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Author Topic: Oddball microphone techniques - part 1  (Read 166343 times)

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Offline illconditioned

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Re: Oddball mic techniques - evolution from 'Bug Eye' to 'Quad Eye' rig & beyond
« Reply #105 on: December 08, 2009, 01:15:24 PM »
Maybe I should send some photos to Bruce at DPA America and plead for a price break on a matched set of 5 for the next revision.

Good idea.  Nothing like this to drive up demand for the DPA capsules!

  Richard
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Oddball mic techniques - evolution from 'Bug Eye' to 'Quad Eye' rig & beyond
« Reply #106 on: December 08, 2009, 03:56:26 PM »
Yep. Similar to what I tell boating customers: "Keep the dry side up".

Maybe I should consider rigging a Countryman mic'd version, Richard.  Isn't the B3 your current miniature omni of choice?
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 illconditioned

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Re: Oddball mic techniques - evolution from 'Bug Eye' to 'Quad Eye' rig & beyond
« Reply #107 on: December 08, 2009, 04:07:10 PM »
Yep. Similar to what I tell boating customers: "Keep the dry side up".

Maybe I should consider rigging a Countryman mic'd version, Richard.  Isn't the B3 your current miniature omni of choice?
Yeah, the B3 is my favourite now.  The sound quality/tone on this mic is wonderful.  Also, quite a bit cheaper than the DPA.  It is something like $150 each, with a pigtail.  Use a simple battery box to power.

*But* I have had trouble getting closely matched mics.  There is something funny about the manufacture process (perhaps welding the metal screen on front?) that messes up the match.  Many other mics I've tried are identically matched.  I mean you can put both side by side, play pink noise on your speaker, and the power spectra are identical!

  Richard
Please DO NOT mail me with tech questions.  I will try to answer in the forums when I get a chance.  Thanks.

Sample recordings at: http://www.soundmann.com.

Offline dactylus

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Re: Oddball mic techniques - evolution from 'Bug Eye' to 'Quad Eye' rig & beyond
« Reply #108 on: February 25, 2010, 01:35:39 PM »

>>>for future reference<<<

 ;)

hot licks > microphones > recorder



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Offline rastasean

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*bump to the top*
anyone willing to try the ca-1 with this setup?
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=134524.0
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Offline Gutbucket

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Continuing an oddball micing discussion here to keep from hi-jacking another thread..

..In another thread, Chris Church proposed the idea of split omnis, with a homemade baffle blocking the rear, sides, and top/bottom of each mic. The baffle would be covered by acoustic foam. I've bought/ordered supplies to create this but haven't tried yet.

Have you tried anything like this? What do you think? Any tips?

Thanks,

Brendan

Thanks Brendan,

I've thought a lot along similar lines.  My apologies jnorman, this is going way off topic, and I typed a long reply so I'll answer in that other thread to keep from hi-jacking this one.

One problem as I see it is that complex baffles get unwieldy and impractical.  The little spheres in the surround rig above are a way of adding some high frequency directionality without unwieldy, sight-blocking baffles.  I've used more traditional Jecklin-type baffles for side to side and front-back baffling, and Moke once posted about using padded chairs to block rear sound arriving at his spaced omnis up front at a seated concert, which is similar.  Further along those lines I've considered using two small jecklin disks to get a bit more A-B spacing than a single disk of reasonable size allows, keeping each mic close to it's own disk so that the baffles can be relatively small and effective, but the two can be spaced further apart.   The two baffles could then also be angled as well to make the directionality of the array point more forward.  I still think that could be worth playing around with. 

Turning the closed box idea inside out- If I could get away with it, I'd build a closed box shaped baffle with a non-sonic reflective exterior (think four Jecklin discs connected at the edges to make a box) and mount my four mics around the outside of it, or more simply use a hard, reflective surfaced box and boundary mount the mics on each face.  I've drawn up weird star shaped baffles on the back of napkins that favor the front direction, but still pickup sound from all directions in an attempt to get more isolation between adjacent channels.  For the same reason, the sphere baffles on the rig above all point more forward except for the back channel.

The baffling idea behind all that is somewhat similar to what your mention, but the motivation is different- One of the basic ideas that is important to me is that if I put a baffle up, I want a mic on the opposite side of it too.  A big reason why I like recording with omnis and have extended that to surround is I’m drawn to their natural sound and the way they record the sense of space, the complete sound of the room.  To me that quality is an essential component of a really good, open and natural sounding recording that takes me back to the event.

Because of that, one idea I’ve placed importance on is that I want the combined response of the entire array (considered as a whole) to have a somewhat even response in all directions, at least all horizontal directions, even though I might want to split up the circle unevenly between mics to favor the forward direction.  So if I'm using 4 mics to record Left, Center, Right and Back channels, I might want the Left & Right mics favoring the front direction and the back mic picking up a wider angle for the back and more sides. That way I keep more of the room and crowd sound in the Back channel and the sound from the stage in the other three.  I’m not blocking out sound arriving from one horizontal direction to a mic without picking it up with another mic instead.  If I do just block out crowd sound to the rear for instance, it’s often still there, but just sounds muffled and less realistic to me, unless completely silenced, and even then the ambient room sound suffers.  Believe it or not, I often find audience noises more acceptable in my surround recordings than my stereo ones for that very reason
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 Gutbucket

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Octo-ear surround array
« Reply #111 on: April 21, 2011, 01:18:28 PM »
New configuration time-

Tetramic added to Quad-eye to form Octo-ear surround array!

I've been recording ambisonically with the Core Tetramic for the past year which I've posted about in a few other threads.  I primarily use it onstage or at stagelip for jazz performances, but I've also used it for outdoor festival recordings.  Since the details about how it works and the interesting approach to recording and processing it uses is covered in those other threads, I won't go into those details here, but will instead simply focus on the rigging.

Before Suwannee Springfest last month I added the Tetramic to the center of the quad-eye rig and fashioned a way to quickly and simply hang the entire pre-rigged small stand from a larger stand which I permanently staked at the main stage for the weekend, along with a couple chairs and a buried SBD feed.  I could then un-hook the fully-rigged small stand to move to a different stage or head back to camp anytime.

For this application, I eliminated the APE spheres and the techflex sleeving protecting the mic cabling along the telescopic antennas to the 4060 omnis.  Those features are most useful in managing things when I'm recording up-front in the crowd at Bear Creek.  Instead, I arranged the telescopic antennas to get a full 2 meter spacing on the Left/Right A-B omnis, with an 20" spacing on the Center/Back omni pair for a surround Decca tree-type arrangement and placed the Tetramic at the center of that diamond.

I recorded the Tetramic into channels 1-4 of the Tascam DR-680 with those channels ganged to keep their relative gains locked and plugged the buried SBD feed into channels 5-6.  The spaced omnis are powered by Niant PFAs and recorded to the Oade Mod R-44.  I run a SPDIF coax cable from the R-44 to the DR-680 so the 680 clocks to the R-44 and  all 10 channels are kept in sync.

Everything is pre-wired and ready to go.  All 8 channels of mic cabling from the small stand to the recorder bag runs through a thin tech-flexed snake. I can roll in, unpack and be recording in about 30 seconds flat.  All the parts are modular- the two A-B bars with telescopic arms, the Tetramic shock mount attachment and the top plate with hole to hook over the stud of the larger stand, all stack on an extension to the small stand’s mounting stud.  Any one of those can be removed or added as required and one of Ted’s umbrellas screws onto the same stud extension.

I didn’t take any photos at the festival, but here’s some photos I took of the setup after getting back home.  Not shown are the chairs and big stand, and the windscreens are off the omnis (3 x DPA 4060 for L/C/R and one Countryman B3 for the Back/surround channel).

Here’s a link to the full set of photos with descriptions on Flickr-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41278426@N07/sets/72157626421689065/







« Last Edit: April 21, 2011, 01:41:43 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 Jimna

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Lets see the mics too, please. :)
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Offline Gutbucket

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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 Gutbucket

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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 Gutbucket

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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 Gutbucket

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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 illconditioned

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^^^ :) if anyone asks, just say the aliens have landed!
Please DO NOT mail me with tech questions.  I will try to answer in the forums when I get a chance.  Thanks.

Sample recordings at: http://www.soundmann.com.

Offline darby

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is that your recording assistant?  ;D
« Last Edit: April 21, 2011, 01:58:07 PM by darby »

Offline Gutbucket

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Lets see the mics too, please. :)

Hi Jim, I posted some photos of the Tetramic without windscreen here.
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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