Gorging on Sound
I used to make live recordings, and occasionally recorded in quad or
Ambisonics.
I was and remain a great believer in single-point recordings. Your head is
at one position in the hall; why should the mics be spread all over the
place (unless you're recording spaced performers or instruments)? Ambisonics
is a single-point system and gives superb results. Done correctly, playback
sounds as if you're at the mic position.
For quad recordings, I set up two mic pairs, one facing forward, the other
into the hall. I was never fully pleased with them. It took 25 years for me
to recognize what I might have been doing wrong.
The ear and brain characterize a hall principally by the lateral sound at
the listening position. Therefore, that's what you should record. This
suggests two cardioid mics pointing left and right -- not towards the
back of the hall.
Whether one should use cardioid, hypercardioid, or even figure-8 patterns,
isn't clear. And whether the ambience mics should be near the main mics, or
further back in the hall (heresy!) isn't clear, either.
Recording in surround is very much worth the trouble. If the hall's
acoustics are good, and you're at an "appropriate" position in the hall, the
overall naturalness and realism of the sound will be signficantly greater.
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