Will be using a pair this weekend to record the Beethoven ***tet (2hn,2vln,vla,vc) and the Chausson Piano Trio Op.3. I have not decided as to whether to use them M/S or Blumlein. Requests? I'll only get one shot since it's live not memorex.

Royer R-101 M/S or Blumlein

John, cool to ask and right on!

My request would be Blumlein for those but I think you are far more experienced at this than the majority, including me. :redface:

Hey, since you asked ya! ... for a reference to this thread and for me too, since I will be doing a few of these this spring using my Royers! If you could be so kind to explain the pro's/con's to M/S vs Blumlein, where you'll place the mics and any other reference to this, why you would choose one over the other... a great reference and opening for the R-101's!

I think one of the main advantages of M/S is the ability to adjust the width of the soundstage. Also, it tends to pick up the hall for more ambience. I use M/S quite a bit on large groups or a spread out small chamber group. Think of it as the tiniest of Decca trees if you will though the array won't be in the middle of the group necessarily.

Blumlein works quite well if you have a smallish group or as the center portion of a larger mic array. It's quick, easy, and gets the job done. In a less than stellar hall, I will often go to this pattern as a way to mitigate things not of the performers.

In the places I record here, I usually complement either of these fairly close up techniques with omni A-B back in the crowd. This can help me add a little diffusion or warmth into a mix that might be otherwise too "in your face" or where someone in the group sticks out too much.

Cucco, Joe H, and others will definitely have input into pros and cons as they do far more work than I do.

Thanks for sharing John! I'm used to performing in big rooms but not recording them. Its all new to me so I'm asking everything I can!

The Royer R-101 are bidirectional mics (figure-8 pattern)
Can you use two bidirectional mics for M S?

Are you using the FF800 for this?

we're famous already?
Royer R-101 Blumliem - Google Search

Yes. In fact many stereo mics are designed/used this way. Set up one way (say blumlein) and if you don't like it, rotate the array 45° and try the other. Just decode the side channel only in the DAW. I have used MS technique with an omni as the mid in certain situations as well.

My signal path will be R101-->True Precisian8-->FF800-->split into HD24XR/Glyph hdd(Reaper64).

What do you mean

decode the side channel in the DAW

?

The following is sort of a Barney style representation so remember it's analogy:

Well, there are two ways to decode M/S signals. Remember that you are in essence taking three microphones (L+M, M, M+R*) and making two signal paths for the stereo image (ignoring for now if the mid mic is fig8 or omni). The first way to decode this is with a mic preamp with a built in decoder. My Precision8 has a mid side decoder built into channels 1/2 but rarely use that, choosing instead to manually decode if you will with option 2. In the preamp version of this decoding, you adjust the width of the sound field by how much of channel 2 (S) that you crank up.

Option 2 is to decode the two raw tracks in a DAW. Leave Mid alone. Create a third track and dublicate your S signal onto this track. Invert the polarity of this 3rd track and pan it hard right (depending on how you oriented your original S microphone). Go back to your original S track and pan this one hard left (opposite the duplicated track).

Now you have three tracks: M/S+/S-. I take this one step further and create a bus which I send the signals (post fader) from the now two side tracks. I then move the bus track to be adjacent to the Mid track. Now you can easily adjust the stereo image. In my methodology I start by getting the Mid track to the point I like it and then bring up the Side bus to match tastefully.

A third option is to decode the raw tracks with a plugin like MSED. I usually only use a plugin if I am altering an already recorded 2-bus mixdown without having any original tracks.

This isn't really explained very well to my taste but I'm sort of doing about six things at once here while watching my 13mo.

*This is better explained with pictures http://www.wesdoole…

http://www.wesdoole…

I like to track with Reaper for sure. I'm still most comfortable working with Audition3 for manipulation etc likely because I've been using it for so long. On projects without deadlines I am forcing myself to learn more about Reaper. I am running the 64bit version on Win7 64.

Wow, I have my reading list now. Thanks for chiming in to explain this all!

Looking forward to hearing how you and others like the R 101's .

Cheers!

But, hehehe... Back to your project. I'm thinking M/S is the better solution for this concidering less than perfect room acoustics and audience level yes?

I like M/S quite a bit. It is my default for "close" micing classical chamber ensembles. I'll probably have some spots on the piano too depending on time allotted for set up. I'm also playing in the Beethoven so I have to split my concentration. Provided they don't turn on the heat, the hall is very nice sounding. The heat however is steam/radiator. clank clink clank psshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

This explains MS and Blumlein pretty well in addition to recommendations for specific instruments.

What an excellent manual, thanks for posting that.

Do you tape the ends or use something that keeps the two mics tight together? Is that critical in Blumlein?

BLUMLEIN with Royer Ribbon and Piano

Looking at this as a Blumlein technique example on Piano tips here http://www.royerlabs.com/recordingtips.html

Looks like they are taped?

I'm looking here for visual examples on doing this with an Orchestra [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.royerlab…"]Royer Microphone - Recording Tips Orchestra and Strings[/]="http://www.royerlab…"]Royer Microphone - Recording Tips Orchestra and Strings[/] but I only see more isolated config. How would you either M/S or Blumlein in front of the orchestra? You don't happen to have any live images around do you? Oops, I see we could do the same with the 101's like the example of a

simple miking technique for full orchestra using one stereo Royer SF-24. The placement is 4-5 feet behind, and several feet above, the conductor

.

This would be the same similar setup for what you are planning but somewhat more difficult with two separate Royers?

The SF24 image you describe is exactly how I use MS on an orchestra. A different technique would be to use your stereo mic (SF12 or SF24) in place of the center mic in a decca array and a R101 in left and right position. Basically any way you can imagine a variation just like when using condensers or tube condensers. Another useful method: Place a M/S array like you describe (SF12) and then a R101 halfway between conductor and back desk violin and another R101 halfway between conductor and the principal bass-same height and angle and on the same horizontal plane as the SF12.

I have not usually taped the ends of the mics. Often when I have used MS on a group, I use a C391 with a C394 piggy backed on top of it. When I use the C414's I use the bottom one straight up in card and an upside down perpendicular C414 in figure 8. In both versions I get them as close as possible without touching. Now the way the Royers shape up, I might consider taping them. What I really want is an SF12 to go with this pair. Then a pair of MA100's. Then...........

Chris,
FWIW -
Using M/S in a bad room isn't necessarily better than Blumlein. In fact, it can be worse! For those situations, a good pair of cardioids in ORTF is likely a FAR better solution.

The reason being - The rear lobe of the Mid mic will pick up the "bad" room at an equal volume as the dead-center image of the recording. Not so good. Also, if the group is too small for the stage (say a bad, multi-purpose theater with a 7 piece ensemble that doesn't know how to fill out the hall), you're likely going to get a very washy sound with M/S. Moving in a Blumlein so that the caps are pointing to the very outer edge or just slightly in from that will actually do pretty well. Just be sure to keep all of the instrumentalists in a line-of-sight to the elements. This means angling the mics downward to get all of the instrumentalists on a visual plane.

I've got a pic and a clip somewhere that shows an SF12 used in Blumlein over a large ensemble with the elements aimed down roughly 20 degrees. If I can dig it up, I'll post it here.

Cheers-
J

Another FWIW Chris -

That pic that you posted with the Royer over the orchestra -
Unless there's some serious image distortion going on, that mic is too low. The last rows of brass will sound like they're in a different zip code from the rest of the musicians!

Cheers-
J.

Hey John,

How did you like the Royer R-101's?

admin, post: 356015 wrote: Hey John,

How did you like the Royer R-101's?

/
I liked them quite a bit. Despite Cucco's warning about positioning, I missed. I used Blumlein and I did tape the mic's together. I chose a straight ahead 45 from center and about eight feet above the stage height (everyone was seated). The spread was too wide for that height. The True P8 worked great on the ribbons. I had them set at about 55dB of gain. Despite being a matched pair, I heard differences in the mic's but nothing that makes them unusable. The sound is very very nice. I am very taken with them and I think if I had some other omni to grab just a few of the highest freq's to subtly blend in it might be even better. A little icing as it were. I am hopefully finishing this recording up tomorrow. I'll provide a link to some of the tracks. The whole Beethoven is about 780MB @ 88.2/24 so OfficeLive gave me the finger when I tried to upload it just now. Ignore the 1st horn. He's a moron for not planning his day better. You'll hear on the recording every note he played that day sans warmup benefit and too much coffee. (wife and M-I-L and baby didn't help)

Now I had no sound check and no dress rehearsal recording. This was gut and go. It's a very nice small hall to play in and my favorite to record in. The heat was off so that was great. No ssssssteammmmmmm. The light bar created unanticipated noise but not bad and something I'll remember in the future (new feature since I last recorded there several years ago). From a brass player perspective it sucked. All the gear is in the 800# total range and had to be carried from my truck up several flights of stairs and in (which all you location guys understand I know); set up as lickety split as I can; throw some air onto the mic's; go get out my horn and sit down and play. Not good for fine motor control of the embouchure and abdomen. And Murphy showed up. I had one firewire cable that got AFU sometime over the summer (bad end that needs to be recrimped), and I lost my ADAT sync with the HD24XR. I haven't had time to sus that out yet. It might be a bad cable or maybe in my hurry I jacked up the jack-nothing is Marine proof after all. It also might be that I started out on Reaper and whatever session loaded up wasn't allowing my direct monitoring so I went to Audition. It fired right up but the new driver gui threw me a little and the clock was drifting until I thought I had it fixed in the short moments before the concert began. Clearly this was a case of not following my own advice of a dry run with the gear (at least for the first concert of the season!) but I'd never had this trouble before. Thanks Murph.

Ya... what a riot. Wish I was there John! You got to love those wham bam gigs. They really get the blood going.

I've been told that all the Royer mics are built to such high standards they they are basically matched. I'll have to ask if this is different with the R-101's. Maybe John Jennings will chime in here and talk a bit more on them.

Thanks for sharing all this John!

Well tonight I used them to record the wife's school orchestra concert. It was a mediocre hall and I went with Blumlein again. The mic's are serialized so mic's were in the same top/bottom and left/right orientation. I did place them back a little further and higher than they were for Sunday's chamber concert. First impressions-the trumpets and bones didn't stick out as bad as usual. Everything blends pretty well for what it is.

Okay. Here are some samples. I hate MP3. They sound different than the originals but I think enough to get an idea. The Chausson and Beethoven were recorded same concert. This is the concert I felt the angle of the Blumlein as off but had no set up time to monkey with it. The third excerpt is from my wife's high school orch concert Tuesday. I used Blumlein again and had pulled (relatively speaking) the array back a bit more than the chamber concert from Sunday. I used about 57dB gain on the Chausson and Beethoven and about 55dB gain on the Berlioz arrangement.

John, Thanks for sharing! but I can hardly hear those. They are so short too, like 2 secs.

I need to start sharing my tracks too. We sure need our own audio server. That last time I uploaded music was when I was publishing Liquid Audio back around 2001. What a cool concept that flopped.

I see you are on your host. Have you tried others out? Soundcloud has great sounding tracks from what I've heard. I may try that. I'd love to hear a better res on these.

Well....first I broke the links. Second, I encoded these as MP3 Pro and they aren't working write in html players. (I really have to figure that out because it's driving me apeshit on my website. I am not a webmaster!!!) However, if you right click and download the mp3 to your computer you can hear the whole thing.

Remember, the Chausson and Beethoven, the mic array was too close to the stage and the image was too wide for the group. Also the 1st violin came through way too hot on the mic's because she was closest and her f holes were pointed more or less right at the Blumlein array. The school recording array was also Blumlein but was further from the stage. I'm not real happy with the chamber performance recording because of this. Part of it was the virgin run for the microphones and part was my not having used Blumlein in a long time. Usually I use MS or A-B or some variant of Decca.