AB vs XY Stereo Recording

C

CF01

Active member
I would like to get either a Tascam DR-05 or a DR-07mkII. From what I can tell, the only difference between them that I might care about is the mic configuration options. Does anyone know of any good examples of AB recordings vs XY recordings? If someone has the DR-07mkII and wants to share some examples, even better.

Thanks
 
AB mic set ups are pretty vague in description. An AB can have a spread of 1" to many many feet of separation. AB means you are using 2 mikes. the one on the L is for the Left channel. The one on the R is for the right channel.

XY is a pretty cut and dried description as to placement. The heads are aligned over each other using varying degrees of separation/rotation. But in reverse as to channel assignment. R is for L chan, L is for R channel. If I had a choice to accurately approximate what and how human hears something, I would go with XY over AB.

But as a comparison, the H4n and other handheld recorders use a variation of an ORTF, where the heads are pointed similar to an XY but not aligned directly over each other. I don't have samples to share, since my HD self destructed a couple of years back.
 
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Doc Bernard said:
But as a comparison, the H4n and other handheld recorders use a variation of an ORTF, where the heads are pointed similar to an XY but not aligned directly over each other. I don't have samples to share, since my HD self destructed a couple of years back.
Click to expand...

Great post Doc. Just a few things.

Picking nits here but ORTF is very specific (H4n uses XY for all intents and purposes). ORTF has the mic capsules 17cm apart at a 110-degree angle of intersection. The sense of space is increased over XY's very tightly focused image but much more controlled than A-B's "anything goes" image. Since ORTF is not coincident, it is not 100% phase coherent, but it still collapses to mono reasonably well.

For the original poster, in many of these cases, with these recorders, mic configuration won't matter too much - they'll sound surprisingly good. We have an Olympus recorder here with a setup similar to the DR-05 and I've always got an eyebrow raised when I hear how lifelike the stereo image is. Haven't noticed much related to phase issues either.
 
Thanks for the info. I hadn't heard of ORTF before. That looks like the AB setup on the two Tascam recorders. After reading the manuals, I see that the DR-07mkII uses cardioid mics for it's changeable AB/XY while the DR-05 uses omnis for it's fixed AB. I'm kind of skeptical of how much of a stereo recording I would get from a pair of omnis that are an inch or two apart.
 
My personal preference has always been ORTF. It has always sounded more natural to me. XY always seemed to narrow for me. But you should try them all out to see which one you like best.
 
Petros Kolyvas said:
Great post Doc. Just a few things.

Picking nits here but ORTF is very specific (H4n uses XY for all intents and purposes). ORTF has the mic capsules 17cm apart at a 110-degree angle of intersection. The sense of space is increased over XY's very tightly focused image but much more controlled than A-B's "anything goes" image. Since ORTF is not coincident, it is not 100% phase coherent, but it still collapses to mono reasonably well.

For the original poster, in many of these cases, with these recorders, mic configuration won't matter too much - they'll sound surprisingly good. We have an Olympus recorder here with a setup similar to the DR-05 and I've always got an eyebrow raised when I hear how lifelike the stereo image is. Haven't noticed much related to phase issues either.
Click to expand...

LOL, that why I said it was a "variation of ORTF".
 
Petros Kolyvas said:
I'm not entirely what the "LOL" is for. Where did the friendly on this forum go?
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There was absolutely no malice in that reply, intended or otherwise, Petros. The LOL means I was saying it in a friendly manner, with a smile. Not saying it meanly or upset. Just correcting your correction.:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

And I don't have nits, at least I hope not.
 
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