Finally getting a chance to get back to this thread to find some very nice recordings and cool setups! Very encouraging!
I did some listening last night to catch up.. (Senn HD650 headphones)
@ Thelonious- Thanks for sharing that great write-up of your recent on-stage acoustic recordings with examples, and documenting it so nicely for the rest of us. Making those kinds of comparisons is so valuable in determining what works best and which way you want to go with it. I found myself liking both examples that you included links to for somewhat different reasons.. and desiring something which embodies the best qualities of both. The omnis alone sound very natural and easy to listen to which I very much like. I also enjoy the increased clarity and somewhat more direct sounding quality of the horns in that recording. Listening to the OMT4 recording I immediately notice the top quality of of the mics used. Nice smooth timbral balance. I can hear what you mention about the increased separation - loads of stereo width, distinct placement of sources and portrayal of enveloping ambience, which are all qualities I associate with the technique. I did find myself wanting the ambient / reverberant / room stereo qualities to have a bit more of the naturalness of the omnis, but that preference may be accentuated by my listening with headphones rather than speakers.
A few thoughts on possible improvements-
1) Curious if you tried the omnis + the center CMC641 @+/-45°, XY pair without the 22's. I assume you did, and would like to hear more of your thoughts on how that worked or didn't. My initial thought is that should improve on what I hear from the omnis alone. If you did and it didn't work, perhaps the omnis needed to be spaced more widely. Also curious if you tried including just a touch of the omnis in the otherwise straight OMT4 mix, or the other way around with just a touch of the 22's in a mix of the omnis and X/Y hypers? I suspect either of those may work better than a more equal-level combination of omnis and 22's since those two pairs were positioned rather close to each other by necessity which could cause some problems when mixing them together.
2) I suspect the omnis provided more direct clarity of the horns because when placed on the floor they essentially form an upward-facing hemispherical sensitivity pattern which more or less faces directly at the standing horn players. Options for increasing clarity and direct pickup of the horns in the OMT4 setup using more directional mics might be angling either the 22's or 41's more upward to get the standing horn players more on-axis. That entails a sort of balancing of the vertical angle between facing the drums and floor level sources with the mics angled lower, verses the and horns with the mics angled higher. Might angle both pairs upward by the same amount, or just one pair or the other, which can additionally helps by increasing the differentiation between the primary focus of each pair. One thing to be careful of in regard to the upward angling of mics is how that changes pickup of the drum kit. Increased upward angle is likely to make the cymbals louder/brighter. When on-stage the mics are close enough to the drums that a relatively small change in vertical angle can be significant.
3) In this situation I might angle the 22's more widely. Not because the OMT4 mix needs more imaging width (I don't think doing so would make the direct imaging content sound "wider"), but because that would make their contribution more similar to what omnis provide in terms of room / reverberant / ambient contribution. It shouldn't be problematic because the X/Y hypers are anchoring the center part of the image. Also, because the array is placed on-stage relatively close to the sources, angling that pair somewhat more widely will be generally less problematic than it can be when recording from farther away where it might increase pickup of audience and reflections of the side walls too much.
Hey Gut, thank you for all of the advice and the feedback. It really is super helpful.
I would start with a note on playback being critical on these recordings. Depending on my playback setup, I find the DPA only recording anywhere between very good and almost unlistenable. I pulled out my HD6XX (Massdrop/Senheiser colab that I believe is sonically very similar to the HD650) and the DPA sounded pretty good. However, I do find these headphones rolled off in the treble which makes them very forgiving of poor recordings. Great for general listening but I can't master with them. With my HD800S', or my ~1980 La Scala's (which have horns and are in a small/medium sized room) I find the treble almost unlistenable on the DPA recording. This is despite having rolled off between 3 and 4 DB above 8K DB to try to address the bump from the short grills and then further to make it less harsh to my ears. I would note that I did not have this issue with the treble glare on my previous recording, from the same venue, that I recorded "binauralish" (mounted on glasses at temples) and where I applied no EQ.
https://samply.app/p/Ga5WbtzNargjM4rqsvTD My theory is that my head was absorbing the reflections in that instance but, obviously, just a theory and it wasn't the same night. The difference in sound from playback matters a lot as the difference between the recordings to me comes down to the EQ primarily, with the 22/41 matrix sounding very polished and pleasant on my systems with high end extension and the DPAs sounding bright and harsh. This is also true of the horns where there is a bite, particularly with the trumpet, that the 22s tame well. I suspect this is partially due to frequency response of the mics and partly due to the trumpet being more off axis from the mic compared to the Omni. I suspect I could EQ the omnis more and get them closer to the profile I want, however, I'm still developing that skill and am also trying to align on a mastering headphone that I trust as "accurate" from which to make adjustments.
I did create a matrix with the Omnis as the base and bringing in the XY, similar to what I did with the 22s, but I found something that sounded "off" that I attributed to the open pattern of the omnis being too close to the XY but, in hindsight, it could have been due to the treble in the DPA recording.
I had also tried a matrix with all 3 (Omnis being primary and the 22s and 41s mixed in) but this sounded really off and, again, I assumed it was due to the lack of distance (in particular between the 22s and the omnis placed directly below them). I still had these on my hard drive so I've uploaded the same two songs from this matrix here
https://samply.app/p/D0BNOBkFIAZyHLlBlH0A . I could certainly try adding in a bit of the omnis to the 22/41 matrix but I will need to eq the omnis again as I find them uncomfortable to listen to.
I do think that ideal would have been to have omnis set up another 3 feet to each side (5' each side of centre) however, that wasn't feasible for this outing as there was a limitation of space among other factors.
I had set up the 41s so that they were aimed at the snare, as you had suggested. This plane also captured some bass and guitar, and it allowed me to bring both of these up. The saxophone player, also stood quite close to the centre and, given the sound projecting from the keys as well as the bell, I thought the overall timbre and mix of the sax was good. The trumpet was a challenge because Ed moves around the stage. I was thinking next time I could angle just the far right 22 up ~30degrees. I wouldn't want to do this on the left as it would be all cymbals, but on the right this would better align with the area the trumpet was most of the time. Do you think making an adjustment to one side of the pair like that would be okay in this context? The ideal would be to set up omnis (maybe 414s) at about 3' high on either side and 5' each side of centre that I could dial in as wanted after the fact but I would need to ensure I'm not taking up too much of the bands space on a small stage and it woudl require two more mic stands, which is not a small increase in gear/set up.
With respect to angling the 22s more widely, I already had them at +/-55 degrees and spaced 2'. This was done to ensure that nothing was completely outside of the 22 pair, thinking that would help with the image, without going too wide to increase the angle off axis of the mics (to which I attribute the roll off of the high end of the trumpet). Do you think there is an advantage to going wider than that? If I was going to make a change to the mic angles my instinct was to increase the angle of the right mic up by 25 degrees to better capture the area the trumpet was 90% of the time. That said, I'm open to trying a wider angle between the 22s if you think it would be helpful.
Focker - Thank you for the shows you have uploaded. I enjoyed the last recording (incredible sense of being in the room) and i have downloaded your monster Goose show to give it a listen. I'm learning a lot from the files you are sharing so thank you again!
