Topic: Holophone!

[Md2545]

I have a buddy that works at Panisonic and he told me earlier today a customer of his might give me this mic to try out. Check this thing out it looks awesome!


http://www.holophone.com/home.html#

[Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)]

I have a buddy that works at Panisonic and he told me earlier today a customer of his might give me this mic to try out. Check this thing out it looks awesome!


http://www.holophone.com/home.html#

That should be a lot of fun to play with.

The Holophone uses fixed arrangements of standard microphones in a truncated football-like mount to do 5.1 and other surround sound formats.

In my opinion, pretty much anything you can do with a Holophone, you can do better with an ambisonic mic like our TetraMic or one of SoundField's mic, but with much, much more flexibility.  The ambisonic mics are potentially much less expensive too.  Using them takes a bit of education though -- they're not like standard mics.

[DSatz]

Like Len, I have a commercial relationship with a competitor, so my comments should be taken with that in mind.

Regarding the Holophone system, it is a very cool looking setup and the price is not too steep. But the localization in the examples that I heard at the New York AES was extremely vague. The spaciousness (or spaciness) was considerable, and they were definitely bright and airy sounding, so it was fun to listen to the recordings; they just didn't have much realism or "you are there" feeling, in my opinion.

I think that a surround recording should have the virtues of a good stereo recording PLUS extra goodies; these recordings weren't good stereo to start with, so the space stuff seemed like, I dunno, applying inappropriate cosmetics to a farm animal of some kind.

--best regards

[illconditioned]

Like Len, I have a commercial relationship with a competitor, so my comments should be taken with that in mind.

Regarding the Holophone system, it is a very cool looking setup and the price is not too steep. But the localization in the examples that I heard at the New York AES was extremely vague. The spaciousness (or spaciness) was considerable, and they were definitely bright and airy sounding, so it was fun to listen to the recordings; they just didn't have much realism or "you are there" feeling, in my opinion.

I think that a surround recording should have the virtues of a good stereo recording PLUS extra goodies; these recordings weren't good stereo to start with, so the space stuff seemed like, I dunno, applying inappropriate cosmetics to a farm animal of some kind.

--best regards

One thing that makes these mics attractive is that they're built with omni elements.  I'd like to listen to some Soundfield recordings, but I think you'll need *very* good capsules to make ambisonic mics sound as nice as omni recordings.

I'm really liking my hat recordings (using Countryman B3 now).  As Sonicstudios suggests, I'm wearing the mics on my hat, over the temples.  This gives a pretty pleasing image, both for headphones and speakers.  Oh yeah, if I can't keep still, I put my hat on the Sennheiser MKE2002 "blue head".

  Richard

[Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)]

One thing that makes these mics attractive is that they're built with omni elements.  I'd like to listen to some Soundfield recordings, but I think you'll need *very* good capsules to make ambisonic mics sound as nice as omni recordings.

A properly calibrated ambisonic mic is a truly excellent omni mic, and can be among the best Blumlein arrays (crossed figure-8 mics) available.

I'd urge you to listen to some of the recordings done with TetraMic that you can download from Ambisonia.com .  There's a Orfeo String Quartet recording there that was done by John Leonard ("soundman john") that's simply fabulous.

[Gutbucket]

I was really intrigued when I first came across the Holophone a few years back, especially since it seemed a simple multi-channel extension of stereo head worn omnis that is a popular technique around here. But I was rather disappointed with music samples on the demo disc they sent me and was left with the impression that the device was better suited to ambient surround capture for film or video than for music recording.  I have not heard the newer, tiny camera mounted version they've introduced but have a hard time imagining that there is enough spacing between the capsules to work even as well as the full sized version.

As for the difference in surround techniques using spaced or baffled omnis vs. a coincident array such as a tetrahedral ambisonic design, they seem to me to be different animals entirely, with trade-offs similar to those we all are familiar with from experience with directional coincident stereo mic'ing vs. spaced/baffled omni stereo mic'ing.

I too favor the qualities of the 'omni' sound and have extended my stereo techniques to 4 channel surround using baffles and spacing in two dimensions. Those techniques seem to excel in reproducing the spatiality of the low end and the openness of the room across a large playback area.  But then I'm also a huge fan of Blumlein where applicable and the idea of near perfect synthesized crossed fig-8's with easy post adjustability is really intriguing.  Yet the fact remains that although a perfect ambisonic system can derive any angle and pattern, it can never derive mic spacing.  Pigs vs chickens, regardless of the caliber of the hairdresser.

[Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)]

Yet the fact remains that although a perfect ambisonic system can derive any angle and pattern, it can never derive mic spacing.  Pigs vs chickens, regardless of the caliber of the hairdresser.

It's simple enough to do spaced techniques with ambisonic mics: use two (or more) of them.

[Javier Cinakowski]

a pair of ambisoncs is not quite something I call "simple," in the field anyway.  Who has an 8 channel preamp/recorder?

While a pair of ambisonics would be totallay badasss, there isnt a Edirol R8 out yet!

[Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)]

But there is a 788.  And a Cantar!  And a Deva!

[Gutbucket]

I have thought about that possibility and you are correct in that it certainly could not be considered simple!  Yet there would still be no way to 'adjust' mic spacing in post with any imagined multiple ambisonic rig.  So you wouldn't gain the same degree of flexibility in spacing that you do with mic pattern and angle.  Doubling the channels is more like the equivalent of going from mono to stereo but in this case from 4 to 8 tracks.

If someone were to try doing that as inexpensively as possible, 2 of Len's Tetras plugged into two linked R-44s might do it.

[Stagger]