1-Mic Recording

[combatentropy]

I had heard of ribbon mics, mostly that they were old-school and fragile. It wasn't until 9 months ago that a thread here got me thinking more about them (1940's Dialog Sound/Microphone - What is it?). The more demos I watched, the more remarkable they became. They seem to work the way amateurs think microphones work: you just put it in the general vicinity, and it will sound nice and clear.

Technically those videos were recorded with two microphone capsules embodied, as a stereo pair, into one package: the AEA R88. But you can exploit a ribbon mic's natural figure-eight pattern and record two people talking. The figure-eight pattern will be pointed at each of them, and sound coming at it from the sides will be severely dampened. So, there will be less echo than you would think given how far it is.

 

[Braindead@70]

Wow....great tutorial!

 

[Bruce Watson]

But you can exploit a ribbon mic's natural figure-eight pattern and record two people talking. The figure-eight pattern will be pointed at each of them, and sound coming at it from the sides will be severely dampened. So, there will be less echo than you would think given how far it is.

Figure-8 mics have been used since the dawn of audio recording. They are in the original Blumlein patents for the invention of modern stereo.

A figure-8 pattern is more restrictive and therefore directional than most current shotgun mics, the out-of-pattern fall off is the smoothest and most uncolored of any pattern, and the nulls are the deepest of any pattern.

The rear lobe of the pattern is often thought to be a mirror image of the front lobe, but this is seldom the case. You'll get this primarily from single diaphragm condensers (the Sennheiser MKH 30 being a prime example). Many if not most ribbon mics are not really symmetrical (in pattern, or frequency response), so you have to be careful if you're going to try to record via both sides of the mic. And of course, the two sides of any fig-8 mic are 180 degrees out of phase with each other. This can cause some interesting artifacts if not attended to in post.

That said, if you've got a situation where dialog is coming from two people and they are positioned roughly 180 degrees from each other (across a table for example) a fig-8 mic can work really well.