MicBud: Stereo Mic Array Modeling For Tapers

[auxren]

I made myself a tool to play around with mic configurations and understand what affects what.

https://taper-mounts.com

Give it a look. The field guide at the top can give you a detailed rundown of what is what.
It's got a selection of mics you can choose from. The mics are modeled from traced published specs.
There is a small selection of venues. The goal is to try to model various mic setups in venues and provide reference shows from archive that are taped in that venue with the same mics so you can hear a preview of what to expect.

Open to feedback!

[papabliss]

Nice. Can you add the KA300 to the MBHO section?

[voltronic]

Marking.

This is really interesting! Would it be possible to make this work for those of us who do purely acoustic recording? Maybe a toggle to set PA to 'none' and decrease the distance to stage to 0 m?

[auxren]

Marking.

This is really interesting! Would it be possible to make this work for those of us who do purely acoustic recording? Maybe a toggle to set PA to 'none' and decrease the distance to stage to 0 m?

Added!

Nice. Can you add the KA300 to the MBHO section?

Added!

[voltronic]

Marking.

This is really interesting! Would it be possible to make this work for those of us who do purely acoustic recording? Maybe a toggle to set PA to 'none' and decrease the distance to stage to 0 m?

Added!

Nice. Can you add the KA300 to the MBHO section?

Added!

Wow, incredible! Thanks!

OK, since you apparently can do this rather quickly, could you put in the large-diaphragm Gefells? (M 930/940/950/960)

[Thelonious]

Marking, this is cool!

[rocksuitcase]

Very cool.
I know you can;t do all mics. Several older, dynamic Beyers were used often in the GD days- Beyer M160, Beyer M201, Beyer M88
THANKS for thinking this one up and presenting it to us

[Gutbucket]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this.  I'll play around with it a bit, check the guide, and come back to discuss.  Forgive me if any of the following is covered in the guide, and if so feel free to simply let me know it is rather than waste your time on a more detailed reply.

A few preliminary questions:
In tailoring it to specific microphones do you import the published frequency response and polar diagram?  Any other data specific to the microphone? What happens for microphones lacking good published graphs? And how are differences in how those graphs are presented by various manufacturers handled?

Helpful to include specific microphones commonly used by concert tapers.  Many are already there.  And good to see the suggested additions being incorporated.

[VibrationOfLife]

Very cool.  Can you add a meter/foot toggle switch for us heathens?

[auxren]

 MicBud update — a big round of changes (https://taper-mounts.com)

  A lot of this came straight out of reading threads here, so thanks. Summary of what's new:

  New stereo techniques & physics
 

 
• DINa (17cm/90°) and Olsen (17cm/135°) presets added alongside ORTF/NOS/DIN.
• Baffled arrays: Jecklin/OSS disk, sphere (KFM-style), and SASS — plus a continuous "Baffle" control and a disk/sphere toggle. The baffle is modelled
    properly: omni in the bass (below ~c/πD) and directional up high, and a sphere also adds the around-the-baffle delay (dummy-head ITD).
• Recording-angle (SRA) solver: dial a target angle and it solves the splay, or hit "Match PA width." Fist-at-arm's-length ≈ 10° tip included.
• Room-aware advisor: nudges you toward DIN/DINa's narrow 90° in reverberant rooms and ORTF's wider angle in good rooms.
• "Hole in the middle" warnings for hypers at ~90° and omnis spaced past ~90cm, with 40–67cm guidance on the omni spacing.

  New mics
 

 
• Microtech Gefell M 930 / M 940 / M 950 / M 960 (M900-series LDCs)
• Beyerdynamic M 160, M 201, M 88
• (now 105 capsules across the brand list)

  Signal chain & placement
 

 
• Rig builder: pick a preamp/battery box (Aerco MP-2, Naiant IPA, Sonosax, Church, Lunatec...) and recorder/ADC (MixPre, Zoom F-series, Tascam
    DR-680/701D, Sony PCM-A10, SD 7-series...) and see the dominant noise source + headroom.
• Placement presets: stage-lip/boundary, head height, 8ft, 13ft — with floor-bounce and stand-stability notes.
• Low-cut/roll-off with a venue-suggested corner (~96Hz outdoor / ~107Hz indoor).
• Acoustic (no-PA) mode, quick venue-shape presets (club/theatre/arena/outdoor), and a stealth-friendly capsule filter.

  Quality-of-life
 

 
• Save/Load setups as a small .txt you can keep or share.
• Imperial/metric toggle.
• Fixed the manufacturer frequency/polar graphs not loading (now hosted locally).

[morst]

Holy ned, this is approximately mind-blowing.
I doubt it will affect my throw-and-go approach, but it sure is interesting!!


Great going putting this together, and thanks for sharing.

[auxren]

Some updates from the past few weeks:


 

 
  Physics accuracy pass
 

• Localization now uses the published Williams/Wittek/Sengpiel curves (the level-vs-time trade the SCHOEPS Image Assistant
    uses) instead of a linear approximation. Recording angles now line up with the accepted values — ORTF ≈ 98°, NOS ≈ 83°. Heads-up:
    some wide arrays (coincident cardioid XY, wide spaced) now correctly read "wider than ±90°," which is the real Sengpiel convention —
    if your recording-angle number changed, that's why.
• Baffled arrays got a proper model: the disk/sphere shadow is now frequency-dependent — omni in the bass (below ~200 Hz,
    matching Jecklin's measurement), directional up high — and a sphere (KFM) adds the around-the-baffle delay a flat disk doesn't. The
    Jecklin OSSv2 (36 cm / 35 cm disk) is calibrated to the published ~81° recording angle.
• Validated against the literature — directivity, diffuse-field coherence (Cook 1955), image-source reflections (Allen &
    Berkley 1979), and the localization model are all checked against the source papers.

 
  More real mic data
 

• 33 capsules now show their actual measured frequency response (up from ~9), traced from the manufacturer graphs —
    Schoeps, DPA, Austrian Audio, Gefell, Line Audio, MBHO and more. So the frequency plot shows a mic's real tone (presence lifts, the
    DPA free-field bump, etc.), not a generic flat line.

 
  Quality-of-life
 

• An About/contact panel (the "i" button, bottom-right) with a way to reach me directly with questions/suggestions, plus
    links to my tapes and a tip jar if it's been useful.
• Fixed a wavefront-viz bug someone here caught (thanks — the label was right, the drawing was tilted the wrong way).

 
  As always, feedback welcome — a lot of the best changes here started as posts in this section.