Excellent questions Scott. Thank you!
"Wavy" is the best word I've found so far to describe a phenomenon I've noticed
consistently for many years on recordings captured with ORTF, M-S and
spaced-omni arrays. Not a partial blending toward mono, but rather a very
subtle but audible "jitter" or "inter-channel instability" in these non-baffled
arrays. Sorry, that's the best I can do at describing it. The common thread
would seem to be non-baffled. Introduce baffles/barriers, especially adjacent
to the mics (either perp. or flush), and it seems to almost always disappear.
I've been able to greatly reduce the effect in ORTF-type pairs by moving the
two mics closer and closer to each other until, at some point, depending on the
mics, the "wavy" effect seems to become unnoticeable. Of course, the desired
stereo width gets reduced too.
Why this would occur in M-S recordings is absolutely beyond me, but it's almost
always there.
Curt Olson
Scott Fraser wrote:
>> The SASS-type rigs deliver a super clean image without any of the "wavy"
>> microphone interactions that are common to ORTF, M-S and Spaced-Omni arrays.
>
> Could you describe what you mean by "wavy"? Given how vastly different ORTF,
> MS & Spaced Omni are from each I can't imagine what characteristic they would
> all have in common. Are you referring to the partial blending toward mono of
> any non-baffled array?
>
> Scott Fraser
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