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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: dueling on March 26, 2020, 01:14:41 PM
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Found another thread with a similar subject, but didn't quite answer my questions. I am running 2 channel MK4v's > Nbobs > PFA (XLR) > MixPre 3 II
Is there a use for the third XLR input that i might be able to include, that might enhance my recordings? If so, what kind of capsule might compliment the 4v's and how would that work in post? Or is this just not possible?
If there is a thread on this already, here or in the mics section, please link and I'll check that out. Thanks!
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Found another thread with a similar subject, but didn't quite answer my questions. I am running 2 channel MK4v's > Nbobs > PFA (XLR) > MixPre 3 II
Is there a use for the third XLR input that i might be able to include, that might enhance my recordings? If so, what kind of capsule might compliment the 4v's and how would that work in post? Or is this just not possible?
If there is a thread on this already, here or in the mics section, please link and I'll check that out. Thanks!
Not sure if this is the thread you already saw Graham.
https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=191579.0 (https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=191579.0)
But you could run the 4v's spaced with a center omni cap or the 4v's DIN with a center hyper cap. You can have the center mic mono in post, with the 4v's L/R and pan them left and right to taste.
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Found another thread with a similar subject, but didn't quite answer my questions. I am running 2 channel MK4v's > Nbobs > PFA (XLR) > MixPre 3 II
Is there a use for the third XLR input that i might be able to include, that might enhance my recordings? If so, what kind of capsule might compliment the 4v's and how would that work in post? Or is this just not possible?
If there is a thread on this already, here or in the mics section, please link and I'll check that out. Thanks!
Not sure if this is the thread you already saw Graham.
https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=191579.0 (https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=191579.0)
But you could run the 4v's spaced with a center omni cap or the 4v's DIN with a center hyper cap. You can have the center mic mono in post, with the 4v's L/R and pan them left and right to taste.
Hey Brandon, yes that is the thread I was going through but it got a bit too technical for me. I was looking for exactly what you just told me about the omni or hyper options in the middle. Sounds pretty cool, just not sure if it will add enough to be worth the effort? Will it fill in and enhance my recording if I can dial it in, in post? Or don't bother? Thanks for the help!
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Sounds pretty cool, just not sure if it will add enough to be worth the effort? Will it fill in and enhance my recording if I can dial it in, in post?
If you don't run it once, you'll never have a chance to find out what happens in post! You can always decide in post that it's a useless waste of hard drive space, and that the time and hassle required to mount, cable, and capture it were not to your liking. But if you never even try? Sounds like a noble experiment if you have the gear available.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
IMO, why not try it? Do you already own the cap/kcy cable? if so, do it just because you can.
IF not, I would try to borrow one to run once and see.
Those Mix-Pre's sure are small and powerful!
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When runnning a "mic in the middle" arrangement to supplement an near coincident pair I like to use a pattern that's more directional than my pair to give it more forward presence.
In your case with 4Vs I would put a hypercard in the center facing directly forward. You don't have to mix it in later if you don't like it and you might like what it does.
I ran a center omni a few times and ended up not liking what it added to my recordings.
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My first suggestion would be to run a SBD feed into the third channel. Lacking SBD access, give a three microphone array a try. Its fun! Here are some guidelines for doing that:
1) You can use three mics that all have the same pickup pattern, or two mics with the same pattern and a third with a different pattern. The Left/Right pair should always both have the same pattern.
2) The third mic should be placed in the middle and can be faced forward towards the stage, or backwards away from the stage. Both options can make for a useful addition.
3) Most tapers will feel more comfortable with a forward facing center mic ;) In regards to that:
a) In very basic terms, think of a three mic stereo setup which uses identical microphones as being two adjacent stereo pairs that share the center microphone. This is overly simplistic but conceptually makes for a good start with regards to the following..
a) If using 3 mics of the same pattern, space or angle the Left/Right pair twice as far apart as you would when using them as a single pair on its own.
b) You can use a combination of additional angle plus additional spacing to reduce the twice as much requirement somewhat. If you can't (or don't dare to) space or angle twice as much, definitely use a combination of both.
A good general start for three forward facing mics is a pair of L/R cardioids or supercards spaced about 2' apart and angled +/-45 degrees and the center microphone facing directly ahead at 0 degrees.
Or if you like spaced omnis, try spacing them up to twice as wide as you normally would (say 4-6 feet) and placing a third mic in the center, which can be any pattern. This also works really well with mono SBD into the 3rd channel.
4) A backwards facing center mic can make sense when you are in a good sounding room, are FOB in the middle of the audience or outdoors [edit- also useful when running an L/R pair in PAS without much spacing between mics]. In that case you needn't space or angle the L/R pair more than you normally would, but can add a little more spacing if you want to. This adds a visceral sense of depth, room dimension, and audience involvement.
5) Mixing it: In all these scenarios, first level balance the Left and Right mic channels on their own. Then bring up the 3rd channel, panned to center (or duplicated to two linked channels panned hard Left/Right) and adjust its level by ear. You gain lots of powerful mixing options with this- You can adjust for off-centeredness which cannot be corrected by Left/Right balance alone by panning the 3rd channel somewhat off center. You can EQ the center differently from Left/Right (this is very powerful). You may find that you can make a mix that works a few ways and choose between them: all three mics at about the same level, L/R with much higher level + just enough center channel, or mostly center channel with just enough L/R to achieve sufficient stereo width. With a rear-facing 3rd channel I find I often use just a touch such that its barely heard, but when that channel is muted you immediately miss it as things go flat.
6) Have fun with it. It's perfectly fine if you conclude you are happiest using just two microphones!
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With a rear-facing 3rd channel I find I often use just a touch such that its barely heard, but when that channel is muted you immediately miss it as things go flat.
Ever tried inverting absolute polarity on the rear-facing mic? Seems like that would be helpful. If it's going to point the other direction, should it not make signal in reverse as well?
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Using a spare channel to record the noisy surroundings to use inverted in post to cancel out and eliminate or reduce the unwanted sounds are one of those sweet tricks when you doing dialog for film or field recordings.
Works like a charm.
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Hey dueling, my apologies in advance as this is about to get technical, but you needn't worry about following it. I tried best I can to layout suggestions for productive use of the third channel above in non-technical language in the hope that it's easily understandable and useful for you.
Ever tried inverting absolute polarity on the rear-facing mic? Seems like that would be helpful. If it's going to point the other direction, should it not make signal in reverse as well?
Not normally, but good to try it to see what works out best each time. Think about it this way: A cardioid has no reverse polarity rear-lobe. Its output signal will have the same polarity as another closely-positioned cardioid regardless of which direction they are pointed. If you invert polarity on one of them and mix it with the others what you are most likely to perceive is a reduction in low frequency content, because that will be the part of the spectrum which is essentially similar in all the relatively closely-spaced microphones. Generally we'd not want that, but in some cases that low-frequency cancellation may work as sort of an alternate form of EQ.
The more technical answer: An inverted polarity signal will destructively interfere with the non-inverted polarity signals where there is strong phase-correlation between them. Similar to spaced omnis, the signals of cardioids facing in opposite directions will be more correlated at low frequencies than high frequencies. In the more-correlated low frequency range the signals destructively interfere equating to a reduction in level, yet at higher frequencies there is no "canceling out" because the signals are not highly correlated in that range. You effectively end up adding high frequency content arriving from that direction to the mix while reducing overall low frequency pickup.
More: Inverting polarity on a figure-8 "flips" it in the opposite direction with regards to polarity, yet it is still equally sensitive in both directions. A cardioid is the combination of 1/2 omni + 1/2 figure-8 components (equal levels of both). The positive polarity lobe of the fig-8 and omni sum to produce twice the sensitivity to sound arriving from that direction, while the negative polarity lobe of the fig-8 and omni cancel each other out to form the cardioid null facing the opposite direction. If you could invert polarity on just the figure-8 component and not the omni component, you'd point the cardioid pattern in the opposite direction. But with a standard cardioid microphone the two components are not separable. When you invert polarity of the microphone you invert the polarity of both the fig-8 and omni components at the same time. Because of that you end up with a cardioid pattern facing the same direction as before, only with an inverted polarity output.
Using a spare channel to record the noisy surroundings to use inverted in post to cancel out and eliminate or reduce the unwanted sounds are one of those sweet tricks when you doing dialog for film or field recordings.
Works like a charm.
This technique has the best chance of working using microphones that are well-matched in phase and placed coincidently facing the opposite direction. One then needs to carefully adjust levels in search of the greatest degree of destructive interference. Will likely help to lowpass or EQ cut most of the higher frequencies from the rear-facing capsule to avoid picking up additional noise in that non-correlated frequency range which will not cancel out. It is a technique used in some shotgun microphones with "active rear and side noise rejection" such as the Sanken CSR-2 and Schoeps SuperCMIT, where the manufacturers have very carefully arranged the capsules and carefully tailored their response such that the internal mix of them achieves reduced sensitivity off-axis, mostly in the lower frequency range.
I've not tried to do this with the rear facing microphone and doubt it would be effective for reducing audience chatter behind the recording position which mostly consists of mid and higher frequency content, but if you give it a try let us know how it works out.
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This is awesome, thanks for all of the info! I'm thinking a hyper in the middle facing the stage.. at least to test out.
Appreciate all of the feedback!
Graham
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This is awesome, thanks for all of the info! I'm thinking a hyper in the middle facing the stage.. at least to test out.
Appreciate all of the feedback!
Graham
Tell Pat you need to borrow one of his newly acquired 41v's!
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I tried to keep my answer as simple as possible since you mentioned specifically that some of the previous discussion here about this topic was overly technical and didn't answer your question.
The bottom line is that if you have the capability you should try new things to find out what works best for you. Mixing "in the box" nowadays like we do it is simple to undo things that aren't what you are looking for. Variables present themselves often in our hobby and each band sounds different plus each room sounds different even the same room on different nights sounds different. Are you indoors or outdoors? Mics on stage or in the audience at a distance?
Try some different techniques in different situations and you will find for yourself what works for your setup and your ears.
Happy Taping! I'm going into withdrawals from cancelled shows....
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This is awesome, thanks for all of the info! I'm thinking a hyper in the middle facing the stage.. at least to test out.
Appreciate all of the feedback!
Graham
Tell Pat you need to borrow one of his newly acquired 41v's!
He doesn't even have them yet and I just text him to borrow one. Lol
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Will likely help to lowpass or EQ cut most of the higher frequencies from the rear-facing capsule to avoid picking up additional noise in that non-correlated frequency range which will not cancel out.
This can be done in post! I call for a new age of experimentation! #IAmNotBored
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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This is awesome, thanks for all of the info! I'm thinking a hyper in the middle facing the stage.. at least to test out.
Appreciate all of the feedback!
Graham
Tell Pat you need to borrow one of his newly acquired 41v's!
He doesn't even have them yet and I just text him to borrow one. Lol
I will just ship them right too you before I take them out of the box on Monday :)
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Will likely help to lowpass or EQ cut most of the higher frequencies from the rear-facing capsule to avoid picking up additional noise in that non-correlated frequency range which will not cancel out.
This can be done in post! I call for a new age of experimentation! #IAmNotBored
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's definitely a special situation thing.. cool if you can get it to work. Might try it if there is a generator or some other similar noise source directly behind you at an outdoor festival, or maybe a bad back wall reflection inside.
I often EQ the rear-facing channel(s), but since in my case it/they are intended to provide extra dimension and space (rather than attempting rejection) I don't want to cut all that mid/high frequency stuff. I just want it to sound natural and complement the main sound arriving from the front without conflict, with EQ and level set to taste. When I use the same rear facing channel(s) for direct surround playback rather than a 2ch stereo mix, it can help to EQ so that I can raise the surround levels more without the front image being pulled around into the rear. That takes the "EQ to make it natural sounding" thing a step further by cutting presence range somewhat more, typically ending up with something like a loudness curve.