Question about mid side recording.

cfg

Member
I just bought a Shure MV88, which is a mic for iphones. So far I like it, but I'm confused about something. It has a mid side setting. Now I am brand new to mid side recording, but the one thing I have read and noted is that you have to set up the track properly in order to take advantage of the mid side function. However, when I play the mid side recorded track back on the iphone with headphones, I can hear music in both channels. The question is, what is it that I'm hearing? Is is just the mid, just the sides, or some other combination? I know I have to move it into a daw and set it up for mid side, but it would be nice to know exactly what I'm hearing first so I have some idea as to what I'm previewing.
 
Does the mic have 2 diaphragms? (i.e. a stereo mic) If not, then as BSG suggests, it's processing the sound by flipping the phase on one side. Problem with this is if you sum the left & right to mono, they cancel each other out.
 
According to the Shure site and MV88 manual, it's a real MS microphone, but most users will select one of the modes, like Singing, Acoustic, etc., and those do the processing to convert the MS recorded data to stereo (LR).

If you want to do the MS processing in a DAW, you need to set it to RAW mode. Then, after copying the two tracks (center and side) you'll have to duplicate the side track and flip polarity of one. (This is what I had to do with the Zoom H6 I had when using the MS capsule.)

I've heard some recordings with these and they can do a good job. Certainly a lot better than the built in mic, once you get the position right.

P.S. [MENTION=199965]cfg[/MENTION] - never hurts to start here:
Shure Publications | User Guides | ShurePlus MOTIV
 
That's a pretty cool little mic. Might have to pick one of those up. M/S recording on an iphone... nice.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

According to the Shure site and MV88 manual, it's a real MS microphone, but most users will select one of the modes, like Singing, Acoustic, etc., and those do the processing to convert the MS recorded data to stereo (LR).

If you want to do the MS processing in a DAW, you need to set it to RAW mode. Then, after copying the two tracks (center and side) you'll have to duplicate the side track and flip polarity of one. (This is what I had to do with the Zoom H6 I had when using the MS capsule.)

I've heard some recordings with these and they can do a good job. Certainly a lot better than the built in mic, once you get the position right.

P.S. [MENTION=199965]cfg[/MENTION] - never hurts to start here:
Shure Publications | User Guides | ShurePlus MOTIV

To be candid, I did read the manual before posting, but the manual didn't really address my question.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

To be candid, I did read the manual before posting, but the manual didn't really address my question.
What's the question? Is it that you have it set on MS RAW and hear 2 tracks, what is it? It's the center track in one ear, and the sides (in a single track) in the other ear.
 
The mic is an M/S design - in fact very similar to the mics Sony sold back in the 70s - which used the same principle. It has two capsules the cardioid and the figure 8. This is how M/S works - BUT - the Sony design outputs left and right as normal, with the matrixing done in the mic - and using the width control, you can adjust the stereo image from quite wide, with a noticeable 'hole' in the forward direction, through conventional stereo to full mono. A very handy system, but not what most of us think about when it comes to M/S, where we record the two capsules, and the do the de-matrixing on the replay signal. This means you can set the stereo width afterwards. With the Sony system, you set it before and once done, it is fixed, and you have a conventional stereo signal. You don't have to do anything apart from get used to how the width control works - using a pair of headphones setting it by listening to the width control. Forget all the stuff you have read about using mixer channels etc - you just have a stereo mic that uses M/S internally.

If you listen to real M/S on headphones it just sounds very strange - makes your head spin sometimes. Yours won't do this.
 
I confess I don't know, really, what you hear in the phone earbuds when recording with that mic, even in MS "raw" mode - it's always possible that it, or its app, is always doing some processing, but the manual is silent on that. I just answered what I'd expect to hear, and certainly what you'd hear once the tracks were copied into a DAW and before doing MS processing.
[MENTION=178786]rob aylestone[/MENTION] - as [MENTION=106439]cyrano[/MENTION] says, this mic actually allows output of the MS tracks, and not just the pre-configured, processed LR outputs.
 
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