Okay,

I have about $3000 to upgrade my rig and am looking for advice.

A little background:

I record classical music recitals almost exclusively. When I am not
recording classical it is usually chamber jazz recitals. Here is my current
rig:

Matched Pair SR-77
2 AT4050
Apogee Rosetta 48K
Presonus MP-20
Yamaha 01V
Masterlink
Tascam DA-40 DAT (backup to masterlink)
Monitor on Sony 7506 and AKG-270S

First off - I know the SR77 is not great (high self noise) and the presonus
is, well, um.... my weakest link. I usually just use the SR-77's in XY or
ORTF if the ensemble is larger. In a great hall I use ORTF with the 4050's
as omni out triggers. I do have some other mics, but I never use them.

My questions are...

1.)Get into DPA, Sennheiser MKH series, Schoepps, or Josephson. Having a
decent pair of card's should I go for omni's (the halls that I record have
sound good, but you can hear the air conditioner and lights and what not).


2.)Get a HV-3, Great River, or Grace 201.

3.)Can I do both for $3,000 and if so.... where

4.)When you have more than one line - what is a good unit to mix them
(Manley 16x2, Crane Song Spider, Mixing Suite). - this would be a down the
road purchase.

I have made some bad purchases and would like to correct them.

Thanks in advance for your help.

- Corey Bell

1.)Get into DPA, Sennheiser MKH series, Schoepps, or Josephson. Having a
decent pair of card's should I go for omni's (the halls that I record have
sound good, but you can hear the air conditioner and lights and what not).


2.)Get a HV-3, Great River, or Grace 201.

3.)Can I do both for $3,000 and if so.... where

4.)When you have more than one line - what is a good unit to mix them
(Manley 16x2, Crane Song Spider, Mixing Suite). - this would be a down the
road purchase.

I'd go first for a Great River. You do need a better preamp, no question. And
the reason I'd suggest the GR is that you're working in a variety of locations,
which means a variety of radio-frequency interference possibilities. All of the
preamps you mentioned are good, but the Great River uses transformer-coupled
inputs which are less susceptible to RFI. If you were always working in one
place it'd be less of an issue, but as you clearly work in several places...I'd
go for the safety of transformers.

Then I'd get a pair of MKH-40s or Schoepses. The Earthworkses are okay but, as
you say, somewhat noisy.

Can you do this for under $3000? Maybe...if you're lucky enough to find things
used on e-bay.

As for the down-the-road purchase of a mixer...yes, the Manley could do the job
nicely. Meanwhile, though, if you're recording with a crossed-pair plus a pair
of outriggers, well, in both cases the microphones go hard-right and hard-left,
so you could build a passive mixing box and combine the outputs of two preamps,
L+L and R+R. (Set the Rosetta for -10dBV sensitivity to compensate for the
level loss. If your summing resistors are 7.5k in each leg of each balanced
input, you'll get 12dB of loss, almost exactly compensated by the change in
sensitivity on the A/D.)

Peace,
Paul

wrote:

Okay,

I have about $3000 to upgrade my rig and am looking for advice.
[...]
1.)Get into DPA, Sennheiser MKH series, Schoepps, or Josephson. Having a
decent pair of card's should I go for omni's (the halls that I record have
sound good, but you can hear the air conditioner and lights and what not).

2.)Get a HV-3, Great River, or Grace 201.

3.)Can I do both for $3,000 and if so.... where

You can get a Great River MP2 for about $1600. And you ought to be
just able to come up with a pair of Schoeps for $1600. So it's close.
To save a little money, I'd recommend sawing an MP4 in two and selling
one half of it.

Joesphson C 42 Matched Pair .... $950.00
Great River MP 2MH ............. $1930.00
John Hardy M-2 ................. $1700.00
FMR RNP ........................ $475.00

Any of the above will work for you and under $3000 If you choose the
RNP you can do it for half of your budget. Here is a link.
http://mercenaryaudio.com/ Hope this helps.

Jim Maxon

wrote:
Okay,

I have about $3000 to upgrade my rig and am looking for advice.

A little background:

I record classical music recitals almost exclusively. When I am not
recording classical it is usually chamber jazz recitals. Here is my current
rig:

Matched Pair SR-77
2 AT4050
Apogee Rosetta 48K
Presonus MP-20
Yamaha 01V
Masterlink
Tascam DA-40 DAT (backup to masterlink)
Monitor on Sony 7506 and AKG-270S

First off - I know the SR77 is not great (high self noise) and the presonus
is, well, um.... my weakest link. I usually just use the SR-77's in XY or
ORTF if the ensemble is larger. In a great hall I use ORTF with the 4050's
as omni out triggers. I do have some other mics, but I never use them.

My questions are...

1.)Get into DPA, Sennheiser MKH series, Schoepps, or Josephson. Having a
decent pair of card's should I go for omni's (the halls that I record have
sound good, but you can hear the air conditioner and lights and what not).


2.)Get a HV-3, Great River, or Grace 201.

3.)Can I do both for $3,000 and if so.... where

4.)When you have more than one line - what is a good unit to mix them
(Manley 16x2, Crane Song Spider, Mixing Suite). - this would be a down the
road purchase.

I have made some bad purchases and would like to correct them.

Thanks in advance for your help.

- Corey Bell

In Article ,
wrote:
Okay,

I have about $3000 to upgrade my rig and am looking for advice.

A little background:

I record classical music recitals almost exclusively. When I am not
recording classical it is usually chamber jazz recitals. Here is my current
rig:

Matched Pair SR-77
2 AT4050
Apogee Rosetta 48K
Presonus MP-20
Yamaha 01V
Masterlink
Tascam DA-40 DAT (backup to masterlink)
Monitor on Sony 7506 and AKG-270S

Corey,

Schoeps.

Ty Ford


**Until the worm goes away, I have put "not" in front of my email address.
Please remove it if you want to email me directly.
For Ty Ford V/O demos, audio services and equipment reviews,
click on http://www.jagunet.com/~tford

It sounds like you might be doing stereo recording. YOu didn't mention your
recorder.

If that's the case, you might want to look into the new Benchmark A/D. It has 2
mic pres in it and I really like my benchmark convertor. With that unit you
have more than $1000 left over for mics and you're upgrading 3 parts of your
system when you're done.

I have about $3000 to upgrade my rig and am looking for advice.

A little background:

I record classical music recitals almost exclusively. When I am not
recording classical it is usually chamber jazz recitals. Here is my current
rig:

On 21 Oct 2003 05:22:38 GMT, (P Stamler) wrote:

1.)Get into DPA, Sennheiser MKH series, Schoepps, or Josephson. Having a
decent pair of card's should I go for omni's (the halls that I record have
sound good, but you can hear the air conditioner and lights and what not).


2.)Get a HV-3, Great River, or Grace 201.

3.)Can I do both for $3,000 and if so.... where

4.)When you have more than one line - what is a good unit to mix them
(Manley 16x2, Crane Song Spider, Mixing Suite). - this would be a down the
road purchase.

I'd go first for a Great River. You do need a better preamp, no question. And
the reason I'd suggest the GR is that you're working in a variety of locations,
which means a variety of radio-frequency interference possibilities. All of the
preamps you mentioned are good, but the Great River uses transformer-coupled
inputs which are less susceptible to RFI. If you were always working in one
place it'd be less of an issue, but as you clearly work in several places...I'd
go for the safety of transformers.


Hi Paul,

Interesting the posts I've seen recently advising of an "RF issue"
between "transformer-coupled vs. transformerless mic preamps."

Given (1) the almost non-existence of calls we received since 1994
about micamp RF (certainly less than one call a year), (2) my personal
experience with remote classical music recording and RF, and (3) the
predominant community of travelling classical music engineers I know
using xfmrless micamps, I would submit that micamp RF isn't much of an
"issue."

In the rare situation where one is working adjacent to a strong RF
field and having RF demodulation problems, a transformer may or may
not help - it depends on where the RF is getting in. If RF is riding
in on a cable, yes a transformer may help. If RF is tweaking a high-Z
trace in the front-end gain amplifier, a transformer probably won't
help. If RF is demodulating in the microphone itself, a transformer
won't help. If RF is coming in via AC power, and the line filter
and/or PSR-nodes do not reject it, an audio transformer won't help.

In my opinion, in virtually all cases, sonic performance, not RF
threshold, should be the first consideration in a professional remote
rig buying decision. For Corey's budget and application, I would
probably suggest a pair of Grace 101s and a used set of Schoeps CMC6
or new Josephson omnis.

Best wishes,
JL

"HenryShap" wrote in message
...
It sounds like you might be doing stereo recording. YOu didn't mention
your
recorder.

Sorry - Masterlinkg and DA-40


If that's the case, you might want to look into the new Benchmark A/D. It
has 2
mic pres in it and I really like my benchmark convertor.

Is the Benchmark a big step from the Apogee I have now?

wrote:

"HenryShap" wrote in message
...

It sounds like you might be doing stereo recording. YOu didn't mention
your recorder.


Sorry - Masterlink and DA-40


Then a Grace Lunatec V3 might be a good match. A few are even showing
up secondhand at this point.

Corey Bell wrote:

I record classical music recitals almost exclusively. When I am not
recording classical it is usually chamber jazz recitals. [ ... ]

First off - I know the SR77 is not great (high self noise) and the
presonus is, well, um.... my weakest link.

Why do you perceive it to be so? I used one for a while--it didn't
seem at all bad, as long as the "IDSS" control was kept at its minimum
setting. (Mine was the original version with the Jensen input
transformers.) There are better preamps, certainly, but that one's
no slouch.


I usually just use the SR-77's in XY or ORTF if the ensemble is
larger. In a great hall I use ORTF with the 4050's as omni
[outriggers]. I do have some other mics, but I never use them.

I'm surprised at the advice that you've received up to now. I think
that microphones and microphone techniques are the "front lines" as
long as the preamp and other electronics are basically solid. I've
made (and so have plenty of other people) cassette recordings with
great microphones in good locations; they sound a heck of a lot better
than the best 24-bit digital recordings made in poor acoustical
situations and/or with mediocre microphones and/or with the
microphone(s) not being in the best place(s).

Microphones with complex output impedance, or too high an output
impedance, can be notoriously sensitive to the loading effects of
microphone preamps or even microphone cables. But low-impedance
condenser microphones aren't, especially the modern, transformerless
kind which have a very low output impedance that is primarily
resistive in character.

Now, of course anyone can build a preamp that alters the sound of the
signal that's fed into it. But in general I think classical engineers
are not so interested in that type of effect, because for every case
in which it helps the sound, there will be an equal and opposite case
in which it's undesirable. It's best to apply any "sweetening" after
you've already got the best possible "straight" recording in the can.

If you are listening carefully to the results you're getting, and
making educated guesses about what might sound better the next time,
then trying that out and listening _again_ (and it sounds as if you
are doing this), then you will keep getting better and better at what
you do, even if your equipment is not the best. But I think that as
long as your process of careful listening, evaluation and informed
experimentation is established, you could do with a boost to the
quality and variety of your microphones.

Do you have access to any pro audio rentals, or "borrowals" from
friends? It can really help to try out things before you buy them, or
in some cases thing that you would not expect to buy in the near
future at all, just to see how they behave (and what compromises you
may choose to make for the sake of your budget). I think you'll find
that in the kind of work you're describing, the microphones make a
far greater difference than the preamp, unless you have a preamp
that's really deficient in some way (e.g. input overload problems or
an inadequate phantom powering circuit--both of which are
unfortunately more common than many people seem to realize).

[1] If you do at least part of your recording in highly reverberant
halls with "cathedral"-style acoustics (or something well into that
direction), and particularly if early music is involved, you can have
some real fun with spaced, high-quality omnidirectional microphones.
They don't have to be widely spaced--that's something that, strangely,
Americans seem to have a misunderstanding about. Two feet may be far
enough apart, when you're recording a small to medium-sized ensemble.

[2] I really think that you owe it to yourself to explore what you can
do with supercardioid and figure-8 microphones, if you're already
familiar with what cardioids can do in X/Y and near-coincident pairs.
Supercardioids and figure-8s do the same thing better, basically--they
give a more even distribution of sound sources across the stereo stage
width, and they pick up more of their reverberant energy from the
longer available path lengths for the sound in the room, which sounds
.... nicer.

This suggests that you choose one or the other of the leading lines of
small high-quality condenser microphones with interchangeable capsules.
Those would be the Neumann KM 100 series and the Schoeps CMC series.

Of these two I have a favorite (Schoeps), but I also have a long-time
personal and business relationship with them, so [disclaimer], OK?
Nonetheless I also own and use Neumann microphones, and I think very
highly of that company and its products and people. (For that matter,
folks at Schoeps think highly of Neumann and its products and people.)

To put it as briefly as I can, I see the cardioids of the two series as
offering equivalent quality though different sound. The Neumann is a
bit brighter; the Schoeps is not entirely neutral either, but it's
flatter on axis. But the kicker is this: I think if you try Schoeps
supercardioids for concert recording, you will not think of cardioid as
your "default" directional microphone pattern any more. They are as
close as anything I've ever used (and I've used them for almost 30
years now) to a universal microphone for stereo live recording.

Neumann also offers a good supercardioid microphone, but you may want
to ask yourself whether its low-frequency response is strong enough for
the type of music you record and the halls that you work in. It is
rolled off more than I think is good for general music pickup, the way
that I work, but in some applications the rolloff will improve clarity.
However, as you deal with microphones that operate more on the pressure
gradient than on pressure (the spectrum goes from omni to wide cardioid
to cardioid to supercardioid to hypercardioid to figure-8), something
changes in the way low frequencies are picked up. Even a pressure
gradient microphone that has perfectly flat on-axis low-frequency
response when measured in the standard way will not seem to have as
much low-frequency response as a pure pressure transducer (single-
diaphragm omni) in real-life situations. So any rolloff matters a lot
in a directional microphones, to my way of hearing at least.

Among omni capsules, Neumann has two different versions for different
miking distances while Schoeps has four--and frankly the two which
Neumann has (which correspond roughly to the Schoeps MK 2 and MK 3)
are the two least useful choices in practice. The Schoeps omni capsules
that I'd suggest would be the MK 2S or possibly the 2H, because the
distances used for stereo recording with omnis are generally in between
the distances at which pure free-field (MK 2) and diffuse-field (MK 3)
types are appropriate. Those old categories of omni capsule type are
leftovers from the mono era and from the requirements of acoustical
measurement.

I'd suggest that you contact the two companies' U.S. reps, get catalogs,
and spend some time getting to know the alternatives. You might also
want to compare them with AKG's offerings, some of which are of high
quality. You may want to check out ribbon microphones such as Royer's
SF-1 also, though those are exclusively figure-8 (a pattern which works
well only in particular circumstances, but when it's the right thing,
it's wonderful). Also, the Beyer M 160 is a well-regarded supercardioid
ribbon microphone (though its output levels are very low and I constantly
have RFI problems with mine, living in New York in the era of ubiquitous
portable phones--I've never actually been able to use them for any
location recording).

Personally for two-microphone stereo I tend to use Schoeps CMC 541 about
2/3 of the time and CMC 58 much of the rest of the time, with occasional
use of CMC 52 S (sometimes with accessory spheres on them) and Royer SF-1
UNLESS I'm deliberately experimenting--and after all this time, I still
feel that if I ever stop experimenting and learning, I might as well hang
it all up and go home, because that's at least half the point of this for
me. I also have pairs of Neumann U 87, U 89, KM 150, KM 84 and KM 88,
AKG C 414 B-ULS and Beyer M 160 among other things--they all have their
uses at times, some more than others of course.

And sometimes, all that matters is still that there be any old microphone
and a cassette recorder somewhere in the room, as opposed to not.

--best regards

"David Satz" wrote in message
m...

Thanks for the great post!

[2] I really think that you owe it to yourself to explore what you can
do with supercardioid and figure-8 microphones, if you're already
familiar with what cardioids can do in X/Y and near-coincident pairs.
Supercardioids and figure-8s do the same thing better,

I also record classical groups, usually a youth symphony. I'm used to
working with ORTF. If I replaced the cardioids with supercardioids, what
would be the best angle and spacing? How would my mike position change?

Jerry Steiger

Interesting the posts I've seen recently advising of an "RF issue"
between "transformer-coupled vs. transformerless mic preamps."

Given (1) the almost non-existence of calls we received since 1994
about micamp RF (certainly less than one call a year), (2) my personal
experience with remote classical music recording and RF, and (3) the
predominant community of travelling classical music engineers I know
using xfmrless micamps, I would submit that micamp RF isn't much of an
"issue."

In the rare situation where one is working adjacent to a strong RF
field and having RF demodulation problems, a transformer may or may
not help - it depends on where the RF is getting in. If RF is riding
in on a cable, yes a transformer may help. If RF is tweaking a high-Z
trace in the front-end gain amplifier, a transformer probably won't
help. If RF is demodulating in the microphone itself, a transformer
won't help. If RF is coming in via AC power, and the line filter
and/or PSR-nodes do not reject it, an audio transformer won't help.

In my opinion, in virtually all cases, sonic performance, not RF
threshold, should be the first consideration in a professional remote
rig buying decision.

John, I have great respect for your designs, and in any kind of a fixed
installation would recommend them strongly for classical recording. But I
remain paranoid about unpredictable situations, having once gotten badly bitten
in a one-time-only recording by a transformerless preamp (not one of yours)
that picked up RF at a critical moment. So, being that level of paranoid, I
continue to prefer transformers for location work in
who-knows-where-I'll-be-next situations. Personal preference;
once-bitten-twice-shy department.

That said, you're also dead right about the problem not always being the
preamp!

Peace,
Paul

I also record classical groups, usually a youth symphony. I'm used to
working with ORTF. If I replaced the cardioids with supercardioids, what
would be the best angle and spacing? How would my mike position change?

With hypercardioids, typically you'd change the angle from 110 degrees to 90
degrees; capsule spacing would remain the same.

Using the same mike position, you'd get somewhat less room, and better
rejection of any slapback from the wall behind the audience. So if you pulled
back, you'd eventually find a spot where you had the same amount of room as
when you were using cardioids. But because you were farther back, you might
hear less screechiness from the violins, and would definitely have less of the
"front-row" effect, wherein the front-row players are louder than the back-row.


Peace,
Paul

With hypercardioids, typically you'd change the angle from 110 degrees to 90
degrees; capsule spacing would remain the same.

Using the same mike position, you'd get somewhat less room, and better
rejection of any slapback from the wall behind the audience

Wouldn't the rear lobe of a typical hypercardioid pattern allow more "slapback
from the wall behind the audience"?


Joe Egan
EMP
Colchester, VT
www.eganmedia.com

And you ought to be
just able to come up with a pair of Schoeps for $1600.

I just picked up a pair of CMC 6 bodies, a MK2 omni capsule, and a MK6
multipattern capsule on Ebay for $1500. I've used them for a couple of M-S
recordings, and while I generally prefer cardioid for the Mid mic, the results
have been nothing shy of stunning. These mics live up to their reputation like
few other pieces of equipment. If you can find a deal like I did, you'd be
wise to take it.


Joe Egan
EMP
Colchester, VT
www.eganmedia.com

It sounds like the overwhelming majority of people are suggesting the
schoeps system. Where is a good place to buy - the prices I have found are
all the same - $2450 (I am looking at the hyper's as I don't have that
pattern at all and I can always get more capsules). Granted that is in a
nice case, matched capsules, shockmounts, and windscreens (which actually
have had to used due to an air conditioner that was on tornado mode and I
could not get away from).

I anticipated the Great River - Millinea debate and I am still up in the
air, leaning millinea however. The reason is, looking at records that are
made, it seems millinea is the pre that is most used.

I also realize I am going to need to up my budget so I think I am going to
sell my o1v and an ADAT LX (The ADAT has been used like three times so I
don't think I will miss it). Hopefully the two of those will get me about
1200 so I can go:

$2495 - 2 x Schoeps mk41/cmc6 (in the case w/ everything)

$1800 - HV-3B two channel

Where is the best place to buy. I have looked on e-bay and there is no used
stuff.

I plan on keeping my MP-20 to use when I use 4 mics and eventually get more
channels of other preamps (GR, Grace).

Corey Bell wrote:
It sounds like the overwhelming majority of people are suggesting the
schoeps system. Where is a good place to buy - the prices I have found are
all the same - $2450 (I am looking at the hyper's as I don't have that
pattern at all and I can always get more capsules). Granted that is in a
nice case, matched capsules, shockmounts, and windscreens (which actually
have had to used due to an air conditioner that was on tornado mode and I
could not get away from).

Posthorn is a nice place. There are a lot of other good dealers too.
Find someplace close to you where you like the people.

I anticipated the Great River - Millinea debate and I am still up in the
air, leaning millinea however. The reason is, looking at records that are
made, it seems millinea is the pre that is most used.

I have both and I use both of them and they are both great. You won't go
wrong with either one.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I live, and am relativly new to, the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. If anybody has
a recomendation.

I will checkout posthorn - thanks scott.

- Corey Bell

Jerry Steiger wrote:

Thanks for the great post!

Thanks for the kind words, and for reading that monster of a post.


I also record classical groups, usually a youth symphony. I'm used to
working with ORTF. If I replaced the cardioids with supercardioids, what
would be the best angle and spacing? How would my mike position change?

I agree with Paul Stamler's reply, and am impressed with the way in which
he touched on so many important issues in so few lines. I usually prefer
a slightly wider angle than 90 degrees between supercardioids; 90 degrees
is a safe starting point for experimentation, however. The basic fact is
that the directionality of your microphones, the angle that you set between
them, the physical width of the sound source that you're recording and the
characteristics of the hall all interact in ways that require adaptation,
a/k/a engineering tradeoffs--which is why I hope that we might deserve to
be called "engineers" some of the time at least.

If you leave a pair of supercardioids in the same location as you've used
for cardioids, you will probably sense some redistribution of the sound
sources between the loudspeakers when you play the recording back. In
particular there should be better discrimination among centrally located
sound sources, and more of a tendency to fill the entire range between the
loudspeakers if that's been less than complete with cardioids. However,
with wide sound sources such as most orchestras you may have the exact
opposite problem, and you may be forced to move the mikes back a bit when
you go from cardioid to supercardioid or (especially) to figure 8. The
maximum angle "seen" by the microphones which can be fit into the stereo
image decreases when you use more sharply directional microphones.

For example, a Blumlein pair (two coincident figure-8s with 90 degrees
between their main axes) can only capture a 90-degree segment of the sound
in front of them. If any direct sound arrives at an angle greater than
+/- 45 degrees, it can cause some disturbing imaging artifacts. But this
type of microphone picks up a lot of reverberant sound energy because of
its rear lobe (equal in sensitivity to its front lobe). And there's always
some distance past which the sound would simply be too "washed out" with
reverberation if you moved the microphones back any farther. So if you
can't fit the width of the orchestra into 90 degrees of arc before getting
to that point, then figure-8s are simply not usable in that situation.
There's no Constitutional or other guarantee that any one technique can
always be made to work in all situations!

The same considerations apply to supercardioids, though their widest
possible source pickup angle (what Prof. Michael Williams calls the
"stereophonic recording angle" of the microphone arrangement) can
definitely be wider than 90 degrees, depending on the angle you set
between them. The thing is, different microphones that call themselves
"supercardioid" or "hypercardioid" rarely are the pure animal--most are
somewhere between those two classic patterns in reality. So for anyone
to proclaim an ideal angle between a pair of them would be misleading.

But you can readily hear the result if it's worth all this concern, no?

I'm reminded of the joke in which a kid calls up a gourmet food dealer and
asks to buy a jar of imported caviar for his father's birthday. The kid
says to the dealer, "Please promise that it'll really be imported, since my
dad can't tell the difference." Basically if no one can hear the benefit
of finding an optimal geometry for a microphone setup, either [a] it wasn't
really the optimal geometry or [b] such a thing doesn't exist or [c] it
doesn't matter whether we use it or not.

With hypercardioids, typically you'd change the angle from 110 degrees to 90
degrees; capsule spacing would remain the same.

Using the same mike position, you'd get somewhat less room, and better
rejection of any slapback from the wall behind the audience

Wouldn't the rear lobe of a typical hypercardioid pattern allow more
"slapback
from the wall behind the audience"?

Not really. Or not necessarily. Years and years ago, one of my teachers, Steve
Fuller, did an interesting exercise: he used a computer to simulate various
combinations of pickup patterns, including cardioids at 110 degrees,
hypercardioids at 90 degrees, and figure-8s at 90 degrees. His question was
what the combined pickup pattern was (in theory).

What he found was that cardioids at 110 summed to a wide cardioid pattern with
diminished rear rejection. Figure-8s at 90 summed to a wide figure-8 with
diminished side rejection. But hypers at 90 summed to a forward-facing
cardioid, with undiminished rear rejection (theoretically infinite at 180
degrees).

Now, a few caveats. He was making some *very* idealized assumptions, including
theoretically perfect polar responses from the microphones, and perfectly
coincident placement. Neither exists in the real world. And because his
assumption was XY-type coincident placement, the applicabillity to a
closely-spaced arrangement such as ORTF is imperfect. Finally, since signals
coming out of two speakers add in a very different way than signals in an
electronic circuit, the match to reality is further reduced.

But it was an interesting exercise, and in fact my practical experience has
been that hypers at 90 really do behave approximately as his simulations
predicted. Only approximately, since real microphones are only approximately
anything, but the prediction was useful enough that I've kept it handy and use
the technique when I need it.

Don't know if he ever published the results.

Peace,
Paul

Joe Egan wrote:

Wouldn't the rear lobe of a typical hypercardioid pattern allow more
"slapback from the wall behind the audience"?

On the contrary, I've often used supercardioids / hypercardioids to _solve_
that specific problem. (I used to do a huge amount of early music recording
in stone churches in the Boston area.)

With the front lobes of the microphones aimed apart, the back lobes are
effectively crossed and pointing back in the hall at the opposite walls.
The resulting reflections are quite diffuse and typically long delayed
before reaching the microphones.

It's a much better quality of reverberant sound than all the short-term
jangly stuff that cardioids pick up from the front; it tells the listener
much more about the entire room and not just about the stage area.

"David Satz" wrote in message
om...

Thanks again, Paul and David!

Jerry Steiger

wrote:

2.)Get a HV-3, Great River, or Grace 201.

I'll go firstly with number two above. Improve your pre; later add mics
is you don't have Scheops or even Josephson money right now.

--
ha