Thanks, Morst!
Any thoughts on using omnis?
Yes, apparently so:
The only times I've recorded with omnidirectional mics, would have been when I used those Radio Shack 33-1033 lavaliere mics, intended as a body-worn clip-on vocal mic, but adequate for recording of music.
Back then, I didn't realize that Omni mic recordings develop their stereo field almost exclusively from arrival time differences due to physical distance between the pair, or perhaps a baffle such as a human head.
I now know that wearing omnis to simulate binaural mounting leverages the brain's own perceptual head-related transfer function (HRTF)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_functionBut because I did not separate my mics very far, my recordings from that era don't have a lot of stereo going on, except to the degree that those inexpensive mics were not perfectly omnidirectional! Their "failure" salvages my relatively uninformed/experimental technique from back then.
(I actually had a dream to run them X/Y, clipped to a pencil eraser, with the pencil jabbed into the soil of a potted plant FoB DFC at Mississippi Nights.There was not actually a houseplant near the drink rail of the club when anyone was awake, but I did poke into the back center of the lawn at Riverport once. But I digress)The other thing I can add regarding polar patterns which CONTAIN omni is that my current favorite stage mics to combine with a board feed are the Neumann KM143, which feature a "sub-cardioid" pattern, sometimes known as wide cardioid, wide-angle cardioid, or hypo-cardioid.
This pattern is (presumably) the mathematical midpoint between omnidirectional and cardioid patterns.
Here is some detail about the so-called first order polar patterns which combine to make the other directional patterns out of the essential elements: omni, cardioid, and figure-of-8
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/using-microphone-polar-patterns-effectivelyBefore I got the KM143's I would use my KM140 cardioid pair on stage, and usually just ran them X/Y or ORTF on the center line, down low to both get under the stage monitors and to be less obtrusive and less likely to get knocked over!
Compared to the KM140's, the KM143's don't give as much of a stereo picture UNLESS they are separated in space.
When I got the 143's I had some chances to experiment with them, so here is a comparison if you would like to hear closely spaced sub card versus cardioid at the exact same set.
cardioid XY
https://archive.org/details/Steepwater2016-10-05.B-KM140"hipo-cardioide":
https://archive.org/details/Steepwater2016-10-05.B-KM143Once I started separating them farther apart, I learned the hard way that I had better at least try to get them to sound symmetrical, so they are easier to combine with the soundboard feed.
Now I try to keep their locations split similarly across the center line.I've been aiming them at the kick drum, since it's often dead center on the stage, but I think Gutbucket suggested aiming them at the snare, as that's the loudest impulse on the stage.
I do use snare as a sync signal on quiet parts by zooming in on stick clicks, so having it be equidistant from each mic in the pair will make sync more straightforward.
Neumann KM143 is a AK43 capsule on the KA100 "body" which they call a pre-amplifier.
https://en-de.neumann.com/km-143Here's a stereo recording made with a pair of the Realistic 33-1033 omni lavs.
No clue what track 13 is called if anyone can ID it!?
https://archive.org/details/ZanyMagpies1993-06-05/ZanyMagpies1993-06-05t13.flacsome lyrics: "sometimes i feel like my back's up against the wall..." "I got a shitload of blues"