Mid Side Miking Technique

[smrp]

A friend has a finalizer. He tracked an acoustic guitar using the MS technique and used his finalizer to decode it. I tried the same using "S1 MS" and got completely different results. Iwas very impressed with the finalizer and terribly unimpressed with S1.

Did I incorrectly assume that "S1 MS" has something to do with this miking technique? Or did I just do something wrong? I might like to use this in the future if I can get it to do what I want it to.

Please help.

[RMD]

you can also decode the recording yourself in protools. record the wide card/centre information on track one. record the figure 8 pattern on track two. duplicate track two onto track three and place it 180 degrees out of phase with track two. pan track one to centre, 3 & 4 hard left and right. lo and behold...rematrixed MS. season to taste.

cheers,
robert

[TDunn]

What is the Blumlein technique? Could you describe that for me? Thanks!

[smrp]

thanks for the tips! I think I'll try it again and see what happens.

[fab]

Hi,
I'm interested in the MS thing too.
2 questions:

1- can I compress the signals right after the mike pres, (and before decoding) through a stereo only compressor ( That's what I have on my tracking path)?

2-If my pres have a decoder built in (CML) do I need S1 on playback?

Thanks,

fab.

[Natural Sound]

Hi all,
Excuse my potential ignorance here, but I was having an MS discussion with a collegue.
My thought was that MS is fake stereo at best. (there can be no information that is on the left side that is not on the right side) But basically you cover your butt with the center mic should the product ever get put into mono. (in which case the fig8 mic dissapears)
His arugment was that there IS a left and right signal due to certain timing and phase relationships between the center and fig8 mic.
I don't get it though.
clue me in gang.

[Don Geppert]

TDunn .....

Blumlein Technique is a stereo recording process using 2 coincident bi-directional mics (figure 8 pattern) angled at 90º and as close together as possible. Otherwise stated, it is an X-Y technique using bi-directional mics instead of cardioid mics.

[TLmix]

check out this link. It explains in detail, but to sum it up.... the center cardiod mic is recored to 2 tracks... center. the figure 8 mic is recored to L in phase.. ( make sure the front of the mic faces left) the back of the mic (facing right) is phase reversed and recored to the right channel. This is how the immaging works. a center signal is disregarded by the figure 8 mic. If a signal is on the left (front side of the fig 8 mic) is sums with the center mic on the left side... and cancels with the out of phase fig 8 on the right.. thus panning the signal to the left. If a sound comes from the right ( the back of the fig 8 mic that has been phase inverted) Since the mic has been phase inverted, the back of the mic now outputs positive phase information on the right side, thus summing with the center mic on the right/ canceling on the left, and causing the sound to pan right.

I hope that makes sense... if not, check out the link

TL

http://www.paia.com/msmicwrk.htm

[punk]

I built a MS matrix using the schematic at the jensen xformer site as a guide:

http://www.jensen-transformers.com/as/as065.pdf

I put the mics through the decoder before the preamp.

One advantage of MS is that you can use different mics. So, if you're on a small budget and your best mics happen to be your matched pair, you don't have to commit them both to overheads.

just my 2 cents. YMMV.

byron

[SchoepsMS]

A friend has a finalizer. He tracked an acoustic guitar using the MS technique and used his finalizer to decode it. I tried the same using "S1 MS" and got completely different results. Iwas very impressed with the finalizer and terribly unimpressed with S1.<P>Did I incorrectly assume that "S1 MS" has something to do with this miking technique? Or did I just do something wrong? I might like to use this in the future if I can get it to do what I want it to.<P>Please help.

IMHO, the S1 isn't a very good M/S Decoder. The S1 shuffler is better due to the width control it offers. It wouldn't surpirse me if the finalizer sounds better. As already posted in the thread, duplicating and inverting one of the side tracks in your editor offers the most control and sounds best.

One nice thing about the shuffler is that you can enhance the width of certain frequencies, but you can also do that with an EQ on the side channel before decoding to AB stereo. Be careful of phase issues due to the eq however.

I prefer MS for most things stereo (albeit I'm mostly recording sound effects) but have found that ORTF is better suited for many ambience recordings. Primarily where there isn't a lot of dynamic intensity differences for MS to pickup. The MS option would be to use an omni or hyercardioid for the mid channel.

A real beauty of MS is that you can easily record in surround with just an additional cadioid (pointed opposite of the first) and a record track.

My deflated 2¢