Audio Empire wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jun 2012 05:53:45 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
True, but since the microphones, in a correctly miked stage performance,
are
up on the stage (or hanging over it), that is the perspective that you are
capturing - "the closest seats". I have some British made AmbiSonics
recordings where the mikes are quite distant from the stage. The effect
isn't
very appealing
Not quite. As I alluded in one of my quaint analogies, we do not perceive
the sound from the perspective of the microphones.
However you "perceive" it, that's the perspective that the microphones
capture. We call microphones "surrogate ears" but that's a misnomer. Our ears
are connected to our brain which makes all the interpretive decisions about
what and how we hear. So the mikes are, essentially "brainless" they are
pre-set to determine the field of "view" that the microphone "sees". It
intersects a sound field and turns that part of the field that strikes the
diaphragm into an analogous electrical signal, that's all it does. The
recording engineer makes the decision about how far back and how high the
mikes are placed. I have found that in most auditoriums, for a symphony
orchestra or concert band, the correct mike location is about 10 feet over
the conductor's head and about 5 ft behind him. This gives the "presence"
effect of about the third/fourth-row center. Further back, the orchestra
seems more distant and without the brain's ability to focus on specific
sounds, the microphones start to get swamped with hall ambience (not to
mention audience noise). The stereo mike over the conductor's head
technique(using, of course, a pair of cardioids on a stereo "T" bar seven
inches apart and with the axis of the microphones 90 degrees apart or a
single stereo mike configured either as above, or in an M-S configuration)
gives, what is in my opinion, the best, widest, and deepest stereo image as
well as the proper listening distance - I.E. the proverbial "best seat in the
house".
We place the microphones
closer to the soundstage than a good, typical listening position, not
because we wish to hear the concert as if suspended nine feet above the
conductor's head or two feet from the lips of the mezzo soprano, but because
when we play it back we will be playing it from speakers that are placed at
some distance from us, so that the perspective becomes correct again. As I
have also said, this is the opposite of binaural theory, in which you want
to place the head at a good listening seat, because you are going to be
capturing just that perspective, and recording the entire ambience of the
original hall from that position.
I disagree. "I" place microphones in order to get the proper "presence" for
the type of performance I am recording. IOW, the proper balance between
direct and reflected sound. I want to hear some ambience, yes, but I don't
want so much ambience in a recording that it makes the recording sound,
through speakers, on playback, like we're listening to the concert from out
in the auditorium foyer! It's pretty easy to make that error and lots of
amateur recordists make it. That's pretty much my only consideration in
placing mikes. Now, the kind of mike I use depends upon a number of things
and these decisions come with experience. I can walk into a venue I've never
recorded before and within minutes know exactly the right spot for the
mike(s). There's nothing magical about this ability, it's just experience.
But think a little about it! Your mikes are generally closer to orchestra than
that 4th row seat. If you placed your mikes at 4th row ceneter seat position it
would be all wrong. So something is causing the perceived perspective to move
friom 10ft above 5ft behind conductor into that 4th row seat. Reasons are rather
complex. Part of it could be that listeners are used to listen from a seat not
hanging above conductor -- so listener brain moves the image to what it knows.
But part of that could be simply the effect of listener surroundings. Both ion
concert vanue and in ones listening room there are close surrounding which
affect sound coming to our ears.
In stereo, a field-type sytem, we are going more toward the capturing of the
direct and early reflected sound from the region of the proscenium, and just
enough of the reverberant field to give the "flavor" of the original hall,
I think I said that.
but realizing that it will be mixed with the listening room acoustics
because of this distant placement of the speakers.
In my experience, this is totally irrelevant. The average listening room adds
so little, acoustically, to the playback that I don't even think about it.
Don't conflate not thinking about something with that something having neglibile
effect. To come to that conclusion you'd need to compare your room with an
anechoic chamber. I wouldn say that anechoic chamber is a thing which you'd
easily ignore while being there -- yet it is the thing which would add neglibile
amounts to reproducend sound coming from speakers.
[...]
The direct sound part undergoes a harmless image shift toward the
side and rear of the speaker, while the later and more sustained tones take
on a spatial broadening effect that can make the recorded early reflections
seem to be coming from the appropriate wall of your room. A greater
impression of depth of image is caused by the simple fact that the speakers
are pulled out from the front wall into free space, and the reflected sound
comes from behind them. All of these effects have been reported in speaker
tests in the magazines, but they have no idea what causes them.
Please show me some formal studies that back up this "notion" because my
experience with home Hi-Fi tells me that this is wrong. You're going to have
to prove it with more than just endless reiteration
Excatly my issue with Mr Eickmeier's theory -- it lacks physical and
psychoacoustical explanation. And/Or a support off a set of properly controlled
listening tests (there is just one result and only against some narrow set of
speakers -- a set of Linkwitz Orions -- i.e. dipoles, and some more-or-less
generic set with some experimantal(?) digital room correction).
rgds
\SK
--
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang
--
http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels)