> Both the size and the hardness of one's head can affect the results
> ;-)
actually Rich, I was only jumping on the opportunity to be a smart
alek, but since you asked, here are my thoughts:
My Jecklin-type barrier is built for convenience, not sonic purity. The
best mic setup in the world isn't much good to me if its not easy to
use. The barrier consists of two frisbees, two round mouse pads, and
two halves of a nerf ball. It is, more technically, a modified
Schneider disk. I run a threaded rod through the middle of everything
and hold it all together with a couple of wing nuts.The frisbees form a
clamp that I use to mount the contraption. I use my glasses as calipers
to determine where to put the mics. The whole thing comes apart easily
and packs flat.
As an added bonus, who among us doesn't love frisbee? I use one orange
disk and one glow-in-the-dark disk. I recently saw one for sale that
lights up as it spins, but I haven't purchased it yet.
But I digress.
To me, the stereo image depends less on the barrier technique and more
on the mic choice - especially with distant recording. I prefer my
Schoeps, but sometimes the weather doesn't make that a good mic choice,
so then I'll use lav mics.
Sometimes I clip mics to my glasses or cap for a simulated psuedo-faux
binaural-like effect. I cannot do this with Schoeps, but this technique
has advantages.
With the baseball cap I can wander around unobtrusively, perhaps
getting closer to interesting sounds, but any noise I make will be
right next to the mics. I can also put it together at a moments notice.
Watch me. See? That was quick.
With the disk I can run a cable and walk away so that I don't
contribute to the recording too much, but the rig is not quick to set
up and its hardly discrete. I use whichever method seems appropriate at
the time - in the same way that a photographer may change their lens.
Any type of barrier-between-the-mics technique attempts to imitate how
your head causes differences in the sound reaching each of your ears
(mics). Whatever material is placed between the mics: disk, SASS, a
chunk of foam, a tree trunk, or a cinder block, you are trying to
simulate the effect of a human head. My theory is that people will
favor the method that, through random chance, best approximates their
own head. And everyone's head is different.
To paraphrase my friend Chris DeLaurenti:
some of us are Catholics,
and some of us are Protestants,
but in the end we all love Jesus.
best,
Mark
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
|