Posted by: "oryoki2000"
>
> Good points about why stereo is superior
> to monaural. Mono has its uses, however.
> For example, mono is often used for species
> ID work, particularly when recording with
> a parabola. There are parabolas that are
> equipped to make a stereo recording, but
> most are not.
Actually for species ID work you do want to use stereo. That way you
get to hear the call a lot more clearly without all the rest mixed with
it. It gets even more important if one is dealing with multi-species
calling, like for instance the frog work I do. In mono often one would
only be able to pick out the louder species, but because of the
directionality even the very quiet ones can be picked out from the loud
ones in stereo.
Yes there are still people doing it in mono, it's cheaper to set up.
But even those folks see the value of stereo in my recordings.
> Another example is ENG-style interviewing,
> where you want to capture the speaker and
> de-emphasize other sound. If I remember
> correctly, this is the reason the original
> poster was asking about mono input.
As I pointed out if you want to pick out the individual calls, even
human calls, then stereo separates them from everything else in a way
that our hearing will be able to separate them out the best.
Your other choice is in the polar pattern of the mics you choose. But
even a parabolic picks up a lot of off axis sound.
ENG is a bit outside of Nature Recording topics, BTW. But when ABC news
interviewed me recently they were using a lovely brand new Sony HDTV
camera capable of recording stereo. (you don't want to ask the price of
that camera ;-) They happily borrowed my stereo Telinga and went
recording with it for the background behind the interview. If you are
doing ENG the way they did it each of us was fitted with a mic and the
interview (recorded at a nearby marsh) plus Telinga stereo (plus
frogcalls from other recordings) were all going to be mixed into a
stereo feed. Even the interview channels were being recorded by the
camera, though there was a soundman with his kit handling getting the
sound. Digital TV is stereo and these guys were well versed in recording
stereo. Or at least what passes for stereo these days.
Walt
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