mono or stereo
- Thread starter JayR
- Start date
AwakenedFilms
Veteran
Hi JayR,
I worked as a sound engineer in a commercial recording studio for a while. According to my experience in the professional environment, stereo mics are never a great idea. They can be the cause of phasing problems, and I have never seen a very high quality one...etc. Anytime we recorded any stereo source, we would use two microphones, spaced pair or X-Y or Mid-Side.
In the video / film world most people use mono shotgun microphones to capture spoken word and ambient sound and add stereo FX and Music in post.
Professional shooters avoid the 'built-in' stereo on camera mic like the plague. Always try to get your mic as close to the performance as possible (shotgun on a boom =best, lavelere=great).
J
I worked as a sound engineer in a commercial recording studio for a while. According to my experience in the professional environment, stereo mics are never a great idea. They can be the cause of phasing problems, and I have never seen a very high quality one...etc. Anytime we recorded any stereo source, we would use two microphones, spaced pair or X-Y or Mid-Side.
In the video / film world most people use mono shotgun microphones to capture spoken word and ambient sound and add stereo FX and Music in post.
Professional shooters avoid the 'built-in' stereo on camera mic like the plague. Always try to get your mic as close to the performance as possible (shotgun on a boom =best, lavelere=great).
J
SMuir
Well-known member
AwakenedFilms is right on the money: production sound is almost always recorded mono, with stereo mic'ing used for effects and music recording during post-production.
Although there are some situations where recording synch ambience with an on-camera mic while shooting dialogue may be appropriate, stereo ambience is more often cut in during post-production. For a short dramatic film, the priority for production recording is almost always clean dialogue, with production effects and foley being a distant second.
One of the big advantages to mono mic'ing when your using a stereo recorder is that you have a variety of tracking options:
- One boom mic recorded onto both channels, with the second channel recorded at a lower "safety" level.
- Two boom mics, one on either channel
- Boom on channel 1, lavaliers mixed together on channel 2
And so forth.
Its also worth bearing in mind that in a theatrical or broadcast mix, the dialogue track is typically kept mono and panned front-and-center. There are a variety of technical reasons for this, which I'm sure have been covered elsewhere in this forum.
Although there are some situations where recording synch ambience with an on-camera mic while shooting dialogue may be appropriate, stereo ambience is more often cut in during post-production. For a short dramatic film, the priority for production recording is almost always clean dialogue, with production effects and foley being a distant second.
One of the big advantages to mono mic'ing when your using a stereo recorder is that you have a variety of tracking options:
- One boom mic recorded onto both channels, with the second channel recorded at a lower "safety" level.
- Two boom mics, one on either channel
- Boom on channel 1, lavaliers mixed together on channel 2
And so forth.
Its also worth bearing in mind that in a theatrical or broadcast mix, the dialogue track is typically kept mono and panned front-and-center. There are a variety of technical reasons for this, which I'm sure have been covered elsewhere in this forum.