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Author Topic: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3  (Read 73873 times)

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Offline EmRR

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #225 on: February 19, 2021, 12:20:08 PM »
Yeah that sounds like a potentially great option for times lacking spaced flankers.  Will check that out, I've got a number of things I did with native B format and AB omni in which the W and the spaced are all the same omni type, should make for a tight comparison. 
Mics: DPA 4060 w/MPS 6030 PSU/DAD6001/DAD4099, Neumann KM 131, Oktava MK 012, Sennheiser MKH 105, MKH 20, MKH 30, MKH 40, MKH 800 TWIN
Recorders: Zoom F8n, Sony MZ-R50

jcable77

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #226 on: April 14, 2021, 12:30:28 PM »
GB, any positives or negatives on running maybe two split 10' M/S's, or M/S with split omni's on stage? Been thinking about trying these lately.

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #227 on: April 14, 2021, 04:12:04 PM »
M/S in the center + split omnis to either side has worked well on stage for me a bunch of times.  It's a quintessential 4-channel OMT setup as far as I'm concerned, working well both on stage and from the audience for me.

Somewhere I have a Charlie Hunter recording I made way back when using the TetraMic in the center between 4 split omnis.  It was the very first time I ran the TetraMic, so I retained the four omnis I had already planned on using.  I recorded them to separate recorders and remember playing around with both to compare, but never synced them up and only used the 4 omnis in the mixdown I provided to a video taper, then never went back to revisit possible combination of the two.  I should go back and dig that up.

Two split M/S pairs is an interesting approach I've not tried.  I have read of its use by someone for live classical recording - reportedly being particularly useful when there is a center isle that cannot be blocked with a centrally placed stand.  That's probably when I'd consider it instead of having something in the center.  As I recall, the mixing was described as panning the outermost channels from each pair hard Left/Right, with the inside channels from each pair being summed and panned center.  A split M/S pair using omni Mids is sort of a logical extension of a pair of split omnis alone, and should provide additional flexibility afterward.  I think how well it might work may hinge on how well the inner-facing channels sum, which is sort of a mono-compatibility question.   Might have to just give it a try and see.  If you are able to get a soundboard feed you will be better protected from potential "hole in the middle" if the summing of the inner-facing channels doesn't work out well.

I've only run twin M/S pairs once, but they were front and rear-facing MS pairs between spaced omnis, done on a whim one day at a fest by adding coincident 8's to the center front/rear facing directionals I already had in place. I don't think I ever got around to listening to the rear facing pair, recorded to a separate recorder.  I should dig that up too.  I went on to modify my regular setup by retaining the front facing M/S pair, yet went with a near-spaced rear-pacing pair.  However, I've recently been thinking about that again as a way of streamlining what I have aloft while retaining stereo rear-facing pickup of ambience/audience/room. 
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)

jcable77

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #228 on: April 14, 2021, 04:46:44 PM »
Thats kind of what I was thinking with the two m/s's, pan outers far left and right, while lightly panning the inner sides. With omni mid's, I feel like it could give a real nice wide stereo image that could be fun to play around with. The other option using 4022's as mid's, they seem to have, at least to my ears, almost a subcard off axis response. Not as directional as other cards Ive used. Going to give both a try soon and see what I come up with

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #229 on: April 14, 2021, 05:26:22 PM »
Please let me know how it goes.  I'd try various ways of panning the inner facing channels.  Both panned center is one obvious thing to try, but also try them panned part-way to their own side, as well as part-way to the opposite sides.  Also, depending on the arrangement of sources on stage, it might actually work best with some sort of asymmetric panning arrangement on those inward facing channels.
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 EmRR

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #230 on: April 14, 2021, 08:06:20 PM »
Don’t think I’ve tried 2 MS sets like this, I see a lot of potential problems but I can’t say they are real.  There’s likely a spot it works perfectly, finding it is a different story. 

I tend to to some variation of MS with AB omni most times. Should work well at edge of stage. 
Mics: DPA 4060 w/MPS 6030 PSU/DAD6001/DAD4099, Neumann KM 131, Oktava MK 012, Sennheiser MKH 105, MKH 20, MKH 30, MKH 40, MKH 800 TWIN
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #231 on: January 10, 2022, 02:51:32 PM »
Here's an oddball array that's right at home here at TS- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPWCXFbOFxU

Although I do something different for seated shows, I have in the past run four DPA 4060 this way (in an L,C,R,B arrangement) which worked well for standing shows from the sweet spot.  I didn't apply any ambisonic processing like they are doing here however, either mixing it down to L/R stereo or playing it back directly as multichannel L/C/R/S with the S channel mult'd to how ever many surround speakers there are, the more the better. [Edit- or the S channel is used in various ways in a 2-channel mix, as discussed in this thread in the past.. sometimes simply panned center, sometimes serving as Side channel along with the center channel as Mid, sometimes stereoized in other ways]
« Last Edit: March 22, 2022, 12:26:19 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 fireonshakedwnstreet

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #232 on: January 10, 2022, 03:55:18 PM »
Get that guy a hat  ;D
Mics: AT 3031; AT 853Rx (c, o); Samson C02; Studio Projects C4 (c, o, h); Nak 300/Tascam PE-125/JVC M510 (cp-1, cp-2, cp-3, JVC M510 superdirectional caps)
Recorders: Tascam DR-680 MkII; Tascam DR-70D
Pres: Edirol UA-5 (Oade PMod & WMod); Marantz PMD661 (OCM); Marantz PMD620 (Oade WMod); Naiant MidBox; Shure FP11 (x2)
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #233 on: March 21, 2022, 04:09:11 PM »
I ran the OMT8 rig for Dumpstaphunk outdoors in heavy wind a week ago at an outdoor amphitheater where I'd encountered wind issues in the past.  Great sounding place, but when it blows it really blows gusty at the soundboard positioned near the top of a gentle hill rise.  A few years back gusty wind there threatened to topple my high stand placed at the soundboard, and I ended up using a giant twisty-tie to stabilize the stand by tying it to the security fencing surrounding the board.  Stand stayed secure, but the mics were being blown all around  and the result was wind-noise and wind-phasing.  Nothing we can do about wind-phasing other than move the recording position closer to the source (which I planned to do) but I could try and better mitigate the wind-noise problem.  With this in mind, I set up the rig in the backyard earlier that day to see what I could do before heading out to the show, cranking up the gain with headphones on and playing around with the windscreens and high-pass filtering.

I realized the Shure A81WS (BAS / big ass shure) windscreens I've been using on the directional microphones in the rig have a weak point-  They are susceptible to wind blowing directly on the back of the windscreen.  I had been aware of this previously, yet never really analyzed it closely.  The vulnerability is two fold: One issue is sufficient tightness of the elastic seal around the microphone body; the other is wind-noise making its way through the black elastic foam circular collar itself.  To improve them, I slipped a Rycote fur cover intended for their baby ball gag over the center Mid/Side pair which share a single BAS, and used a faux-fur fabric remnant I had on hand to better protect the other four BAS in the rig, cutting that up into four equal sized squares which I used to cover just the back portion of the windscreen, the round black elastic part, securing the fur fabric snugly in-place using small binder-clips.   This improved wind-noise reduction significantly. 

With the furs in place, I then played around with high-pass-filtering on the recorder on these channels, with corner frequencies determined per pair by ear, listening for how much wind-noise still made its way in.  I ended up with a 120Hz HPF on both forward and rear-facing near-spaced DPA 4098 supercardioid pairs (those using fur only on the back of the windscreens).  For the center coincident pair in the full-coverage Rycote fur I implemented an 80Hz HPF on the 4098 Mid and a 40Hz filter on the Naiant fig-8 Side.  I did not use any HPF on the DPA 4061 omnis which are naturally more wind resistant due to being omnis.  The omnis provide bottom end extension for the array, and it was my hope that the high pas filtering implemented on the directional channels would not be audibly apparent except when those channels were isolated..  As hoped the full-range omnis did seem to transparently cover for the high-pass filtering on the directional channels, as I didn't notice the filtering at all in my causal listening afterward.  At some point I'll really listen for this more closely - it might even be that HPF on the directional channels works to advantage even without concern for wind-noise as long as the omnis are contributing everything needed below that.

I've previously had concerns about the acoustic effect of the rubber cup-disk on the back of the Movo windscreens which many tapers have shifted to from BAS, but that concern now seems less important in light of this design weakness of the BAS.  I now intend to try Movos in place of BAS.. or get back to work on the more-compact DIY basket screens I've had in mind for a while.  Until then, I know what to do when the wind picks up.

Edit- The windscreen mods in combination with moving forward of the soundboard and running at head-height (clear view to stage and PA retained due to the downward slant of the hill) eliminated all wind-noise that evening.  Still had some phasing due to wind blowing the sound around between PA and recording position, but far better than the last time.

Photos-
« Last Edit: March 21, 2022, 04:13:21 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 fireonshakedwnstreet

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #234 on: March 21, 2022, 10:07:35 PM »
Awesome brother. Thanks for all the helpful tips. I'll be throwing up 8 channels for TTB on Saturday if all goes to plan.
Mics: AT 3031; AT 853Rx (c, o); Samson C02; Studio Projects C4 (c, o, h); Nak 300/Tascam PE-125/JVC M510 (cp-1, cp-2, cp-3, JVC M510 superdirectional caps)
Recorders: Tascam DR-680 MkII; Tascam DR-70D
Pres: Edirol UA-5 (Oade PMod & WMod); Marantz PMD661 (OCM); Marantz PMD620 (Oade WMod); Naiant MidBox; Shure FP11 (x2)
https://archive.org/details/@fireonshakedwnstreet

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #235 on: March 22, 2022, 10:20:32 AM »
Right on! Let me know how it goes.

Last week for Greensky Blugrass I ran an OMT4 arrangement I like to use in indoor rooms which don't have great overall acoustics.  It consisted of two Microtech Gefell M210 supercards in PAS (inclusive angle of about 60 degrees total pointed at the outside edge of PA) spaced about 20-22" apart (a guess, need to double check that measurement), plus a center Mid/Side pair consisting of Gefell M94/296 cardioid Mid + Naiant X8S fig-8 Side, with all four mics running directly into an OCM R-44.

It was fun to get the MGs out again, partly because they are my reference cardioids and supercards and it's good to revisit using them on occasion instead of simply running the DPA based OMT8 rig all the time, originally worked up through use of the MGs.  I was immediately reminded how much more of a hassle it is to setup an array at the show in the traditional way - attaching mics and running cables from all four mics to recorder, rather than carrying in everything pre-rigged and ready to pop-up and roll.  Always good when I do though.

Good times taping with TS fellows Spyder 9 (local), along with Dalman and One Cylinder, both visiting from out of town.   The others ran high, extending above sight-lines of the soundboard and main floor.  Lacking long enough extensions to do the same, I ran a few feet over head-height from the floor, clamped to the angled handrail of a staircase blocked at the top by the soundboard, under the sight-lines of soundboard and folks on the main floor.  That's tricky but does get the mics out into the room a bit more. I used a folding light-stand foot attached upside down to the clamped extension as mic-bar, each leg of which I drilled and tapped long ago so that I could attach mic clips at the ends.  That places the mics in a triangular formation, and I generally use this right-side-up on the stage floor as a small triangular Decca Tree arrangement, but its a nice option to be able to flip it over for use aloft as a 3-way mic-bar when necessary.

Given the narrow PAS angle in combination with the center pair, I'd actually prefer more horizontal spacing between the PAS mics, and the center pair somewhat less far forward of the PAS pair. However as it is, I figure the somewhat greater front/back spacing may help compensate somewhat for the narrower than optimal horizontal spacing with regards to achieving a bit more decorrelation of the diffuse/reberberant content across the three microphone positions.  Seeing that the center pair position is about one foot forward of the PAS pair, I might try delaying the center pair by a millisecond and see if it makes any audible difference. Doing that should better align phase between channels with respect to correlated direct-arriving sound from the PA/Stage, while further decorrelating the diffuse/reverberate field stuff at tad.  However, listening back to playback on the R44 it seemed to work pretty well as is.

Photos-
« Last Edit: March 22, 2022, 10:50:44 AM 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 Gutbucket

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #236 on: March 22, 2022, 12:13:52 PM »
Background on the bit above, stating-
Given the narrow PAS angle in combination with the center pair, I'd actually prefer more horizontal spacing between the PAS mics, and the center pair somewhat less far forward of the PAS pair

See the attached Michael Williams MMAD plan (Multi-Microhone Array Design) for supercardioids in an L/C/R arrangement that achieves a Stereo Recording Angle (or PA angle in our case) of +/-30 degrees or 60 degrees total, which was the approximate PAS angle from the recording position.  I'm considering the Mid/Side center pair as just a single center channel in this regard.  The PDF actually shows a 5-supercardioids-across-the-front coverage type of array, but just ignore the two outermost segments and microphones.  It's the Front Triplet Coverage of +/- 30 degrees that is of interest here. 

Why the need to "back into" the array setup info in this way? The MMAD site was never fully completed.  It was never populated with 3 channel only arrays, or a number of other channel counts of interest.  However it does include data on 5 channel arrays in both front-coverage only and full surround variants.  Since all 5 channel arrays are built atop a left/center/right configuration to begin with, 3-channel configuration details can be pulled from any 5-channel configuration that provides the desired front triplet coverage.

Direct MMAD site link to the attached PDF is here: https://www.mmad.info/MAD/5Ch/5ch_FSSC/Super/Root/FTC30/Plan%2025.pdf
Here's one for cardioids instead of supercardioids for the same stereo recording angle, requiring even more spacing: https://www.mmad.info/MAD/5Ch/5ch_FSSC/Card/Root/FTC30/Plan%2025.pdf

Here's the entry page for drilling down into the entiure database of Williams multichannel arrays: https://www.mmad.info/MAD/Ch_n_cov.htm.  Be aware that currently the MMAD site seems slightly broken with respect to 5-channel supercardioid arrays, which all seem to default to a +/-70 degree orchestra angle regardless of what front coverage is actually chosen.  So just be careful and double-check the actual Front Triplet Coverage angle shown in the selection process pages, which is also printed in the top left corner of each PDF.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2022, 12:15:58 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 dactylus

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #237 on: March 22, 2022, 01:30:41 PM »

Nice to see the Gefell mics in action!!  I'd love to hear that recording!

 :cheers:

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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #238 on: March 22, 2022, 02:55:44 PM »
TS member One Cylinder, also recording at that show, contacted me afterward about Mid/Side and I've offered to get him my raw files from that evening to play around with.. and I'll be happy to make them available to anyone else here as well.  I still don't have either my stereo or editing computer operational currently, and have instead been simply listening direct out of the recorder over headphones or plugged into the car for the time being.  I can provide the raw untrimmed/untracked files via a G-Drive link if that works, but will need to transfer off the SD card and FLAC them first.

The one you both may want instead (or in addition) is Oteil and Friends playing a two-night run this past weekend.  On Friday night both One Cylinder and Dalman were there as well as Spyder9, and I ran the same Gefell OMT4 setup as shown above.  This was at an outdoor amphitheater with great acoustics, but was modified a year or so ago with the addition of a huge tulip/funnel-shaped roof/umbrella thing over its center, Nice to have the shade and rain protection, but the funnel shaped thing acts as parabolic reflector for audience and street noise.  I was very bummed when I recorded there back in December and it sounded nothing like previous recordings made there with the OMT8 rig.  So my thinking was I'd try this OMT4 arrangement I find beneficial in more reverberant rooms to see if that works better given the new amphitheater configuration.   Thankfully that seemed to work quite well, so the following night (Sat) I ran both the OMT8 DPA > F8 and OMT4 Gefell > R44 rigs simultaneously from the same stand.

I've never run both of these at the same time before, so it serves as a very useful point of comparison for me, but I also think it may be a good one to make available for folks following this thread who are interested in playing around with the files themselves to see what this is all about.  I'm preparing for a trade-show starting in a couple days so its likely to take me some time to get any of this stuff available, but if you guys are interested I'll make it happen.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2022, 03:44:14 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 Gutbucket

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Re: Oddball microphone technique (OMT) - part 3
« Reply #239 on: March 22, 2022, 03:05:51 PM »
Friday night Oteil & Friends, OMT4 Gefell rig only, on lowish stand placed directly behind soundguy  (same extention-rig used for Greensky, but with a second triangular foot the bottom instead of a clamp)-
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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