T
Tomeh
Member
Yes, I absolutely love the Blumlein figure eights in a great room.
I also have great respect for ORFT and tweaking the angle in anticipation for the speaker playback sound field. I have used it very successfully on string quartets and String quartets with piano. One set for the string quartet and another for the piano (live concert recordings as well).
The last time I did a live concert recording of this situation I used an ORFT in front of the traditional semi-circle formation of the string quartet so I could use the L_R pan position to create a realistic sound field width in the playback/speaker systems, then I could place the piano using the same technique in the sound field where it had actually been. I also used another ORTF pair at the center, front stage to "hear" for comparison the sound field of quartet and piano (panned hard left and right) dead center.
Now onto the "time alignment", yes you can un -due the real time delay between the arrival of the piano (behind the String quartet in this case about 15 feet) and the arrival of the quartet relative to the listening position out front.
I approach it as reconstructing the sound field from the best seat in the hall, usually the front row dead center for this purpose. I measure the hall's width, stage depth and plot out the quartets and piano's positions as well as where my reference listen position is (laser measurement has made this easy).
Then the arrive times are easy to calculate.
The third set of ORFT mic's at the front and center edge was a great way to verify this. I recorded on all three sets hand claps from the piano position and from the center of the quartets position. The high impulse makes it great to verify actuals against calculated.
Now to the practical or where the rubber meets the road.
1. The third set (reference set, at the front and center of the stage) gave me a very realistic sound from the room.
2. The hall wasn't a great venue. Heavily carpeted stage that the strings don't like, and about 2.2 sec RT60. So the 3rd set was useful for the time arrival check and knowing the "hall sound"
3. Both the piano (about 5' high, 3 feet back and looking into the mid point of the open lid) pair and Quartet pair ( fairly tight quartet about a 4' radius, with the pair about 3.5' out front and centered) gave a pretty dry sound (little hall content).
4. So I made the decision to create the sound field like the listener was 10' back from the quartet with the quartet going from speaker to speaker ( first violin left, viola slightly left of center, cello slight right of center and second violin to the right) panned hard left and right. Then I placed the piano around 42L and 42R which made it sound slightly back from/behind the quartet.
5. The only arrive time or phase alignment that anyone would possibly hear (but not know why) would be the piano and cello landing on the same lower/bass note at the same time. I used the difference between the arrive times when I clapped at the piano position (arrival at the quartet mic minus arrival at the piano mic) to offset the stereo quartet to be time aligned with the piano.
6. It's really close to around a msec per foot so it was close to the 15 msec.
7. The other useful thing for the hand claps is that I could add stereo room reverb to a dry hand clap recorded in my dead studio end until it matched the clap from the hall.
8. Then I added a very small stereo room reverb to the mix with the matching 2.2 RT60 time. It sounded like the hall but not muddy like the 3rd mic set did.
Relative to the beginning of this thread, I try to find out the elements that add up to create the offset in the final stereo mix, that the gentleman in the video was negating through software and for me to understand what contributes to this and whether it can be avoided or can actually be heard? He said that he is creating more head room but with digital capture and easy scaling it is easy to offset the complete mix? So is it detectable? I still think only in the lower bass, but by the end of the final mix was it a natural combination?? What are your thoughts?
It appears to me that once again the only place we might hear this is in the instruments in the lower bass region hitting the same note? The classic kick drum versus bass guitar or double bass or piano? If they are totally isolated when recorded and are playing with good timing, a simple check of inverting one of them should get you there like reversing an out of phase speaker. If they are recorded all together with mic bleed then I pick the reference spot, clap and check the arrival times, then check phase inversion??
I'm just hanging around my house while my garage door is being replaced, then I'll be heading back to the studio to continue mixing two projects. I'll try to remember the samples and get them to you. It is interesting how we hear the stereo pairs and the sum of the information.
Cheers,
Tom
I also have great respect for ORFT and tweaking the angle in anticipation for the speaker playback sound field. I have used it very successfully on string quartets and String quartets with piano. One set for the string quartet and another for the piano (live concert recordings as well).
The last time I did a live concert recording of this situation I used an ORFT in front of the traditional semi-circle formation of the string quartet so I could use the L_R pan position to create a realistic sound field width in the playback/speaker systems, then I could place the piano using the same technique in the sound field where it had actually been. I also used another ORTF pair at the center, front stage to "hear" for comparison the sound field of quartet and piano (panned hard left and right) dead center.
Now onto the "time alignment", yes you can un -due the real time delay between the arrival of the piano (behind the String quartet in this case about 15 feet) and the arrival of the quartet relative to the listening position out front.
I approach it as reconstructing the sound field from the best seat in the hall, usually the front row dead center for this purpose. I measure the hall's width, stage depth and plot out the quartets and piano's positions as well as where my reference listen position is (laser measurement has made this easy).
Then the arrive times are easy to calculate.
The third set of ORFT mic's at the front and center edge was a great way to verify this. I recorded on all three sets hand claps from the piano position and from the center of the quartets position. The high impulse makes it great to verify actuals against calculated.
Now to the practical or where the rubber meets the road.
1. The third set (reference set, at the front and center of the stage) gave me a very realistic sound from the room.
2. The hall wasn't a great venue. Heavily carpeted stage that the strings don't like, and about 2.2 sec RT60. So the 3rd set was useful for the time arrival check and knowing the "hall sound"
3. Both the piano (about 5' high, 3 feet back and looking into the mid point of the open lid) pair and Quartet pair ( fairly tight quartet about a 4' radius, with the pair about 3.5' out front and centered) gave a pretty dry sound (little hall content).
4. So I made the decision to create the sound field like the listener was 10' back from the quartet with the quartet going from speaker to speaker ( first violin left, viola slightly left of center, cello slight right of center and second violin to the right) panned hard left and right. Then I placed the piano around 42L and 42R which made it sound slightly back from/behind the quartet.
5. The only arrive time or phase alignment that anyone would possibly hear (but not know why) would be the piano and cello landing on the same lower/bass note at the same time. I used the difference between the arrive times when I clapped at the piano position (arrival at the quartet mic minus arrival at the piano mic) to offset the stereo quartet to be time aligned with the piano.
6. It's really close to around a msec per foot so it was close to the 15 msec.
7. The other useful thing for the hand claps is that I could add stereo room reverb to a dry hand clap recorded in my dead studio end until it matched the clap from the hall.
8. Then I added a very small stereo room reverb to the mix with the matching 2.2 RT60 time. It sounded like the hall but not muddy like the 3rd mic set did.
Relative to the beginning of this thread, I try to find out the elements that add up to create the offset in the final stereo mix, that the gentleman in the video was negating through software and for me to understand what contributes to this and whether it can be avoided or can actually be heard? He said that he is creating more head room but with digital capture and easy scaling it is easy to offset the complete mix? So is it detectable? I still think only in the lower bass, but by the end of the final mix was it a natural combination?? What are your thoughts?
It appears to me that once again the only place we might hear this is in the instruments in the lower bass region hitting the same note? The classic kick drum versus bass guitar or double bass or piano? If they are totally isolated when recorded and are playing with good timing, a simple check of inverting one of them should get you there like reversing an out of phase speaker. If they are recorded all together with mic bleed then I pick the reference spot, clap and check the arrival times, then check phase inversion??
I'm just hanging around my house while my garage door is being replaced, then I'll be heading back to the studio to continue mixing two projects. I'll try to remember the samples and get them to you. It is interesting how we hear the stereo pairs and the sum of the information.
Cheers,
Tom
