[LAU] best mic(s) for environmenal recording?

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 08:02:55PM +0200, prg at ichthyostega.de wrote:

> I did a lot of really stunning (classical) concert recordings with
> in-ear binaural mics. I.e. you really don't need a dummy head, if you
> are able to keep your own heard unmoved. It just requires a bit of
> discipline. Small movements don't hurt, they rather drastically
> improve the binaural imaging. The effect of different people
> having different head shapes (HRTFs) is noticeable, but for the
> purpose of just listening to music (and not doing angle measurements)
> this doesn't matter much. The effect when listening with good playback
> equipement and (open) headphones is really thrilling, quite immersive.
> I don't know any recording technique providing better this "live" 
> or "we are there" feeling combined with the possibility to use
> very high quality equipement at a moderate price tag (good 
> loudspeakers are a great deal more expensive).

A good way to listen to binaural recordings using speakers is to
use a 'stereo dipole' setup; speakers are close together so you
see an angle of 15 to 20 degrees between them, and the recording
is processed using a crosstalk cancelling convolution matrix.
The net result is that each ear only gets the signal from one
channel, as with headphones, but you can still move (a little
bit) and turn your head w.r.t the sound stage. It works even
better with a second pair at the back, using the same signals.
The only practical problem is that the 'sweet spot' is quite
small. If two persons want to listen at the same time they
should be one behind the other, not side by side.

The latest release of JACE comes with config and IR files to
do this. 


-- 
FA

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