Topic: In-ear mics

[Ozpeter]

"In ear mics - don't you mean binaural mics?"   Well, I'm trying to avoid the 'b' word as it immediately makes people think we're talking headphone only playback, and in my view you can get perfectly good results playing back recordings from in-ear mics using normal speakers - though best results tend to be obtained if you sit closer to the speakers than usual so they are at a wider angle to your head.

I've been trying out some Roland in-ears, which incorporate earphones for monitoring / playback, and I'm very impressed with the results, not only in terms of stereo image but also their frequency response and low noise.

A few days ago I got the chance to use these in-ears in a room with four guys who were having a bit of a jam on trombone, bass, keyboard and drums.  The room was about 18 feet in each direction, carpeted.   Trombone was unamplified, bass guitar and keyboards of course were, but they were only set at practice levels (in a residential area!).  None the less I had to use a level of about 3 (out of 30 on the scale).  I stood at a point in the room which was convenient to the players and where I could obtain a reasonable panoramic spread of the instruments.   I recorded with an SX750 and an M10 - this  example comes from the former.

I very much like the idea of getting a good recording without having to rely on a small recorder's built in mics, and without having to conspicuously hold a mic in my hand or deploy a mic stand.  "I am a microphone..."

I'm hoping to find the opportunity to record a public performance this way before long, and also something more classical / acoustic.  Anyone else got some links to some good samples recorded this way?

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/9/22/1451533/Excerpt.mp3

[dyneq]

Beck has recently produced a performance using binaural:

http://www.legacyefx.com/blog/beck-binaural-head/

I have read (and tend to agree after listening to both kinds of recordings) that placing the mics further forward on your head (temple area) tends to have a more natural sounding speaker playback. However, I've never done an ABX test. I don't own any in-ear mics, but it would be interesting to record the same thing using both techniques on the same head for a comp. Here's a recording I made with mics at my temples:

http://archive.org/details/matisyahu2012-10-15.dsm-6

It makes sense that when you involve the pinnae, over-the-ear headphones are going to be the best way to replicate the experience.

[Ozpeter]

Interesting links - I haven't yet played the Beck recording due to the stated download times, but I will later.   I hadn't come across the headworn-not-in-ears mics before, and I can see the logic of that approach when replayed with headphones - the sound is arriving at the ear from about the place where it was recorded.  In the case of the Roland mics, if you replay using the earphones built in, again, the sound is being replayed from very close to the location where it was recorded.  You could argue that using headphones as opposed to earphone to replay in-ear recordings wouldn't be so accurate as the sound is passing the outer ear structure twice.  Having said that, here at least when sitting close to loudspeakers (which are of course nowhere near where the sound was recorded), the playback of both your recording and mine works just fine in providing a good stereo image.

I must find a good acoustic test source, as recording amplified music is a bit of a compromise at best - the biggest influence on the result is the quality of the amplification.  Hopefully one of my associates will sneak me into an orchestral rehearsal - though sitting in front of an orchestra while appearing to be listening to something else on an iPod would give the impression of insulting them!