Walt replied to some of my comments:
>> Your purpose will dictate your priorities and the compromises you
>> strike. My current experiments are aimed at coming up with the most
>> natural-sounding array I can that is compact, light weight, highly
>> portable and not terribly expensive. I'm not targeting distant
>> individual callers at this point, only broad sound fields.
>
> For this my weapon of choice is the SASS/MKH-20. The mics do make it
> more costly initially. But it's hard to beat for wide, close
> soundfields. The mics are also very long lived, so the cost is
> actually spread over many years. The cost per year of recording is
> truly not terribly expensive.
>
> For distant individual callers I'd likely be using the Telinga. For
> more moderate distances the MKH-60/30 M/S works well.
>
> I've really gone away from the mono recording of single callers. I
> still record single callers, but in the context of their audio scene.
I failed to acknowledge the modified SASS. I know that others here use
them too. You've reminded me to put the SASS on my list of things to
experiment with when I get the chance.
>> Another driving concept for me at the moment is that we are endowed
>> with just one set of ears for our entire journey in this world. That
>> one "setup" covers every situation in which we find ourselves. That's
>> the model I have in mind -- one really good-sounding mic array that
>> will cover a wide range of recording environments successfully. The
>> big challenge, of course, is what Klause reminds us of:
>>
>> "Microphones are not ears,
>> Loudspeakers are not birds,
>> A listening room is not nature."
>>
>> So I may very well end up just like you and many others here, with
>> several setups for different circumstances.
>
> Your ears are actually a package with your cognative audio scene
> analysis apparatus (your brain). You cannot separate them. That's what
> mics lack, and why one mic will not cover all the ways we hear
> things...
Yup. That's why I referred to Klaus' wise reminder. I like your term
"cognitive scene analysis apparatus." That's exactly what's lacking
with mics. On the other hand, as you said later in your comments, the
listener does apply some scene analysis even to recordings. The other
day my children and their spouses were at the house and I played some
field recordings for them. The daughter-in-law was under headphones
when I played a recording I made on a United 727 flight to Chicago a
few years ago. As the plane accelerated down the runway and lifted off,
there she was, pressed back in the chair as if she were right there.
Her scene analysis apparatus was working overtime to paint a very vivid
image for her. It was fun to observe.
> Think how photography is done. You can use a fixed focal length lens
> for everything, but to really convey it all you will probably use a
> variety of focal lengths. ...Another photographic comparison is that
> our ears are zoom lenses, mics are fixed focus lenses.
Nice word picture, Walt.
>>>> With the advent of mixed/panned multi-mono recordings the true
>>>> meaning of stereo has become blurred. It would have been good if
>>>> there were two terms, one for the true and accurate recording of a
>>>> 3d space, and a different one for the artificial mixed creations
>>>> and "sound like 3d" recordings.
>>
>> I've done a lot of both. Each has its place, but you're right, there
>> is a distinction.
>
> I'm kind of a purist working on getting the audio scene in one take
> without mixing. That, however, is not a value judgement on those
> attempting to mix bits of different takes. The approach you use for
> each is quite different. And you should decide before you record.
Sorry I was unclear on this. I, too, am quite a purist with respect to
field recordings. I do a lot of cosmetic editing to clean things up and
condense them, but almost no mixing. The mixed/panned multi-mono
recordings I've done have been in my studio work -- original music for
media, albums for recording artists and big live broadcasts. Even in
those settings, I prefer to work with stereo pairs whenever possible.
Curt Olson
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