Topic: Open recording opportunity... but clueless what do do!

[Gutbucket]

Sorry it's taken me a while to respond, I've been out of town..

The baffle doesn't really need to be very strudy.  If you're placing the recorder on the floor or a table, the baffle just sits on top of it.  I though about attaching it to a base plate so the recorder slips in a little slot at the base of the baffle and the baffle is more secure from being knocked or blowing over. I made the cardboard one in the form of a wedge for a couple reasons: 1) it allows you to view the display from behind or above while using a large enough baffle to be effective, where a true Jecklin-disk would cover the display. 2) The internal capsules are oriented 120 degrees apart and the angle of the wedge approximates this angle. 3) a Jecklin-disk needs a sound absorbant surface to eliminate reflections of the disk's surface which could cause comb filtering.  By placing the baffle surface in the same plane as the capsule diaphram (like a boundry mic), multiple paths to the capsule should be eliminated which takes care of the potential comb filtering problem with out the need for a thick absorbant surface.  Actually, to take advantage of the boundry effect, the baffle sould be hard and reflective (like the technique of using a pair of PZM mics near the leading edge of two hinged pieces plexiglass).  I'm not really trying to use the boundry effect here, but not having to put absorbant or fuzzy material on the baffle faces allows them to be pushed outwards as much as possible, which with the capsules spaced so close together to begin with, allows a little more room for viewing the display.  The styrafoam disk would probably work fine, but you couldn't monitor levels or view the display.

I love the 4060's, and use them all the time now, which is why I haven't used the internals much.

[Gutbucket]

The question, presumably, is how big a disk to use given that the internal mics are set pretty close.

Seems I neglected your actual question... Optimal size? I don't really know, Moke's 6" mini J-disk (or is it a J-Square?  ) reportedly to works well with his 4060's.  That's also about the size of my cardbard wedge.  As the baffle gets larger, the frequency where the increased directionality provided by the baffle starts to take effect becomes lower.  IMO, the effect is most important at higher frequencies and becomes somewhat less imortant as the freqency drops, so a larger baffle may technically be better, but perhaps not significantly so in this case.

[kd5fyx]

whoa, i was editing this and saw the thread started Oct 5.  maybe Diva will let us know how it went.  I'll post this anyway because it is fall recital season and any taper could get asked to tape a recital by a friend or foe.

I attended a Senior recital for a Mezzo Soprano/flutist just a few days ago.  The hall seated about 100 and should have been a great room.  NO parallel walls, grid ceiling, carpeted floor.  However it was still too live.  There was a guy recording the recital with about three grand worth of AKG LD mics.and a KORG digital console? I hope he is able to get a good mix but I doubt it.  The problem for him was the piano! I checked the brand and model after the recital and I already forgot.  This was a full concert grand and even though the accompianist was gentle the piano sound was BIG!!!.  I understood every syllable and phrase the singer uttered but then the human mind is a miraculous filter.  I realized from the opening bars that since the vocalist was standing right by the piano and the mics were all equidistant from both the instument and the vocal that it would be nearly impossible to make the singer sound front and center on the tape.  My feelings?  If I ever record one of these I will set the mics close to the singer and do my best to get the singer to stand in front of the piano by a couple of feet, to the side a couple of feet or SOMETHING.  Believe me, in that venue you could have had the mics under the seats on the back row and the piano would have sounded ten feet wide.  Giant piano, normal to moderate voice is a challenge.  The situation would tempt you to close mic the piano and the vocalist separately; but that can become a nightmare on the mix.  Unless you have hours (days) or lots of experience micing pianos, especialy grands you can end up with crap.  If your recital hall is like this just do everything you can to have the mics much closer to the voice than the instrument.  Not super close or you will have wacky imaging with every head movement of the vocalist.  But believe me a real Concert Grand in a small hall will dominate all but the biggest voice and sometimes even a big voice will be singing softly.

Have fun.

Jeff