> --- On Tue, 9/28/10, Rob Danielson <> wrote:
> From: Rob Danielson <>
> Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] Creating delrin mic supports for SASS
> To:
> Date: Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 1:38 AM
>
> ...
> I'm not sure whether it applies to others, but
> I've stopped using headphones for stereo imaging
> evaluation because the horizontal spread across
> the field is portrayed by many headphones as over
> the top of my head or through my head. It takes
> additional mental work to push the illusion out
> in front me whereas the spread naturally resides
> across the front with speakers. If the imaging
> works on speakers, it sounds good on all my
> headphone models 90% of the time. The reverse is
> much less true. Stereo imaging on speakers is
> more demanding and this lessens some the
> perceptual work.
> ...
I stopped using headphones because of other issues. If there's any phase c=
ancellation issues between L and R outputs, you don't hear that on headphon=
es. But you will on speakers, especially if the speakers are fairly close =
together. I was fighting for over a year because I thought that my mics la=
cked low end. Turns out that it was a phase cancellation issue. And more =
to do with my editing than other things. Constantly wondering why my headp=
hones had better low end than my speakers.
Apparently using sox to concat several files in addition to the speed effec=
t to adjust timing between devices results in the L and R channels somehow =
being adjusted differently. Ultimately resulting in enough drift between L=
and R channels to reach full phase reversal at about 20 minutes to 60 minu=
tes and maintain that for an equal amount of time. Not enough to reach the=
echo effect that reveals that there's a problem, but enough to cancel most=
of the low end in most of the recorded content. In conjunction with other=
things like too much fake fur for wind protection and you're left in a sta=
te of questioning your gear all the time, when it's not the gear at all. =
Ultimately I ended up processing each channel as a mono channel and rejoini=
ng after editing in a 400+ line bash script. And wow, what a difference. =
Granted that 200+ lines of that is to overcome the 4GB limit that sox + aud=
acity seem to get weird on. Sox creates them, audacity seems to open them,=
but then only gives you access to just that portion above 4GB. I would ha=
ve never thought that placing the mics and pressing record was the EASY par=
t of the gig. Meanwhile it takes longer to process my audio than it does m=
y HD video.
- James
|