Topic: Zoom H6 mic question recording high school choir & band

[jekim]

Hello,

I record my daughters high school choir and band concerts which are held in the school auditorium.  I recently upgraded from a Zoom H4N to a Zoom H6.  My question is, would it be better to use the mid side module over the XY module when recording?  I have only used the XY with my previous Zoom and I was curious if one would sound better than the other.  I usually sit front row center for her concerts with the zoom on a tripod with a distance of maybe 10ft to the stage.  Any advice on which to use would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

[stevetoney]

Hello,

I record my daughters high school choir and band concerts which are held in the school auditorium.  I recently upgraded from a Zoom H4N to a Zoom H6.  My question is, would it be better to use the mid side module over the XY module when recording?  I have only used the XY with my previous Zoom and I was curious if one would sound better than the other.  I usually sit front row center for her concerts with the zoom on a tripod with a distance of maybe 10ft to the stage.  Any advice on which to use would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

Hi Mike: 

From front row center, the mid-side module would be my choice.  There aren't alot of situations where I personally like use the M/S technique since I'm not a huge fan, but close in and stage lip is definitely where I like using it the most.  I record in closed in rooms alot and find that the figure 8 mic picks up too much of the room secondary reverb sound for my liking, which is especially true the farther I move back away from the stage in the rooms that I record in. 

By the way, how do those Zoom mics sound?  Got any sound samples you can share?  The Zoom F8 has the adapter on the back that accepts those mics, so I was giving some thought to picking up the cable extension and at minimum the M/S mic, but wouldn't mind hearing what these Zoom mics sound like first.  Thanks.

[jekim]

Thanks for the advice.  I am eager to try the mid-side but I was concerned about any noise it would pick up from the left and the right but I believe I read I can turn off that portion of the mic.  I unfortunately don't have any samples using the H6 yet for band/choir recordings as I just got it earlier this month.  The concert coming up will be my first use of that but I will post some samples once the event is over.  I have used the H6 XY module to record a class a Pastor I know was teaching. The results were clear but the volume was too low but I believe that was because I had the gain knob too low on the XY module.  Once I boosted the audio, it sounded good on the cd I made for her.  After the holiday break I plan to email the music director to see if I can do a practice run during one of the rehearsals as I admit to being a little cautious because I haven't tried the mis side yet in a live setting. 

[stevetoney]

^ Sure thing. 

If the sound coming from the side/Fig 8 mic sounds like crap and the forward facing mic sounds fine, there's no rule that says you have to mix in the Fig 8.  You play around with the mix between the figure 8 and the mid mic in order to widen or narrow the perceived width of the stereo image on the recording, so as you minimize the side component, you make the end result sound more mono.  It's all about messing around with the two and figuring out what sounds best to you and that's not always easy to decide on.  I oftentimes would futz around with the mix forever and finally decide what sounded best, then a day or two later come back and realize that what I ended up with sounds like crap.  LOL. 

But that's one of the reasons I ended up decided I didn't really care for M/S...I often found that I was having to make a choice between imaging and sound quality...the direct sound coming straight from the stage into my mid mic sounded much better than the sound I got from the side mics...but the side mics were needed to add the imaging.  So when i was mastering my recording, it would kinda piss me off to have to compromise what I perceived to be better sound by adding the side mic to get some channel separation.     

[Gutbucket]

This is somewhat of a misleading comparison.

Take an identical recording made with the X/Y mic attachment and convert that file from it's native Left/Right format to Mid/Side.  The resulting Mid signal will sound far more clear and direct than the Side signal which will sound distant and reverberant.. just like a native M/S recording.

Nothing stops one from adjusting the Mid/Side balance of a L/R recording just one does for a M/S recording.  I encourage doing just that for achieving the best possible image-width and reverberant balance from an X/Y recording.  Consider it as a necessary step with a native M/S recording and an optional step with with an X/Y recording.

Remember that as coincident configurations, X/Y and M/S are mathematically identical and interchangeable:
Mid = sum of Left and Right channels
Side = difference of Left and Right channels

Left = sum of Mid and Side channels
Right = difference of Mid and Side channels

For a optimized comparison based solely on the quality of the resulting audio, make two identical recordings, with the only difference between them being the mic attachment used.  Then adjust the Mid/Side ratio of both recordings to achieve the most optimal balance in each case before making the judgement call.  With good behaving capsules in good implementations, the main difference using identical M/S ratios may be that the X/Y config is probably crossed-cardioids with a 90 degree angle between them, and the Mid/Side attachment probably decodes to crossed supercardioids with the same angle.  Preference for one over the other based on convenience and lack of need to do any ratio adjustment is perfectly valid of course, but is "better" in terms of ease of use, rather than better in terms of "audio quality".

And because of that, the most meaningful differences may be based more upon the mic capsules used in each of these attachments, and their off-axis behavior, rather than the differences in coincident configurations.  For all I know, all the capsules in both attachments may be identical-  I know nothing about these attachments, but I suspect the Side channel of the M/S attachment may be using back to back cardioid capsules with one connected in reverse polarity, rather than a true figure-8 capsule.  If I were Zoom that's how I'd consider designing it, so as to use identical inexpensive inventory items, reducing cost.  How well they differentially sum to a virtual figure-8 is important and will effect the resulting audio quality.  Likewise, the off-axis behavior of the capsules is important because with M/S the Mid is pointed directly at the primary source, and with X/Y both channels are slightly off-axis to the source.  Which is better in terms of resulting audio quality mostly likely depends more upon the specifics of these implementations, rather than the configurations themselves.

[fguidry]

The Zoom H6 MS attachment _is_ dual back to back inverted cardioids for the side mic(s). This is consistent across all of Zoom's MS products.

In my evaluation, the side mic pair adds noise that is audible in my application (solo acoustic guitar) so I never use the MS attachment.

Naturally it's possible to reduce the noise from the side channel by mixing it lower, but that limits the attachment to use as a mono or near mono input.

Fran

[jekim]

So I would up going with the XY mics instead of the MS. My decision was based on where I was able to setup which was about 5 rows back instead of front row. I'm working on a sample I can post in the coming days. Thanks for all the advice.

[Gutbucket]

My decision was based on where I was able to setup which was about 5 rows back instead of front row.

I'm curious what influenced your choice of X/Y, as you state the choice was made based upon the change of recording position. 

The main argument in favor of the X/Y attachment seemed to be Fran's objection to the self-noise of the M/S attachment. Real world tests are the only way to really know which of these less than perfect attachments will work best.   However, the most common change most recordists make when moving farther away from the source is switching to microphones with a tighter, more directional pickup pattern in an attempt to partly offset the increased recording distance and the increased reverberance which results from that.  Based on the math alone, the M/S attachment is going to form tighter, more-directional "virtual" mic pickup patterns than the X/Y attachment.  Given that, it may sound less reverberant and more stereophonic than the X/Y attachment from a bit further back.

The X/Y attachment is two cardioids crossed at what? 90-degrees?, or maybe 110 or 120 degrees if you're lucky?. The M/S attachment will produce two crossed "virtual microphones" with patterns which are always going to be tighter (more super-cardioid like) than cardioid, as long as some amount of Side signal is used.  The only time the M/S attachment produces a cardioid pattern is when the Mid signal is used alone without any Side signal mixed in with it.  The pickup-pattern and angle between the virtual microphones of the M/S attachment will change depending on the M/S mix ratio- from a single forward facing cardioid (100% Mid - mono), through supercardioid and hypercardioid patterns (at intermediate ratios, producing various stereo), to a single sideways figure-8 (100% Side), again mono.

Another typical change when moving the recording position further away would be to go to a near-spaced configuration such as ORTF or DIN rather than a coincident configuration like X/Y and M/S.

[jekim]

Honestly, The put the choir in those first few rows and they were very chatty so it was a last minute decision to switch to the XY.  I am still an amateur at this and I was concerned there would be too much crown noise that far back.  I have the sample below from the XY.

https://soundcloud.com/jekim71/sample

[Gutbucket]

What I was getting at in a perhaps over-complicated way above was that (ignoring any mic noise issues) the M/S attachment will probably pickup a bit less room and audience sound than the X/Y. 

The best way to figure all this stuff out is to try each and listen for the differences.