Members joel Oporto Posted December 16, 2006 Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 I've just had a heated discussion with someone who says that he uses a single TLM 170 in figure 8, and split the signal to get a stereo recording without any other microphone. Is that possible?If its possible I've never heard anybody do that! what gives? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members where02190 Posted December 16, 2006 Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 Nope. If they had another mic as the mid mic, they could have set up an M-S pair, but it takes 2 mics. One mono mic can never make stereo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jonmatifa Posted December 16, 2006 Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 Unless its a stereo mic..... but a figure 8 is a figure 8.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members joel Oporto Posted December 16, 2006 Author Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 thats precisely what I said, One ear does not in stereo hear!!! One speaker does not in stereo deliver!!! And that one from somebody who says he has been in the business for 15 yrs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TheLuxLife Posted December 16, 2006 Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 Originally posted by joel Oporto thats precisely what I said, One ear does not in stereo hear!!!One speaker does not in stereo deliver!!!And that one from somebody who says he has been in the business for 15 yrs. There are quite a few people in the business who don't know what they're talking about. -J.P. LUX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 16, 2006 Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 No bloody kidding. Some choice examples come to mind. I can think of one guy who was responsible for some good engineering and production on some now-classic albums from decades ago who now heads up a technology company and who's been quoted in the tech press as saying some things that show he doesn't know jack about how digital sound actually works. Then there are the people who get snookered in by patently unscientific claims made for some moderately expensive gear -- and the celebrity endorsers who've been pressed into service to make those unscientific claims in the wake of severe criticism of the companies marketing claims from actual authorities on digital audio. Let's face it. Most of us doing recording and producing are NOT scientists. I have a LITTLE science background, due to a well rounded education, but I would have been an English major if I'd ever matriculated. I started learning about recording because my punk band couldn't afford to go to a real studio. But *I* catch people in some pretty big misconceptions about digital audio all the time. (And, of course, occasionally, the one with the misconceptions is me. ) Anyhow... the fact that most of us have highly spotty knowledge bases is not a big deal. What's a problem is when those who don't know what they're talking about set themselves up as defacto authorities and then the misinformation simply spreads out from them. If you want to see how bad things can get -- just look at the world of "audiophile" sound... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted December 16, 2006 Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 Ohh, nice, from now on I can record discreet figure eight quadrophonic with the two TLM 170 . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted December 16, 2006 Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 Just tested, it works!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 16, 2006 Moderators Share Posted December 16, 2006 At the risk of sounding like an idiot and it does seem I've taken that risk frequently lately... I'd like to say, I think the guy with the "stereo" figure 8 has a point. By duplicating that signal from his figure 8, then reversing polarity on the duplicate, you're recreating the physical phenomenon the ribbon or diaphragm is experiencing. Is the sound hitting the right side of the figure 8? That is represented in our + version. Does it hit the left side? That is represented in our - duplicate. Any thing in between those extremes pull less than full left or right creating an analogy of the stereo picture. Now we bring up both of those faders and pan them out and the sound will pull left or right according to what actually happened in that room when it was recorded. The mid mic is so the whole thing doesn't disappear in mono and to bring a solid center in stereo. He's right guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 16, 2006 Moderators Share Posted December 16, 2006 Originally posted by joel Oporto thats precisely what I said, One ear does not in stereo hear!!!One speaker does not in stereo deliver!!!And that one from somebody who says he has been in the business for 15 yrs. Or to use your analogy, picture a head with one ear drum in the center of it's head. He's still got two ears though. Sound that comes in the right ear would push that single ear drum in one direction and from the left would push that single ear drum in the opposite direction. It's pretty easy to extract that information and create a stereo picture. No? That's all a MS matrix does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Not Serial Posted December 16, 2006 Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 i completely disagree with the above two posts. in the first example the result would be L+R and an inversion of L+R. this cannot be stereo no matter how you pan. take an undecoded M/S recording and mute the M while still running S into the decoder. you do not get stereo. i use M/S a great deal of the time and work with it daily, you cannot get stereo out of a figure 8 mic without modifying the mic to output two discreet signals, and this would NOT be a figure 8 mic at this point, it would be a dual cardioid stereo mic. the stereo information derived from the figure 8 mic in an M/S configuation is in conjunction with the Mid signal and only with the Mid signal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Extreme Mixing Posted December 16, 2006 Members Share Posted December 16, 2006 Sorry, Lee, but you're wrong on this one. What you're suggesting would just reverse the polarity of the original compared to the duplicate. You have to think of a fugure 8 mic as a mono source. Yes, it hears from both sides, but sums the information to mono before sending it out of the microphone. The only way to get stereo out of a figure 8 , is to record another mic along with it in a coincident physical position then run through an M/S matrix. A-B will generate a different result than A+B. A-A always equals 0. By the way, I really dislike the sound of M/S stereo. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 16, 2006 Share Posted December 16, 2006 Originally posted by Angelo Clematide Ohh, nice, from now on I can record discreet figure eight quadrophonic with the two TLM 170 . That would be Blumlein stereo, not quad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 16, 2006 Moderators Share Posted December 16, 2006 Well it seems I've proven my case... I'm an idiot! I was speaking from my recollection of the theory and not from practical experience so admittedly I stuck my neck out knowing the risk and it has been severed. Still my memory is of a single figure 8 before the cardiod was potted up. Seems my memory's foggy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Martin Kantola Posted December 17, 2006 Members Share Posted December 17, 2006 Originally posted by Extreme Mixing By the way, I really dislike the sound of M/S stereo. Steve Yes, Lee is all wrong here. But let's talk about the "sound of M/S stereo" a bit... How about trying this: Set up a classic M/S stereo with two identical multi-pattern mikes, one set to fig-8 and the other to cardioid. What is is about this sound that you dislike? Next, set the second mike to fig-8 too (which is a variation of M/S). Do you also dislike this resulting sound? Next, rotate your microphones by 45 degrees so that the front side of the mikes face forward. How does it sound now? Try listening again, but drop the phase-reversed(inverted) channel and pan the two remaining channels hard left and right. How about this sound? Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 17, 2006 Moderators Share Posted December 17, 2006 Originally posted by Martin Kantola Yes, Lee is all wrong here. Ouch! But apparently the truth:) . Can someone explain how the Mid mic interacts with the Side mic to do it's magic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Extreme Mixing Posted December 17, 2006 Members Share Posted December 17, 2006 No worries Lee. All of the mics have to be in the same physical position. Then A-B equals one side of the figure 8 microphone and A+B equals the other side of the figure 8 mic. Pan the center mic in the middle, then pan one of the figure 8s left and the other side goes right wiith the polarity reversed. That gets you the sum of A-B and A+B, which would be a stereo image. To answer the other question, I just don't like the sound of M/S and the way it makes me feel. I always think it sounds a little phasey compared to just a coincident pair or an A/B pair. Maybe it's because I know it's out of phase, and maybe it's because I really hear it. I've always been pretty sensative to phase issues--I can hear that a mile away. I just feel that since you HAVE to use 2 mics to get stereo, why not use two that are in phase and listening to two things, rather than trying to have them hear EXACTLY THE SAME THING, and then reverse the phase to get stereoi. Truth is that they can never be in the same place at the same time, and the cancellation will never be perfect. Why not just accept that reality, and mic in stereo? Sometimes I like XY, and sometimes I like AB. XY is a more accurate recording of the room, and AB is wider than reality. M/S is really just trying to be XY, but both mics can't occupy the same physical space, so it's never really true. Do what you like. Hits are recorded both ways. You only have to answer to yourself on this stuff on this stuff. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus Lozada Posted December 17, 2006 Share Posted December 17, 2006 Originally posted by joel Oporto I've just had a heated discussion with someone who says that he uses a single TLM 170 in figure 8, and split the signal to get a stereo recording without any other microphone. Is that possible?If its possible I've never heard anybody do that! what gives? Well... surely he believes that an OMNI microphone records in Surround, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members joel Oporto Posted December 17, 2006 Author Members Share Posted December 17, 2006 Boy I would have to admit that I am a true novice when it comes to stereo miking, I probably only use X-Y or spaced array and haven't really tried out those other stuff. But one thing that I am pretty sure of is my Civil Engineering surveying class. My analogy of stereo placement and capture is that of what is called baseline triangulation. Given 2 known points (A and B)in an X-Y axis, you can draw a line (A-B)as the baseline, any point © in 2 dimensional space can be located if any of several data can be acquired. 1) angle from the point C and the baseline from A or B.2) distance of C from either A or B and a corner angle3) in the case of radio transmissions as in World War II, intensities of the radio signal C to A and C to B will give the angles CBA or CAB so given the known distance A-B you can traingulate by trigonometry, the exact location of point C with regards to point A or B in a grid. All points in the 2D can then be plotted into a map using the triangulation technique without actually leaving point A or B just measure the angles to those points.Interestingly this is how the FBI locates your cellfones from its transmissions. Now I have always believed this is how our own ears and mind works, but not as studiously and perhaps a little more suggestive and prescient. With that I've always believed you can never pinpoint a sound source much less portray one in 2d space or "stereo" if you do not have a baseline to triangulate from. Just as you cannot have stereo sound from one speaker or hear stereo with only one ear. Our natural baseline is the line from one ear to the other. Our stereo baseline are the two speakers A(L) and B®. Increase the distance of A and B, your space resolution and accuracy increases (widen the stereo field or zoom-in ), decrease the distance and the opposite happens until a point where you get mono space. The same thing happens if you move in closer to that baseline or move out away from the baseline.I also believe this triangulation works with most of our senses as we have 2 ears, 2 eyes(which gives us depth of field), 2 noses. (don't you just wonder why we can pinpoint where that ugly odor comes from?) That is actually why I'll always have a hard time believing that you can capture stereo if you only have a single point of capture and no baseline. What gave me doubts though was that I am not familiar with the TLM170 and that maybe this guy was doing a modification of a mono microphone that has two capsules by separating the signals recieved by each capsule into two separate signals, then that would be stereo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members joel Oporto Posted December 17, 2006 Author Members Share Posted December 17, 2006 Thanks guys I'm much more relieved!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Martin Kantola Posted December 17, 2006 Members Share Posted December 17, 2006 Originally posted by Extreme Mixing All of the mics have to be in the same physical position. Yes... Let me say before we get deeper into the subject that I never used or liked the sound of a typical M/S setup either, but... I always think it sounds a little phasey compared to just a coincident pair or an A/B pair. ...M/S is a coincident technique... you just said so in the quote above. Or? Maybe it's because I know it's out of phase, and maybe it's because I really hear it. Have a feeling that you've either been using way too much S-signal (which produces an "over-wide" stereo image) or then maybe you've mixed two different microphone models or types. That would produce all kinds of unpredictable results for sure if you ask me. M/S is not "out of phase" any more than X/Y... But if you listen to mostly S you hear the difference between L and R and that's like flipping the polarity on one of your speakers, not very pleasant. You need enough M in there too. I just feel that since you HAVE to use 2 mics to get stereo, why not use two that are in phase and listening to two things, rather than trying to have them hear EXACTLY THE SAME THING, and then reverse the phase to get stereo. In M/S, the two microphones are capturing/hearning two very different things, in fact sometimes even more so than with X/Y... Truth is that they can never be in the same place at the same time, and the cancellation will never be perfect.(...) M/S is really just trying to be XY, but both mics can't occupy the same physical space, so it's never really true. Horizontally speaking, they can be just as coincident as your X/Y pair. Only capsule and grille size is the limiting factor. Do what you like. Hits are recorded both ways. You only have to answer to yourself on this stuff Steve, the great thing about a forum like this is that we get to share both what we feel, know and do. Why not try my little suggested experiment sometime? And Lee, don't feel bad, have a look at this instead, except for a minor technical detail you were absolutely right. :-) http://www.pearl.se/etl4.htm Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Martin Kantola Posted December 17, 2006 Members Share Posted December 17, 2006 Originally posted by joel Oporto What gave me doubts though was that I am not familiar with the TLM170 and that maybe this guy was doing a modification of a mono microphone that has two capsules by separating the signals recieved by each capsule into two separate signals, then that would be stereo. Yep, this is what the Pearl microphone does! Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members joel Oporto Posted December 17, 2006 Author Members Share Posted December 17, 2006 I kinda thought that was what he was doing to his TLM 170 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Not Serial Posted December 17, 2006 Members Share Posted December 17, 2006 M/Sworks well in problematic rooms, as you can dial out the phase incoherence to a degree. it is never my favorite pattern, but in some sitauations it is the best alternative. if an exagerated image is your goal, then a Fletcher pattern may be the best bet. patterns are just tools. a mechanic does not use a screwdriver when he needs a torque wrench. which pattern i choose depends on location, ensemble, and personal preference. i admittedly use a spaced pair on rare occasion, as i generally despise a spaced pair due to incoherence. sometimes it is the best choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Extreme Mixing Posted December 17, 2006 Members Share Posted December 17, 2006 Wow Martin. Let me get this straight. We both came to the same conclusion on M/S technique--you said you never use is or liked the sound--but then you go on to infer that I must not completely understand how it works, or that I must be doing something wrong, or not using matched microphones. How condescending and rude of you! You say that M/S is no more prone to phase problems than XY technique. I say that you are completely wrong here. In fact, M/S relies implicitly on polarity to derive any stereo perspective at all. But you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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