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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: marsev on August 16, 2009, 02:56:44 AM
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I'm a current/ex single-point mic (cheapie) user.
I am thinking of getting CA-11's. I would prefer to clip them a couple inches apart, right on the neck of my shirt (under my chin).
Can I get away with that?
I'm reading something about "phasing" problems, or the need for a "baffle" between the mics. Is this true?
I am not looking for pro-quality wide stereo image, I just want some good personal recordings.
I clip the mics there so it's out of sight/out of mind, and I can enjoy the show. Stealthy too.
Clipping, say, on my shoulders would not be useful to me.
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The x/y stereo pattern calls for the capsules to be right next to each other, so to specifically answer your question there is no 'too close together'
If you'd like some pointers, the PM system is the way to go. Keep stealth stealth.
You could also google hrtf for a good solution to your question.
JAson
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"One-point stereo microphones" with coincident cardioids were introduced around 1970 and were originally designed for use with cassette recorders. Most had response peaks to emphasize spoken consonants and a very wide arc of pickup (e.g. 180 degrees with each cardioid's axis aimed 45 degrees away from center).
The improvement over mono recording is huge when you're trying to transcribe conferences or meetings, as people interrupt each other and have side conversations. With stereo headphones, a little patience and maybe something to filter out the low frequency room rumble, you can recover an amazing amount of whatever was said even if the microphone position was less than ideal.
That application established this type of microphone in the marketplace. And when portable consumer video cameras were introduced some years later, and stereo sound was added as a high-end feature, one-point stereo microphones were the obvious choice there, too. But they really only worked in small rooms. If you tried to record little Jimmy's school play from the middle of the auditorium, the result would be swamped with room sound because the distance was too great and the pickup arc far too wide.
Unfortunately that problem applies to like us as well. In stereo music recording from an audience position, your usual microphone location is often as far from the sound sources as the farthest left and farthest right sound sources are from each other--like an equilateral triangle or an even narrower wedge. And coincident cardioids can't differentiate that finely because a cardioid pattern is a rather blunt instrument. So to use cardioids for distant or semi-distant stereo music pickup, some degree of spacing is really necessary. Otherwise you tend to get recordings with too much correlation between channels--too much like mono, especially at low frequencies.
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thanks for the replies.
I just wanted to make sure recording with the 2 stero mics "close together" wasn't going to create some supernatural problem.
I can deal with having a basically "mono" recording come out of this placement.
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I just wanted to make sure recording with the 2 stero mics "close together" wasn't going to create some supernatural problem.
I can deal with having a basically "mono" recording come out of this placement.
There's nothing wrong with the setup you described. You may not get the best stereo image possible due to the mics being close together and facing forward essentially, but since most PA systems pump out mono source anyway it probably won't be that big a deal. You can still get a nice tape with that sort of configuration. Good luck st***thing!