Acoustic shells

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:00 pm

If you're going with 2 figure 8s, I'm assuming you mean with Blumleins?? I wouldn't try to null out HF peaks from the shells, the Beyers will do that just fine by taming the HF anyway. (Although not as much as Royer or AEAs...)

To what medium are you recording? It's unusual in today's technologically advanced era to not be able to matrix a MS.

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:22 pm

Pure simplicity: Mics -> Preamp -> A/D -> Recorder. I do have a firewire audio interface, but not with m/s matrixing.

Yes! Blumlein--I couldn't remember the name. I guess the thing to do is try both methods and see what happens. I could record to my laptop with the ribbons, and experiment with the matrixing after the fact. Then, if that's the ticket, I can look for a matrixing device of some sort to use on location.

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:00 pm

A dirt cheap mixer with 3 inputs on it will do fine for your recorder setup.

Take the outputs of the recorder, feed the "m" mic to channel 1. Take a Y cable output the left leg of the cable wired normally and the right leg with pins 2 and 3 reversed. Now, you can monitor from the headphone out of the cheap mixer to see if the balance or distance (more about distance than balance as the balance can be adjusted in post) is right.

Even a cheap little $29 Be***nger mixer with line inputs would work.

This should work too and not add too much to the load:
http://www.artproaudio.com/products.asp?type=90&cat=13&id=71

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 2:18 pm

Ultimately I'd need a matrix before the recorder, though, because I hand over the recording to the directors after their performances.

I wonder about using my Grace 101s. They've got dual outputs, so I could feed 2 mixer channels with 1 preamp, using 1 normal cable and 1 cable with the phase reversed. Is that the right terminology? Is there anything wrong with that electronically?

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 2:38 pm

Yes, that would work, but you'd need to combine the signals in your recorder. I'd hesitate to use the cheap mixer if it's in your signal path.

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 3:13 pm

This would just be for the purposes of experimenting with m/s. I'd still use my present setup, and at the same time, record to my laptop using the m/s setup. Then, I could evaluate the 2 methods side by side back at the ranch. If it works out, I'll pick up a really good mixer.

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:45 am

Cucco wrote:

...here in the United States of Build-it-cheaper-and-faster, we like to create multi-purpose rooms.

(Adopt Maxwell Smart voice)

Ah ha. The old 'theatre, lecture hall, cafeteria and gymnasium in the concert hall' trick.

That's the second time this week...

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:48 am

srs wrote:

This is just my own quest for perfection.

(Adopt Maxwell Smart voice)

Ah ha. The old 'quest for perfection in the acoustic shell' trick.

That's the second time this week...

Wink

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 7:40 am

I HATE acoustical shells and have HATED them since high school when I had to record our high school choir standing in front of one.

We do a lot with choral groups around this area and MOST of the time we don't have to worry about acoustical shells except for the one show that the local choir does in a converted movie theater. The results are always less than good and the whole recording process is made more difficult with the acoustical shell. We have tried most of the things mentioned here and one year we were able to convince the director to not use the shell but she said her singers could not hear themselves properly so in the end they erected the shell before the show. The most pleasing setup we have used is three matched omni microphones across the front of the stage in the first row of the theater. It works OK but it is not the best recording I could do. Oh well. I am sure Wenger makes a bundle off of selling them and it seems to be the "norm" for most middle school and high school choir setups. Most stage people HATE to set them up and in one case the topping board fell forward in the middle of the concert scaring everyone and pinning all my VU meters.

Oh well....

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