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Old 04-08-2017, 12:33 PM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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Default Three Stereo Mic Arrays

I've been a victim of Mic Acquisition Syndrome ever since I started trying to record acoustic guitar. Since I have all these adorable little transducers around I thought I'd do something hopefully useful with them, and set up three different stereo mic arrays so I could record the same session through all of them. I plugged them into my Zoom H6 and shot a little video to capture the session:

XY - Zoom H6 XY mic module
ORTF - Schoeps CMC64
AB - Shure KSM141 in omni

Here's the video:



and here's the Homebrewed Music blog post with the complete audio clips in uncompressed WAV: http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2017/...rays-compared/

Oh, and I should mention that the guitar I'm using is my sweet Tony Yamamoto OMY https://yamamotoguitar.com/

Fran
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Old 04-08-2017, 12:42 PM
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Spaced pairs my favorite sound with my playback gear.
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Old 04-08-2017, 01:07 PM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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To my ears (through a pair of Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones), the XY delivered very little separation. I thought the ORTF yielded the widest separation. The AB pair seemed to be a bit heavy on the right side for some reason.

One suggestion: I found the tonal differences a little distracting. The Schoeps has quite a bit more bottom end then the other two. It might be beneficial to roll off some of that.

That aside, it's a pretty cool video and will be no doubt useful to folks.
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Old 04-08-2017, 03:38 PM
runamuck runamuck is offline
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Thank you, Fran. What this says to me, again, is that the performance is what's most important.

Last edited by runamuck; 04-08-2017 at 06:52 PM.
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Old 04-08-2017, 05:18 PM
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Fran, your posts are an absolute AGF Treasure! Thanks.

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Old 04-09-2017, 01:02 PM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
Spaced pairs my favorite sound with my playback gear.
I wish I could make up my mind. It seems like each time I switch I like the new one better (grin).

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Old 04-09-2017, 01:07 PM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jim1960 View Post
To my ears (through a pair of Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones), the XY delivered very little separation. I thought the ORTF yielded the widest separation. The AB pair seemed to be a bit heavy on the right side for some reason.

One suggestion: I found the tonal differences a little distracting. The Schoeps has quite a bit more bottom end then the other two. It might be beneficial to roll off some of that.

That aside, it's a pretty cool video and will be no doubt useful to folks.
I tweaked levels and panning but didn't try to address tonal balance. As you say, would probably have been helpful.

I adjusted panning based on listening to each whole clip, and the AB seemed to wander from left to right so whatever I did was wrong (grin).

I'm thinking the lack of width in XY that is a fault in headphone listening might be a benefit in situations where the playback environment isn't optimal, like a living room or car where we're not dead center between the speakers.

But I still can't make up my which I prefer overall.

Fran
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Old 04-10-2017, 07:51 PM
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Hi Fran,
Excellent video and thanks for the insight.

My take is that they are all useful methods. They all sounded pleasant and have their strengths.

For solo acoustic playing as in the example I prefer the ORTF method. I think it had enough stereo field yet kept the guitar as a single instrument as if one was siting in front listening.

To me the XY would work well in this example if it was the solo instrument in a small ensemble.

The spaced pair felt a little too separated. Hinting the guitar was no longer a single instrument. That left the sound stage feeling a touch empty in the center. This may work well with vocals.

In fact I'm just experimenting with this sort of concept. I'm using MS with the side set wide field to capture the guitar and the mid for vox. The trick I'm trying get down is all in the balance. I'm finding Mic placement to be especially critical since I'm trying to do it as a guitar/vox in a single take.

I'd love to hear a MS and Blumlein in the comparison (since I love the technical aspects of these methods but have limited experience using them.) of corse the room becomes more critical with these methods and they certainly are less popular...maybe for good reason.
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Old 04-10-2017, 09:03 PM
DupleMeter DupleMeter is offline
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Very nice. My impressions/opinions:

XY - by far the most "focused" sound. Would be great in a mix but lacked the depth of the other configurations.

AB - very wide and a little too "mushy" for my tastes. I wonder if that might be remedied by using cardiods instead of omnis. And yes, the pair was a little "left heavy". A nudge to balance them would help IMHO.

ORTF - in the interest of full disclosure ORTF is my favorite stereo configuration. That said, it didn't hurt that the Schoeps are lush, round and articulate without being the slightest bit harsh or hyped. I thought the spread was close to AB but just shy of becoming mushy and there was a real sense of soundstage.

As was said, Blumlein and MS would be great additions to the experiment.

Thanks for posting. Very fun to listen & compare.
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Old 04-11-2017, 05:34 AM
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Nice demo! I'd suggest that the frequency response differences can be remedied by turning your array on its side by 90'. I chosen that as my session go-to and don't have the left-right EQ difference problem any more. You can thank producer/engineer George Massenburg for that tip.

Bob
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Old 04-11-2017, 07:27 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Womack View Post
Nice demo! I'd suggest that the frequency response differences can be remedied by turning your array on its side by 90'. I chosen that as my session go-to and don't have the left-right EQ difference problem any more. You can thank producer/engineer George Massenburg for that tip.

Bob
Great tip . It is nice to have the observations of someone doing this every day for years , thanks.
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Old 04-11-2017, 12:16 PM
Andy Howell Andy Howell is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Womack View Post
Nice demo! I'd suggest that the frequency response differences can be remedied by turning your array on its side by 90'. I chosen that as my session go-to and don't have the left-right EQ difference problem any more. You can thank producer/engineer George Massenburg for that tip.

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Old 04-11-2017, 01:00 PM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by runamuck View Post
Thank you, Fran. What this says to me, again, is that the performance is what's most important.
I have to agree that most of the comparisons I perform lead me to exactly that conclusion (grin).

Fran
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Old 04-11-2017, 01:06 PM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mischief View Post
...
The spaced pair felt a little too separated. Hinting the guitar was no longer a single instrument. That left the sound stage feeling a touch empty in the center. This may work well with vocals.
The AB setup could be adjusted with less distance between the mics or positioned a little farther back from the instrument, of course. The "hole in the middle" is certainly something to watch out for.

Quote:
In fact I'm just experimenting with this sort of concept. I'm using MS with the side set wide field to capture the guitar and the mid for vox. The trick I'm trying get down is all in the balance. I'm finding Mic placement to be especially critical since I'm trying to do it as a guitar/vox in a single take.

I'd love to hear a MS and Blumlein in the comparison (since I love the technical aspects of these methods but have limited experience using them.) of corse the room becomes more critical with these methods and they certainly are less popular...maybe for good reason.
I did a blog post comparing Blumlein and MS some time ago, when I briefly had a Zoom H4n and was surprised to find an MS decoder included in the features: http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2009/...-the-zoom-h4n/ This comparo probably won't provide much useful info though.

Fran
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Old 04-11-2017, 01:16 PM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DupleMeter View Post
...
AB - very wide and a little too "mushy" for my tastes. I wonder if that might be remedied by using cardiods instead of omnis. And yes, the pair was a little "left heavy". A nudge to balance them would help IMHO.
Note that jim1960 above heard the AB pulling to the right (grin). The classic complaint about omni AB is the lack of stability of the image.

Quote:
As was said, Blumlein and MS would be great additions to the experiment.

Thanks for posting. Very fun to listen & compare.
Glad you enjoyed the clips. I'm away from home for a while but when I get back I'll try to remember to do another session with some bidirectional mics.

One issue with mid-side is the choice of mid mic pattern. Alan Blumlein used bidirectional ribbons for mid and side because at that time there were no other high quality transducers. Nowadays we can choose anything from omni to bidirectional for the mid mic with different results for each choice. Here's a paper that looks at the impact of the mid mic pattern: http://www.midside.com/pdf/nyu/masters_thesis.pdf

Fran
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