Never done it with a condenser mic (interesting idea, though...) I've used ribbons for some M/S stuff...the natural figure 8 pattern seems to be perfectly suited for that application.

As long as the Mid is cardiod, it should be bueno...

I've heard of people doing this, it should work fine. You would probably want to avoid those models (like the Royer 121/122, I think?) that have an offset ribbon where the response is different on each side.

Mike Barrs

When doing M-S micing, I prefer to have 2 mics that are a bit more matched in timbre... When I use ribbons, I use 2 ribbons for M-S work, otherwise it is 2 condensers.

That said, there is no reason why you can't do it. As Mike said, watch the ribbons with differing sounds on both sides like the Royers. You'd do much better with Coles, RCA, Beyer etc...

--Ben

Thank you gentlemen for the advice. It never even ocurred to me that the R121 might not be the ideal mic, even after listening to the recordings on the Royer site demonstrating the differences between the back and front :?

Sometimes I can be a bit slow to pick these things up :lol:

John

I believe that, according to Royer, the difference between the front and back responses of their mics is because the ribbon is closer to one side than the other and therefore, the proximity effect is more pronounced on one side than the other. (I think they have a patent on this idea.)

If that is correct, then at the distances the sounds should be coming from in a normal MS setup, this really should not matter.

I know there are some Royer fans on this board. From your experience, do the two sides sound the same from a distance?

Michael

Not in my experience... The ribbon is indeed offset, but what I've heard doesn't seem like the result of proximity effect.

--Ben