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Re: Microphones, microphone placement, stereo systems

Subject: Re: Microphones, microphone placement, stereo systems
From: "hartogj" hartogj
Date: Wed Apr 7, 2010 9:09 am ((PDT))

--- In  Rob Danielson <> wrote:
>
> At 1:03 AM +0000 4/7/10, Robin wrote:
> >
> >
> >Dan Dugan wrote:
> >
> >>  Mono recording piles everything together, and
> >>  some sounds obscure others. That is not how
> >>  humans hear--we hear in three dimensions.
> >
Robin wrote:
> >This is confusing two issues but it will take me a bit to explain
> >why. We humans do indeed hear with ears that pick up sounds from all
> >directions, but some directions are heard louder -- a lot more --
> >than others. And of course this directionality is frequency
> >dependent, with higher frequencies being much more directional (see
> >HRTF).
Rob wrote:
> I think Dan's is a good reduction. It takes two mics, two points in
> space to create differences for the brain to go to work on.
>

Take a piece of paper (or an leaf from a tree, if you are out in the field)=
, imagine your microphones in the center, fold the paper in half - back to =
front, and roll it into a tube - side to side. This would be a mono recordi=
ng that still preserves a sense of depth from differences between point and=
 reverberant sounds of a sound scape. Unroll that paper and this is can rep=
resent a stereo soundscape with good left to right localization but still b=
ack to front folding of the dimensional space. Unfold the paper and this is=
 what binaural or additional channels over simple stereo have the potential=
 to offer. Of course this is all an over simplification. Binaural recording=
s can have a disconcerting compression to the center for sounds from direct=
ly behind the mics, and multichannel as Rob points out can loose the sense =
of distance beyond the listening environment.

John Hartog









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