I am experimenting with M-S mic technique and need some advice on relative
levels between the mid and the side tracks.

I recorded a classical chamber music group using an AKG c-34 stereo mic (
http://tinyurl.com/56clz ). The capsules in the mic are coincident and
arranged at 90° to each other. The front facing capusule was set to cardiod
pick-up pattern and the the "side" facing capsule was set to figure-8
pattern.

When checking levels, I noticed that the mid capsule's response was
significantly less than that of the side capsule despite pre-amp levels
being set identically. At the time I left the pre-amp levels as they were
since the SNR was such that I could boost the signal afterwards with out an
increase in noise floor.

What I am wondering is now that I would like to transform the M-S pair into
a LR stereo downmix, is it necessary for me to boost the signal of the mid
track relative to the side track?

If you could cc your replies to me via e-mail as well, this would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Theo