The Band19


What worked best?

So far, I've only gotten a few hours of reading the theory behind M/S recording and a few youtube video's on the subject. 
As far as I've gotten to, the point it to record the "room" sound (Side?) with a Figure8 or bidirectional mic, and the "direct" sound (Mid?) with cardioid or omni-directional one.

So I should then use the Røde NTK as side, to capture the Room, and for instance the AKG D880 (pretty much the same as Shure Beta58 I think) as Mid.
Correcto? 

So this will look about the same as your setup, my Røde NTK as your Neumann u87AI and when I've recorded those two parts: 
- copy the Røde part (I will call it the Side from now) to a new track. 

- pan side track 1 to L
- pan side track 2 til R
- use Sonar (I use 8.5) and press the "phase invert" button on the track 
- adjust volume of both sidetracks to taste
- group two sidetracks and mid (AKG D880) together.


I dont need to build my own phase XLR cable, as mentioned in one of the youtube videos? Thats only for those who dont have the phase invertion switch in the DAW, correct? 

Channel Tools from Cakewalk, and MSED fro Voxengo, which is free, will process the two tracks thru a MS matrix for you.

You can learn to use them and you will not have to make the extra side track.


best regards,
mike

mike_mccue


Channel Tools from Cakewalk, and MSED fro Voxengo, which is free, will process the two tracks thru a MS matrix for you.

You can learn to use them and you will not have to make the extra side track.


best regards,
mike

Perfect Mike, will try to use Channel tools then :)


I think I have to run home to try to record something now! 

Neumann u87AI in a figure 8 pattern

The Band19


Nope, I record directly in front of this setup and it tastes great, lasts a long time :-) The mid is the Mojave Audio MA100 small diaphragm condenser at the bottom, and the side is the Neumann u87AI in a figure 8 pattern above it.

So, if I use my NTK, the best would be to set it up with the "backside" to the front? (as it is supposed to record the room)


The NTK is not figure 8, would your setup still work? :)

The Rode NTK is a fixed pattern microphone and cardioid it is. So it can only be used as the Mic pointing directly to the front or the M Mic. The Side Mic must be a proper figure 8 pattern for the combination to create an MS setup and work.

The setup that The Band19 has is perfect. And it is a simple matter to move the whole assembly around to various spots and I am sure Robbie has found the ideal sweet spot of the setup. I would start with it somewhere in front of the 12th fret.

I have been mixing a lot of acoustic tracks lately that have been recorded with a single microphone and to be honest they are easy to place in a mix and especially with other things around you would be hard pushed to hear any dramatic wide stereo images of the instrument. What is more impressive for me has been the fact that many of these tracks have had several acoustic guitar parts but still just on mono tracks. It is the panning and placement of these things which has a greater impact on the stereo sound one tends to hear. Especially when two parts are playing at once or there is some interaction between the parts.

If they were all in stereo it would be a bit of a hassle actually having to deal with multiple stereo images all the time.

Thanks Jeff, I'll probably just try to record in mono and see how that is going then :)

Update from yesterday: Tried to record with Røde NTK as side and AKG/Sennheiser (tried both) as M - was better than the first attempts but still not there I think.

I'll try to record in mono with them this weekend and see how that sounds.  

kristoffer

Neumann u87AI in a figure 8 pattern

The Band19


Nope, I record directly in front of this setup and it tastes great, lasts a long time :-) The mid is the Mojave Audio MA100 small diaphragm condenser at the bottom, and the side is the Neumann u87AI in a figure 8 pattern above it.

So, if I use my NTK, the best would be to set it up with the "backside" to the front? (as it is supposed to record the room)


The NTK is not figure 8, would your setup still work? :)

I believe the mic should support a figure 8 configuration? (I think that's a requirement) However, I don't walk on water when it comes to the deep engineering? But I've gotten some really good results using the aforementioned technique. There are so many good ideas though, and different techniques? I recommend trying several and doing a stare (i.e.  "listen") and compare. I make my recommendations based on my own trial and error. The error tends to be non-trivial. But if you do it enough times? And try different techniques? You can wind up with a pretty decent result, so stick with it! 

I haven't always done it this way, but this is how I do it now. By definition, I believe the fig 8 is required to get the proper "side" recording. And by positioning it, you can get it slightly left side? Or slightly right side, for panning/mix positioning as needed. Or right down the pipe.

Just a late pipe in here.  

Last night I was working on a new song with acoustic guitar and vocal.  I have a dynamic pointed at an angle off the 20th fret at the hole and I setup a vocal mic using a large diaphragm condenser which was right above the guitar.  The result...M/S micing!  The tone was beautiful.  

It then hit me that this is what you guys are talking about.  Funny thing is that the condenser was above the guitar facing me instead of a 90 degree angle to the guitar mic but hey - the combined sound was far superior than using either mike alone.  

Thanks for this thread.  Always great to learn more isn't it?

Rimshot

Hey Rimshot how is it going? Just remember though for true and correct M/S micing the large condenser needs to be in a true figure 8 pattern and it's diaphragm needs to be right next to or aligned with the direct Mic. The guitar sound is going directly into the null of the figure 8 hence it only picks up the non direct information. And from both sides too. When this is decoded though the proper means a normal stereo image comes out. 

I think what you are talking about is two microphones picking up the one source and the combination of the tones from the two mics is creating a tone that neither one can do alone. And often that sound is very nice too. Try mixing them to mono in various proportions and hear the amazing amount of variation. And variation that EQ cannot do alone either. It is the distance between the microphones that is creating the changes in the frequency response. Inserting tiny delays (or advancing <10ms) on one of the mics tracks on playback will also change things up too. Also try reversing the polarity of one of the tracks and hear another set of very useful and interesting tones. (All of these are sounds are equally relevant) 

Micing an electric guitar cab with two microphones is also a good idea. Placing one of them in a fixed position and moving the other various distances away. Mixing both of these in mono and varying the amounts of the mix from the two also produces quite radical changes in the tone you are hearing. Much more so also than any EQ can.

I still prefer all these approaches to Craig Anderton's fake stereo concept though. That to me does not work or sound good at all. But I am still to experiment with that concept too. I am still finding that as I mix a lot of tracks that contain great mono acoustic guitar tracks, is that the end result is still great and not even being in stereo is no big deal either.

Jeff - as I noted earlier I have actually had very cool results with Craig's approach. 

I used the settings he showed in his Advanced Workshop tutorial, and not from the Sound on Sound article. It works quite well if you have a good mono recording to start from.  

I suspect even if the original recording isn't 100% optimized in terms of positioning etc I would still think the technique could help an acoustic guitar sound better.

I hear kind of a Windham Hill type vibe with the technique. So I vouch for it.

If you're a pro, I would imagine you can try all kinds of mics and positionings.  This is just one method, but I'm glad I learned it from Craig's tutorial. (Tutorial is Chapter 16 in the Sonar X1 Advanced Workshop from Craig Anderton).