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Author Topic: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?  (Read 14387 times)

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Offline voltronic

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Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« on: August 23, 2015, 04:01:14 PM »
Recently I've been reading more on spaced omni techniques, and I keep coming across conflicting information regarding minimum / maximum recommended spacing.  I realize that the "rules" may only be a starting point for experimentation, but I'm having a hard time understanding the two schools of thought here, and was hoping others might shed some light on this.

Some sources recommend 3ft/90cm as a minimum spread, but others, especially I'm finding European microphone manufacturers and engineers, prefer a range of only 40-80cm.  Michael Williams doesn't go beyond a 50 cm spread for a +/-50deg included angle on his SRA chart for omnis, and DPA's graphs don't go beyond 70 cm for the same recording angle.

I found this paragraph from DPA especially interesting, as it is the only explanation I've found for keeping the spacing relatively close (emphasis mine):
Quote
Since the stereo width of a recording is frequency-dependent, the deeper the tonal qualities you wish to reproduce in stereo, the wider your microphone spacing should be. Using a recommended microphone spacing of a quarter of the wavelength of the deepest tone, and taking into account the human ear's reduced ability to localize frequencies below 150Hz, leads to an optimal microphone spacing of between 40 and 60 cm. Smaller microphone spacings are often used close to sound-sources to prevent the sound image of a particular musical instrument from becoming "too wide" and unnatural. Spacings down to 17 to 20 cm are detectable by the human ear, as this distance is equivalent to the distance between the two ears themselves.

Realizing that the recording angle narrows with increasing distance from your source, could that be the factor that's missing from these recommendations?  Or is there something else at work to account for the different perspectives?
« Last Edit: August 23, 2015, 05:31:44 PM by voltronic »
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Offline capnhook

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2015, 04:05:52 PM »
I'm at 55cm spacing.
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Offline aaronji

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2015, 06:52:55 AM »
I generally go about 66 cm if I am taping with a stand (that's the width of my bar) and more like a meter, give or take, if I am using my patented dual clamp system...

Personally, I find that the broader spacing makes for a better stereo image and is well suited for the tape of recording that many here do (and which I don't think DPA or Stereophonic Zoom are really taking into account).

Offline Tom McCreadie

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2015, 08:01:21 AM »
Some sources recommend 3ft/90cm as a minimum spread, but others, especially I'm finding European microphone manufacturers and engineers, prefer a range of only 40-80cm.  Michael Williams doesn't go beyond a 50 cm spread for a +/-50deg included angle on his SRA chart for omnis, and DPA's graphs don't go beyond 70 cm for the same recording angle.
I find that with 90cm or greater, you could drive a London doubledecker bus through the "hole in the middle" of the image. There's a gnawing, unsatisfactory lack of central solidity.
[Incidentally, the term "incliuded angle" generally refers to the physical angle between the splayed mic bodies of an array. The SRA can be thought of as the auditorium container sector into which the performers have to be shoehorned in order to fully utilize the spread between your playback speakers. If the players spill outside the SRA, their direct playback images start bunching up in the speakers..or even giving woozy phasey imaging.] 

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2015, 08:39:46 AM »
^ Bear in mind that a lot of people on this board are essentially recording PA systems, generally in mono, without a lot of sound directly from the instruments.  The hole isn't so noticeable in that context, I think, and either spacing or baffling is needed to get some "stereo-ness" in the recording.

Offline Bruce Watson

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #5 on: August 24, 2015, 11:54:13 AM »
Some sources recommend 3ft/90cm as a minimum spread, but others, especially I'm finding European microphone manufacturers and engineers, prefer a range of only 40-80cm.  Michael Williams doesn't go beyond a 50 cm spread for a +/-50deg included angle on his SRA chart for omnis, and DPA's graphs don't go beyond 70 cm for the same recording angle.

What I say below is about recording acoustical music. For example, an orchestra in a large hall, no amplification of any kind. For all other applications, I can't help much. Sorry.

What a lot of people find over time and lots of recording and listening, is that for two omnis, 67cm spacing is a practical limit. Any more spacing and you open up a hole in the middle. If you feel you need more spacing, outriggers become your friends. Or, like a Decca Tree, you add a mic in the middle of that "hole". Indeed, there's seems to have been somewhat of a split among the Decca engineers toward the end. Some where using a Decca Tree with outriggers, and others were using an AB pair spaced below 67cm and outriggers.

I'm sure the OP has searched through and read the posts from really fine engineers like Tony Faulkner over on GearSlutz. This 67cm figure seems to be an experimentally derived number that many engineers on both sides of the Atlantic come up with. I don't know the theoretical basis, but I'm sure there is one.

Offline voltronic

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #6 on: August 24, 2015, 12:26:01 PM »
Some sources recommend 3ft/90cm as a minimum spread, but others, especially I'm finding European microphone manufacturers and engineers, prefer a range of only 40-80cm.  Michael Williams doesn't go beyond a 50 cm spread for a +/-50deg included angle on his SRA chart for omnis, and DPA's graphs don't go beyond 70 cm for the same recording angle.

What I say below is about recording acoustical music. For example, an orchestra in a large hall, no amplification of any kind. For all other applications, I can't help much. Sorry.

What a lot of people find over time and lots of recording and listening, is that for two omnis, 67cm spacing is a practical limit. Any more spacing and you open up a hole in the middle. If you feel you need more spacing, outriggers become your friends. Or, like a Decca Tree, you add a mic in the middle of that "hole". Indeed, there's seems to have been somewhat of a split among the Decca engineers toward the end. Some where using a Decca Tree with outriggers, and others were using an AB pair spaced below 67cm and outriggers.

I'm sure the OP has searched through and read the posts from really fine engineers like Tony Faulkner over on GearSlutz. This 67cm figure seems to be an experimentally derived number that many engineers on both sides of the Atlantic come up with. I don't know the theoretical basis, but I'm sure there is one.

Thanks, Bruce.  I only record acoustic / classical also, as do the people I'll be giving advice to later this week.

Yes, I've read through many of the GS posts from Faulkner, Boojum, Jnorman, etc., and have recently been using Faulkner's 4-mic subcard / omni array with good results.  Even at that 67cm distance, I find that the omnis missing something when listening to just that pair on their own, but things immediately pop back into focus when I add the subcards back into the mix.

I've really enjoyed the recordings I've heard with just one omni pair at 40-50cm spacings, and even at that close distance there seems to be plenty of directional information being passed through.  Maybe that bears out the assertion from DPA that I quoted above.  Those small distances sound especially great to me on solo piano recordings.
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2015, 01:03:13 PM »
There are numerous situations in which a pair of omnis may be used for making a stereo recording, and those situations differ significantly.  Based on that oversimplification alone, there is never going to be consensus on any one particular omni-pair arrangement being "best".   To further complicate the matter, there is more than one kind of "stereo-ness".  Different techniques produce different qualities of "stereoness".  We make selections which are compromises between those different aspects, and sometimes we can mic separately for a couple different aspects and attempt combining them.

I can explain what I mean by that later, along with the basic stuff going on which is important to the discussion if you like, but let's jump to the more interesting conclusions.  Taperssection style of recording a band's live performance is a very, very, very different thing from recording individual musicians, and also a very different from recording an large unamplified acoustic ensemble like an orchestra.  What works for one does not necessarily apply to the other.

Some things which I think we tend to take for granted here, but which radically changes things with regards to a pair of spaced omnis:

1) Recording a PA reinforced performance from a position out in the room is a total odd-ball scenario in the recording world.  It only exists in live music taping!!!  It is the TS elephant in the room in most of the threads here.  It is one reason why super-wide spacings which would not work as a single pair for non-PA amplified acoustic ensemble can work very well and not play back with a huge hole in the middle..

Imagine I were to setup a band and PA, say a typical outdoor amphitheater setup with a mostly mono PA mix, but I put one mono PA stack in my back-yard and the other a mile away in the parking lot of the supermarket, and proceed to mic this PA with a very, very, very, widely spaced pair of omnidirectional mics, each placed an identical distance from it's respective PA stack.   The ambient sounds in each channel will be totally unrelated to each other.  All the environmental noise reaching each microphone will be uncorrelated.  It may as well be two completely different recordings made in different places at different times.  More than a hole in the middle, I've have two completely unrelated recordings.  However, even though the microphones are spaced a mile apart, on the resulting recording all sound which originates from the mono PA will will solidly fill the center of the playback image.  Mono PA stuff will be reproduced in the center from both speakers, and the random uncorrelated ambience out in either speaker, unrelated to each other.  The reverberation from the PA stacks will be related (since the same signal is being produced from each one, just a mile apart), but will be uncorrelated as each stack is illuminating a completely different environment, each environment providing it's own unique reverberation.

2) Inclusion of additional sources.  Mixing in another microphone or two in the array (Decca tree, outriggers, center pairs, or whatever), and/or mixing in spot microphones, and/or matrixing with a SBD completely changes the deal.  You no longer have a setup which is going to behave like a single spaced pair of omnis.  Completely different guidelines and concerns immediately apply.   A setup acts and interacts as a whole, not as isolated sums of it's individual parts.   Just as with mixing two near-spaced configurations or adding a center mic, or whatever - it's a mistake to approach it by thinking of it as "the near-spaced configuration I always use, plus this something else".  The "something else" completely changes the way a spaced pair of omnis work when used by themselves.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2015, 09:31:24 PM by Gutbucket »
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Offline voltronic

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #8 on: August 24, 2015, 02:42:21 PM »
^ I figured I'd see you here soon. :)  Yes, I get that TS-style recording is a very different / specialized thing.  I was surprised to see Shure specify 1m minimum distance in their literature though, and I doubt they are considering amplified concert taping.

Going back to the emphasized part of that quote from DPA, I remember reading somewhere a long time ago about the use of dual subwoofers in home theater systems, and there was a discussion that our ears/brains may be able to resolve directional information at lower frequencies than previously thought.  I dismissed it at the time because physics seemed to go against that idea - by that I mean our ears would have to be much farther apart to deal with the long wavelengths when you get down into the low bass register.

Regarding you Point #2, I think that gets right to the issue of things like the Faulkner subcard/omni setup Bruce and I were talking about, where you have to consider how the whole system works together.
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #9 on: August 24, 2015, 06:07:45 PM »

Going back to the emphasized part of that quote from DPA, I remember reading somewhere a long time ago about the use of dual subwoofers in home theater systems, and there was a discussion that our ears/brains may be able to resolve directional information at lower frequencies than previously thought.  I dismissed it at the time because physics seemed to go against that idea - by that I mean our ears would have to be much farther apart to deal with the long wavelengths when you get down into the low bass register.

This sort of points to aspects of "stereoness", that differ from left/right imaging.

That's probably referring to some of the work of David Griesinger (then working for Lexicon) who argues for introducing phase differences down at the lowest frequencies not for directional imaging, but rather as a way of externalizing the sensation of low bass with a more natural "out-of-head" sense of envelopment.  The Lexicon processors based on his research long included an option to for two subwoofers rather than one, intended to be placed to either side of the listening space, with a phase difference introduced between the two.  That phase difference is introduced by the processor, rather than relying on difference information existing on the recording itself.  Most recordings won't have stereo difference information down at the lowest octave(s), and that includes all analog turntable records, where is it deliberately mono-ized to keep the cartridge from jumping out of the groove.  Stereo difference information on an LP is encoded via vertical travel in the record groove, and significant low-frequency difference information will cause the needle to skip, jumping out of the groove while attempting to follow that vertical amplitude, like a snow skier at speed skiing the moguls.  Digital recording and playback doesn't have that playback limitation, yet there are other reasons for managing stereo width and "how-mono" the bass information is in different frequency ranges.
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #10 on: August 24, 2015, 06:08:00 PM »
A very wide omni spacing can achieve that aspect of "stereoness" and envelopment down low.  A wide spacing also decorrelates the hall ambience and reverberance down to a lower frequency, which makes things sound more "open and airy" and reproduces those sounds diffusely, throughout and even outside of the playback imaging space. That's a different kind of stereo thing than left/right imaging and doesn't relate to Williams SRA curves. It's not about accurate left/right imaging directionality or orchestra angle.

But more narrow omni spacings are usually going to have a more solid center, and often may be more accurate in terms in left/right direction imaging of the sound source locations as laid out on the stage, so the SRA curves then become applicable, at least for those imaging aspects.

(Always exceptions for TS taping, and here's another one-  "section recording" by the soundboard at an outside event, often places band/PA at a distance where the "orchestra angle' and appropriate SRA is only 40 or 45 degrees wide total.  So even in terms of following the William's curves for good L/R imaging using a single pair of omnis -and we need to extrapolate those curves, because as mentioned this scenario is a total oddball in the world of recording scenario which was never considered by the Stereo Zoom for typical studio or classical recording- we end up with Stereo Zoom suggested spacings of more than a meter.  That's a spacing of more than a meter not with the intention of optimizing those "wide spaced omni" stereo aspects, but rather optimizing the "near-spaced omni" stereo sense of accurate L/R imaging in terms of the a Stereo Zoom)

So if only using one pair of spaced omnis, determining the optimal spacing between them partly becomes a question of balancing the left/right directional stereo imaging aspects against other stereo aspects.

..Or another approach is to introduce more microphones, as a way of working around the compromise imposed by those contradictory things which are pulling the microphone spacing in opposite directions.

I can setup very wide spaced omnis which providing an open, lush ambience, envelopment and "stereoness" down low, and get good center balance and directional imaging by introducing other mics.  The "other  mic's" could be a third omni in the center.  That's the simplest arrangement - and it fixes the problem in two ways: First, the over-wide center 'hole' is plugged by introducing a center channel, which in 2ch stereo playback gets panned center, feeding both Left and Right channels and thus producing a strong mono component in the stereo signal, filling the hole; 2) There are now two stereo pairs instead of just one (actually 3 interacting pairs instead of just 1) and the spacing between the these pairs of omnis (L/C, and C/R) is now half of what it was for the former single L/R pair.  In that sense, adding a third omni to the center is equivalent to halving the previous L/R omni spacing, and by doing that it's not surprising that the "hole" in the middle problem is fixed simply due to that radically different spacing alone.  That in turn allows me to space the original L/R pair considerably wider without a hole-in-the-middle problem, and that gets me more of the other kinds of "stereoness" I want, which comes in addition to the improved left/right directional accuracy of three closer-spaced omnis.

A SBD feed counts as additional mics, and works similarly to a third omni in the center in the sense of "filling the hole", allowing a wider spacing without introducing problems.  Using a directional mic in the center instead of an omni is a bit more like a SBD feed because there will be more direct sound and less room reverberance in that center channel.  Using a coincident stereo pair in the center provides left/right directional information without phase-difference info that could complicate things when combining feeds (a coincident center pair is similar to the SBD feed in that it's L/R imaging is level-difference based without phase-differences, like much of the stereo informationpresent in a SBD feed- all pan-potted mono stuff, except maybe stereo verb, synth pads, stereo mic'd leslie cabs, etc).  Using a highly directional center mic as the mid in a M/S pair provides better isolated up-front center, plus control over L/R directional imaging in the center by bringing up in some Side, and that sharp imaging up-front stereo center can rests comfortably in the lush, wide-omni stereo bed.  Tight sharp accurate imaging "stereoness" from the M/S coincident center mic, plus lush open enveloping big deep and ambient "stereoness" from the wide omnis.  To my way of thinking, those are logical progressions in "adding a center mic" to a pair of wide omnis.

Deca tree is just a third center omni moved forward a bit.  Outriggers are just an additional pair of very wide omnis, added for the same "other-stereoness" reasons discussed above.

Every form of engineering is about juggling the imposed constraints to achieve a desired result.  Audio recording is no different.  Getting all the desirable sonic aspects well balanced is a big challenge using a single pair of mics.  That's no different if using an omni pair or a cardioid pair.  The addition of other mics in the main array, out-riggers, spot mics, section mics, SBD matrix or whatever, are all ways of working around the constraints imposed by the limitation to two microphones. 

And as soon as more than one stereo pair of microphones is introduced, the situation immediately turns into that "system-working-together" thing.  It's no longer an ORTF pair.  It's no longer a pair of spaced omnis and doesn't play by the same rules imposed upon recording using a pair of spaced omnis alone.  And we shouldn't unnecessarily constrain our thinking about using microphones in arrays by trying to conform to the compromises that work well when using a single pair of microphones.

[Editing done after posting a mess. Refresh, refresh view]

« Last Edit: August 24, 2015, 10:12:08 PM by Gutbucket »
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Offline justink

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #11 on: August 24, 2015, 08:16:00 PM »
i'm a big fan of spaced anything.

we've run "split stack" with cards before.  one mic on the left stack and one on the right stack.  came out amazing.  really picked up the stereo mix well and you hear one fan in one ear and not in the other too.  interesting listen.

if runnig ominis back by the board...  why not space them out as far as you can?  one mic/stand on the right side of the board, one on the right, both pointed at the respective stacks?  same for cards, hypers, whatever...

it's the best stereo config you could do, if you have the gear....
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DPA 4023 (Cardioid)
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DPA 4018V (Supercardioid)
Earthworks TC25 (Omni) 

Pres and A/D's:
Grace Design Lunatec V3 (Oade ACM)
Edirol UA-5 (bm2p+ Mod)

Recorders:
Sound Devices MixPre10 II
Edirol R-44 (Oade CM)
Sony PCM‑M10

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #12 on: August 24, 2015, 10:38:09 PM »
..and you hear one fan in one ear and not in the other too.  interesting listen.

^
Yet another stereoness, and one that can be key for TS tapers with noisy audiences.  I've posted about this aspect previously, noticing it even with a 6' spread.  Nearby audience members tend to image further off to one side or the other, getting them out of the way of the music which spans the full middle.

Quote
if runnig ominis back by the board...  why not space them out as far as you can?  one mic/stand on the right side of the board, one on the right, both pointed at the respective stacks?  same for cards, hypers, whatever...

Not a bad choice.  Though more challenging to manage/block.  May get more susceptible to 'hole in the middle' if the distance to each stack isn't close enough to the same on each side, and maybe more susceptible to wind messing with the solidity of the center (wind 'phasing' is undulation of the air medium through which the sound waves are traveling, changing the path distance from speaker to mic slightly, similar to a 'chorus' phase effect).  If you have a complete soundboard patch representing the entire mix, then you don't even need to point the mics at the stacks.. in fact you're probably better off not doing so.  Since that stuff is already in the SBD feed you gain increased control over your SBD AUD matrix by excluding redundant pickup of the PA from the wide spaced mics.  I'd actually like to try wide spaced figure-8s in that scenario, one on either side of the board, oriented sideways with the nulls pointing at the center of the stage or each stacks.  That only works with a complete SBD though, or some other source acting as delivery mechanism for that info other than the wide-spaced pair. A typical near spaced pair, coincident pair or a single supercard or shotgun in the center would do nicely.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2015, 10:41:43 PM by Gutbucket »
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline voltronic

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #13 on: August 24, 2015, 10:41:38 PM »
OK, here's a situation where I'll be more like the "taper spacing" for omnis:  Even though I only do acoustic recording as I said, we're now into marching band season, and I plan to start using spaced omnis this year instead of cardiods.  For home games, I tend to be up on top of the press box for the best video angle.  If I wind up recording in that situation, my plan is to take two clamps with me and space my mics very wide on the rail, which is probably about 20ft wide or so. 

Of course, while I'm up there I can use my bearing compass app and find the exact angles, but if I had to estimate from memory it would be a recording angle of around 60deg total.  Popping that into the SRA tool tells me that 1 meter is the optimal distance, but I have a feeling that wider is going to be better because I'll be quite far away.

For away games and competitions, I'll be recording from just above field level, clamped onto the railing in front of the front rows of stands so that's probably a much better situation to deal with.  Note that crowd noise isn't a factor for the top-of-box placement - people are quiet for the bands, except when applause is (hopefully) warranted.
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Spaced Omnis - two schools of thought?
« Reply #14 on: August 25, 2015, 08:58:10 AM »
Consider that the appropriate SRA for recording a marching band may or may not be equal to the Orchestra Angle into which the outer edges of the band's marching movements will fit.  I suspect a narrower SRA will be better, zooming into the action closer to center field a bit.  The outer limit edge of field stuff will then simply image over at one speaker or the other, with more band movement between speakers.  I suspect an SRA wide enough to cover the entire field would provide a more distant perspective with less dramatic, more centralized.

How much of the field do they actually use?

Do you have a way of recording three or four channels?  Would be interesting to do a 10 or 20ft omni split atop the press box with a single directional mic in the middle pointing at center field.. or a stereo pair in the middle instead of the single if you like (which also hedges the bet).
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

 

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