'm just running around and find an interesting subject, and I don't have my 'best' gear along, so I end up shooting with my iPhone instead of the 5DMk3.

I definitely see differences in the resolution, color rendition, noise, balance and speed of these cameras in the edited pictures. But my wife and friends don't (and don't want to). They just look at the pictures.

Same with recording, I've recorded things with a Zoom H2 or H4 (the originals) which I can certainly hear the differences between them and my 'studio-gear', but my wife and friends don't/can't (and don't want to). Not everything I record is aimed at marketing it on iTunes.

Sometimes I like the spontaneous pictures better than those shot in my studio. Sometimes I like spontaneous recordings better than those I've recorded in studio. And when I'm showing a friend/student licks, point-n-shoot recorders are way more handy than going down to the basement and firing up the studio.

My 40 yrs of experience with serious cameras makes a difference on how I use my iPhone…so I get better than average pictures. In the same way, I'm sure my years of owning/operating a recording studio with serious gear affects how we (and Doug and others) use point-n-shoot recorders.

The results aren't hit-or-miss they are predictable.



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  #38  
Old 07-17-2017, 10:54 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
Well, there are a few that claim to do this, sort of. The one's I've tried have been just sort of dynamic compressors/expanders that allow you to truncate the tail of a sound, to reduce the room reverb. Theres this:

http://www.sonible.com/proximityeq/

and this:

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/p...verb_plus.html

and others. In fact, I think Audacity has a de-verb plugin.

I'd guess that someone could do a processor sort of like ToneDexter, where you could train a DSP process to convert your bad sound to a good sound. But the more typical approach is to make your room as dead as possible, and then impose the sound of a good sounding room on that - there are tons of plugins that do that. UAD has a fun one that puts you in the Oceans Way studio and lets you pick a room, change the mic placement, etc:

http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/re...y-studios.html

but there are many. TC's VSS3 plugin has lots of spaces you can impose on your sound, often used in film production. Like would you like to sound like you're in a phone booth, or a gym, or the back of a volkswagon beetle? There are plugins that will let you do that, but they're going to work best on a dry direct sound with as little of it's own "room sound" as possible.
Wow, I was kidding! I'll have to check these out, thanks Doug!
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  #39  
Old 07-17-2017, 05:23 PM
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Wow, I was kidding! I'll have to check these out, thanks Doug!
Soundsoap by Antares is on sale right now for $99 down from $249.

This video is for an older version but this looks easy enough to use.
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  #40  
Old 07-17-2017, 11:49 PM
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Originally Posted by jim1960 View Post
Soundsoap by Antares is on sale right now for $99 down from $249.
I recall checking that out a long time back. It's mostly noise reduction, if I recall, not something that would remove the more subtle impacts of the room (reverb, reflections, comb filtering, harshness, etc), unless I'm mis-remembering. The amazing state of the art for noise reduction these days is iZotope RX, which is quite pricy in its full version, ($1000), but they just released an "Elements" version for $129. I'd be surprised if it didn't beat anything else on the market for anything near the price; I view RX as indispensable for those of us with less than perfect environments, even at full price.

One thing also worth thinking about tho, is that for $99 or whatever, you can easily have at least 2 broadband absorbers, and more if you are DIY-inclined, and those will do more to fix the impact of bad room acoustics than any post-processing can do.
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