John Hartog asked: "What is "Image Assistant"? - sounds interesting."
It's a program designed to calculate the imaging of a pair of spaced
microphones. You simply enter the information about the spaced pair
(how far apart they are, and what polar responses) and then look up on
the graphs to see the appropriate recording angle and image shift. You
can find it here:
http://www.hauptmikrofon.de/ima2-folder/ImageAssistant2.html
Essentially, if you know how wide the soundstage you're trying to
capture is, and how wide you want it to be represented between a pair
of speakers, you can tweak the polar responses of the microphones, the
distance between them, and the angle between them until you find the
optimum positioning.
Of course, it is entirely theoretical but I have found it works
remarkably well when recording in concert halls and similar. Now I'm
wondering how well it applies to nature recordings, where the
recording angle (with omnis) is 180 degrees (therefore a 360 degree
pickup) and I'm trying to spread the reproduced sound evenly between a
pair of speakers set up in the standard equilateral triangle
recommended for stereo listening.
- Greg Simmons
P.S. Those familiar with Michael Williams' "The Stereophonic Zoom"
paper will recognise the graphs immediately. It can be found here:
http://www.rycote.com/information/
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