Remember this brief thread a couple weeks ago?
I owe a long overdue "thank you" to Rob for his helpful reply below.
After many days of pondering and tinkering between other duties, I made
some test recordings early this morning just outside my front door in
suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is two :45-second clips back to
back, made simultaneously using (first) AT3032s and (second) WL183s in
similar rigs (no processing, except for an attempt at level matching).
Unfortunately, traffic noise in these recordings masks the vast
difference in self noise between the 3032s and the 183s...
1.3 MB mp3:
http://www.trackseventeen.com/media/tsp/060331-3032_183.mp3
15.1 MB .wav:
http://www.trackseventeen.com/media/tsp/060331-3032_183.wav
Photo of the two rigs, one resting on the other:
http://www.trackseventeen.com/images/mic_arrays/3032_183.html
As Lang points out in his appendix to Bernie's wonderful book, it all
comes down to compromises and trade-offs. This is one stab at it along
the way. Any reactions?
Curt Olson
On Mar 16, 2006, at 2:49 AM, wrote:
> Hi Curt--
> Lang Elliot has written elegantly on binaural-headphone issues-
> Bernie cites Lang's key argument in his book.
>
> What you describe makes perfect sense to me: a distant, freestanding
> speaker produces a more localized image (point of origin in space)
> than headphones. Cardioid polar patterns cover a smaller field than
> omnis. Matching speaker and micing separations can make these polar
> pattern spacing differences more or less apparent.
>
> I've always felt there's a micing/speaker separation trade-off:
> "stereo" as tending towards a comparison of two fields and "stereo"
> tending towards a unified field where sounders in the middle can be
> more predictably localized. Asking the ears/brain to compare two
> field with more difference between them can feel fuller and more
> engaging. ORTF at 13" captures a lot more timing and tonal difference
> than omnis at 6". Low Hz presence (125Hz-700Hz) can shift from
> speaker to speaker like waves bouncing and interacting in the field
> but its hard to sense this spatial quality, if at all, with
> headphones. I can walk around and function pretty normally in space
> listening only through binaural headphones where monitoring/moving
> around with a 13" card ORTF rig takes a lot more mental adjusting.
> Rob D.
>
> At 2:11 PM -0600 3/14/06, Curt Olson wrote:
>> So I'm casually reviewing some ambient field recordings today and it
>> dawns on me: Recordings that I've made using cardiods (in my case,
>> usually some ORTF variation) seem to translate better to my
>> loudspeakers than recordings I've made with omnis. ("Better" as in
>> richer, deeper, more spacious, more interesting.) The converse also
>> seems to be true: Recordings that I've made with omnis (in my case,
>> usually involving a small boundary and head-like spacing) seem to
>> translate better to headphones than those I've made with cardioids.
>>
>> Am I late in understanding something extraordinarily basic here? Could
>> my playback systems be deceiving me? Have I totally lost my judgment?
>>
>> Thoughts on this, anyone?
>>
>> Curt Olson
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