Topic: Quick omni question

[Gordon]

Going to an outdoor show tonight.  I'll be running my ak40's nos and will also run my ca 11 omni's just for the heck of it.  I have no bar for the omnis and don't think I'll be able to clip anywhere to get a good split.  So I plan to just rig them onto my nos bar.  Which of these two setups would be best?




or





obviously I can rig them anywhere on the nos bar.


also I've read that omnis don't pick up much wind noise.  the dpa screens fit over the church screens but I doubt that's a good idea.

[bryonsos]

At that distance, it won't matter much. You need to get them a couple feet apart to get a stereo image from omnis. You could just put 1 in the middle and mix/fix it in post.

[Gordon]

not planning to mix with the nuemann's.  just want to play around with them.

[lsd2525]

You could try the Healy method on the ends of the bar, but I'm not sure how bad those BAS's would block the sound. Would have to be a pretty stiff wind for you to pick up any wind noise.

Given a choice between the two pictured, I'd go for the outside mounting

[ScoobieKW]

FYI - Healy method is 17cm spacing with the capsules facing outward. 180 degree microphone angle

[Ultfris101]

can you tape a thin rod like a tent pole section or one of those fiberglass sticks you use to mark curbs in snow to the bar or something? and then tape omnis to that?

Just about anything to get 24" or so of split and you'll be in good shape. they're so small they hardly need any support. even a coat hanger or wooden dowel or something.

Tape some pencils together or cut a small branch out of tree. Channel your inner Macgyver! 

[zupanic]

for about $5 you can go to most any "dollar store" and still buy television rabbit ears. I don't even have omnis yet, but picked up the rabbit ears for this purpose. Just cut the telescoping sections from the base and you can rig it up for up to 5 or 6 feet of spread.

[lsd2525]

can you tape a thin rod like a tent pole section or one of those fiberglass sticks you use to mark curbs in snow to the bar or something? and then tape omnis to that?

Just about anything to get 24" or so of split and you'll be in good shape. they're so small they hardly need any support. even a coat hanger or wooden dowel or something.

Tape some pencils together or cut a small branch out of tree. Channel your inner Macgyver! 

TV antenna.......

[Gordon]

all good ideas but I'll have to save them for another time.  I'm pretty sure I'll be the only taper.  taking my 3 1/2 year old (its free shows downtown).  I'll have my hands full as it is so not much time to rig something up.  another thing splitting these the cables are only 5 feet.   I'll have to have the pre and recorder taped to the stand as it is, that would put them up real high on the stand!

[Gutbucket]

Late to the party, but since this is a secondary recording anyway, consider trying this perhaps radical seeming idea:

Space them the 2 to 3 feet apart they really need to be.. vertically on the stand, one above the other. Point one left and the other right, just because they have some directionality at high frequencies.  That should be easy to rig, requires no extra bar, and won't block sightlines or be unwieldy.  Make sure the lower mic is high-enough that it isn't sight-line blocked to the PA or sound source.  You'll get much of the open and spacious sound of spaced omnis from the frequency-related decorellation the spacing provides even though it won't image Left/Right as if they were spaced the same distance horizontally.

And if you wanted to play around with it, it may work surprisingly well mixed with the main pair.

[achalsey]

That's a pretty cool idea.  Curious to know how that would turn out.  Most because I have little understanding of how sound works vertically.  Or horizontally...or at all really, but that's a different story. 

Totally off topic, but, in playback there isn't really any 'up' and 'down,' is there?  I'm sure I'm looking at this very simply (ignorantly) and there's a technical explanation totally over my head, but I wonder from a practical sense how vertically spaced mics sound.

Do you pan them left/right?  That seems almost counter-intuitive, but my intuition is pretty limited in these kinds of things.  Double the channels and blend both a little left/right?  I guess I need to experiment myself, maybe with some cards as don't have omnis, but it does sound interesting....

[TSNéa]

Space them the 2 to 3 feet apart they really need to be.. vertically on the stand, one above the other. Point one left and the other right

Very tempting... Why bother with the first pair? 

More seriously, is there any possibility to feel a distorted horizontal plane? (I'm sorry I can't be precise enough: I lack some English vocabulary in psychophysics of perception). Maybe 3 ft vertically apart is not such a big problem?
I'd be curious to try...

I see that achalsey answered while I was writing: we seem to have the same kind of feeling!

[Gutbucket]

Play it back normally.  One channel left, the other right.   Forget about the configuration orientation when you play it back and just listen for how it sounds.

Though verticality may sometimes be conveyed by frequency response differences and early reflections (either on the recording end or the playback end), and probably even more often by listener expectation, 2-channel stereo is 2-dimensional and flattens interchannel differences to the horizontal plane on playback, regardless of the plane of the microphone configuration.

[TSNéa]

OK, thanks Gutbucket!
So no need to put my (heavy) loudspeakers one above the other to enjoy the sound... 

I think you're right about "listener expectation": if you're lying on your side, listening to ambient sound or to some music, wether in your bed or at the beach, the world around stays stable. Fortunately. Just because we interpret/analyze everything that comes through our senses. 

[bryonsos]

I'm going to call horsefeathers on pointing an omni regardless of whether you align them vertically or horizontally. If it's a proper omni, then the only thing that matters is its spacing from its mates. Distance creates the difference in signal arrival that creates the stereo image. If they're vertical instead of horizontal, then you have eliminated the space needed to create the image, so I guess I'm calling horsefeathers on that part too.