Report from Pinewood Studios
Soundhaspriority
series of collaborative recordings. He knows thousands of songs, literally
the entire American folk genre, and sings while playing a steel string
guitar. Jenn suggested that a very live room would compliment the guitar.
Recently, with the assistance of a talented amateur stand-in, I performed
some test recording of in such a room, using techniques freely inspired by
JA.
This room is about 60x35', with a symmetrical peak that rises, unobstructed,
to about 35', parallel to the short wall. The ceiling has about 30% coverage
with acoustic absorbers, yet the room is incredibly live. Snapping a glasses
case closed is a major acoustic event. My first step, before trucking in the
equipment, was to ape JA, by walking around the room clapping my hands. I'm
not sure what I was supposed to hear, but the sound of my claps faded as
even white noise over about second. There was no apparent variation in any
of the central locations, and there wasn't a trace of slap-echo. I naively
theorized this would bode well, but, in the style of a magazine article, I'm
supposed to leave you on the edge of your seat :)
In concert with JA's thoughts on the matter, I felt that multiple recording
techniques, which could be time-aligned in post, would at the very least
provide the most thorough investigation of the characteristics of the space.
But after wearing out my hands, I scrapped the notion of outrigger omnis.
The sound was good in the center, and there I would stay. There remained
three coincident techniques:
1. Very close to the guitar. This was implemented in the form of two MXL
2003 large diaphragm mikes, modified by me to improve low frequency
response, on a stereo bar, about 18" from the instrument, in "ORTF". While
the conventional approach to close miking a guitar usually involves two
different types of mikes functionally applied to the different registers of
the instrument, there was the opportunity to see whether a coherent stereo
image results at this short distance.
2. A Blumlein pair, ie., crossed figure-8 capsules, in the form of a Studio
Projects LSD-2, which is seemingly inspired by the Neumann USM-69. Such a
microphone has symmetrical front-back response. It was placed at four feet,
angled down, so that the unwanted back lobes would see a large, empty space
which my eye judged to have no ray-trace reflective paths to the source of
sound.
3. At 9 feet, a Schneider disk, which is a variant of the Jecklin used by
JA. The disk was populated with two matched Audix TR-40 1/4" omni mikes.
Inspired by Earthworks, they are almost as quiet as a typical small
diaphragm condenser.
At about 20 feet distant, I set my table with two Sound Devices 744T four
channel hard disk recorders, connected by a synchronizing cable in
master-slave relationship. The close mikes and the Blumlein went straight
into the recorders. A Sound Devices 302 mixer was used as the preamp for the
Schneider disk.
As I monitored, I became aware of the distinctly different virtues of these
diverse approaches, and began to contrive preliminary notions as to how they
should be combined.
The close mike spread the instrument across the sound stage, with incredible
detail. Do you like to hear the punka-punka-punka coming out of the hole,
and the scritch-twang-ping-ping-twang-ping, harmonics ascending to infinity?
Or would you like your guitar to be of more realistic proportions, as
provided by the Blumlein pair, but without the microscopic animism of the
MXLs ? Perhaps more of a bud than a bloom, just a tad sterile.
I was personally entranced by the Schneider disk. Through headphones, at
least, I experienced the full conception of bloom, so frequently promised,
so frequently unfulfilled. The guitar was of very reasonable angular extent,
yet, owing to the extreme liveness of the room, filled the space between my
ears with sound and pleasure. There was just one problem: air molecules.
This room may actually be some kind of strange Egyptian pyramidal amplifier.
Even though the room was quiet, and the HVAC was inactive, the slight
intrusion of outside noise creates a kind of room tone I have not heard
before. Room tone is usually a kind of faint hum, created as the room acts
as a kind of Helmholtz resonator. In this case, the room tone was actually a
good approximation of pink noise; a hiss, canted ever so slightly toward the
lower frequencies. Ever hear a Dolby test tone? You got it.
Normally, one would not think of putting a Schneider or Jecklin disk within
nine feet of the source. But the acoustics of this strange space have their
own dimensional scale. Perhaps it should go even closer.
So, how do you like your guitar? The question is the hidden purpose of this
post. Given that all recording virtues cannot be simultaneously present to
optimal degree, what are your personal preferences? Your opinions will
significantly influence how we hear a noted folk singer. Your thoughts,
please?
If you've read this far, you deserve to know why I call the room Pinewood
Studios. It's really simple. The room is made out of pine.
Bob Morein
Dresher, PA
(215) 646-4894
Ruud Broens
"Soundhaspriority" <now...@nowhere.org> wrote in message
news:S7-dndQkFpb6Jorb...@giganews.com...
: One of this country's preeminent folk artists would to jointly begin a
: series of collaborative recordings. He knows thousands of songs, literally
: the entire American folk genre, and sings while playing a steel string
: guitar. Jenn suggested that a very live room would compliment the guitar.
: Recently, with the assistance of a talented amateur stand-in, I performed
: some test recording of in such a room, using techniques freely inspired by
: JA.
: So, how do you like your guitar? The question is the hidden purpose of this
: post. Given that all recording virtues cannot be simultaneously present to
: optimal degree, what are your personal preferences? Your opinions will
: significantly influence how we hear a noted folk singer. Your thoughts,
: please?
:
: If you've read this far, you deserve to know why I call the room Pinewood
: Studios. It's really simple. The room is made out of pine.
:
: Bob Morein
: Dresher, PA
: (215) 646-4894
:
why not push the envelope here, Bob ?
release a multichannel version, so the listener can do his own preferred mix
cheers :-),
Rudy
Soundhaspriority
"Ruud Broens" <bro...@wanadoo.nl> wrote in message
news:461a5553$0$6966$dbd4...@news.wanadoo.nl...
symmetrical channel pairs? The center and sub channels would not be easily
mixed by the user. How do DVD-A players support this procedure?
Bob Morein
Dresher, PA
(215) 656-4894
TT
:
: "Ruud Broens" <bro...@wanadoo.nl> wrote in message
Bob why not have a good hard listen to some of Mark
Knopfler's guitar playing on BIA SACD M/C or his other solo
efforts e.g Sailing to Philadelphia or Shangri La.
BTW when mixing M/C music you can do this in two ways:
1) Have it so it is acoustically correct e.g have ambiance
sound from the rear channels
or
2) Artificial whereby you (the engineer) introduces weird
effects e.g the sound circling the room or aggressive use of
rear channels. e.g. M/C DVD-A, The Doors - La Woman - 'Lil
America and you will get the idea ;-)
Also consider doing a 4.1 or 4.0 mix. Quad is fine ;-) e.g
Use your normal stereo set up for the main recording and
then mono/stereo the rears to give room ambiance. When a
system is set up correctly and the imaging is perfectly
central you will never know if the centre is working or not.
IMHO Centres are fine for movies when you want to "lock" the
dialogue into a space but for music it is really pointless.
I should add I am only offering an opinion as a consumer and
what I like to listen to ;-)
Cheers TT
Soundhaspriority
"TT" <TTencerN...@westnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:461afe66$1...@quokka.wn.com.au...
Those are my sympathies.
> or
> 2) Artificial whereby you (the engineer) introduces weird
> effects e.g the sound circling the room or aggressive use of
> rear channels. e.g. M/C DVD-A, The Doors - La Woman - 'Lil
> America and you will get the idea ;-)
>
It doesn't seem sympatico to me for a folk singer. I would like to try to
emulate JA's work, albeit on a smaller scale. Can the natural acoustics of a
room better the most sophisticated ambience generators? Such is my hope.
> Also consider doing a 4.1 or 4.0 mix. Quad is fine ;-) e.g
> Use your normal stereo set up for the main recording and
> then mono/stereo the rears to give room ambiance. When a
> system is set up correctly and the imaging is perfectly
> central you will never know if the centre is working or not.
> IMHO Centres are fine for movies when you want to "lock" the
> dialogue into a space but for music it is really pointless.
>
> I should add I am only offering an opinion as a consumer and
> what I like to listen to ;-)
>
> Cheers TT
>
A recent Stereophile article has relevance. Michael Gerzon, who invented
Ambisonics, also invented TriField processing, a method by which a center is
used to improve the phantom image illusion. I would like to try this, but I
am unaware of any plugins which support this. In the absence of TriField, a
center cannot be profitably employed.
Bret Ludwig
>
> A recent Stereophile article has relevance. Michael Gerzon, who invented
> Ambisonics, also invented TriField processing, a method by which a center is
> used to improve the phantom image illusion. I would like to try this, but I
> am unaware of any plugins which support this. In the absence of TriField, a
> center cannot be profitably employed.
>
channel recording with two mics and a three channel one with three
more. It's not like more mics screws up the sound of the others. You
can use the three later.
My favorite plug-in is a Nagra IV-S or a Nagra D.
Soundhaspriority
"Bret Ludwig" <bret...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1176368710.0...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
Only one theory maps mikes to speakers: the old Bell Labs "wall of sound".
It is not practical for me to do this, because I work with small ensembles,
where other factors are more important in placing the mikes. When one tries
to derive a center channel from a stereo pair and a bunch of spots, the
center is mostly a blend of L & R, resulting in a loss of separation. The
innovation of TriField is to derive a center from L & R, without a
subjective loss of separation.