XY recording with LDCs

G

ggrantly

Veteran
Hello Listers,

I have done some small venue music recording using an X-Y pattern with small diaphragm condensers and cardioid caps. The results have been fine for the intended purpose. Would there being any advantage or disadvantage to using large diaphragm cardioid condensers instead, given good quality in both?

Thanks for your thoughts
 
That's a personal preference thing and what's being recorded. It's like asking what's the best kick or snare drum mic.
I used to use U-87s for room mics all the time and they sounded nice... better than my AKG 451s? No, they sounded different. I owned both the Neumann and AKG stereo sets at that time.
 
Thanks Rick,

I was fishing for any known downsides or dark holes to avoid. In this case I would be going from AT4053s to AT4050s which are multi pattern. Music type is more or less acoustic, non-studio location, maybe even a living room but with a bunch of portable acoustic panels.

G
 
ggrantly said:
Would there being any advantage or disadvantage to using large diaphragm cardioid condensers instead, given good quality in both?
Click to expand...

Disadvantages, yes. XY is a coincident technique. That means that the two diaphragms need to be as close to coincident as possible. Trying to do this with most LDCs is problematic, and the increased spacing can result in some artifacts in the recorded sound (phase issues). If you're going to use LDCs anyway, XY is not a technique I'd recommend.

Also, LDCs have a diaphragm size that can interact with frequencies some instruments emit (overtones mostly). IIRC it's around 13 kHz or so, and above. Not a problem for most human vocals, but acoustic instruments can be somewhat more complex than human vocals.

Will either of these matter to you? Who can say? But if you want to know why you seldom ever see LDCs being used by people recording orchestras and smaller groups in locations like concert halls...

BTW, if that's what you're doing, you'll also find very few of these location recordists using XY either. There are better ways to create a stereo image, ways that sounds better than XY. Just sayin'.

If you are trying to record in a living room, and trying to control reflections (good luck, it's harder than it looks), you'll basically want to avoid omnis and their spaced techniques. You might find better luck with a technique like ORTF. Much easier to do with LDCs, but I'd still recommend SDCs for acoustic instruments. If you have a room that's longer (like a shoe box) you might find that narrow spaced 8s (start at around 20 cm or so and adjust to taste) work well enough (the nulls take down the reflections from ceiling/floor and both side walls, leaving just the front/rear wall pair -- makes the room sound bigger because you only hear the longest axis).

If you're serious about wanting to learn more, you can try the Gearslutz location recording forum. Search about, small room recording techniques have been covered relatively extensively, as have medium sized rooms and large rooms (halls).
 
As others have said there are a bunch of techniques that various people will argue are "accurate" but really it's more a matter of taste and music style.

I was recording chamber music sized groups and generally in bigger spaces that you are talking about. That said what I used was a very widely spaced stereo pair. I went into some detail explaining my logic, I was calling it SOSR? SOS something. Anyway it is less useful in small venues, but the result is a very wide stereo spread. Maybe even too wide for headphones, though I liked it..., but it sounded great on boomboxes and computer speakers etc and that was the target audience. The recordings were for grant proposals and stuff like that. Those review committees 99.9% of the time play peoples recordings on boomboxes or stream them on computers. The really wide recordings translated great on those playback systems and we got a lot of positive feedback on the recordings, and a bunch of grants!

The point of the story is that while this is not a conventional set up and was done largely for other reasons, it turned out to be great for this specific use. What I learned was to think backward. What do you want/ need to end up with, and make your choices to support that goal.

I have seen a fair number of LDC used, though not too often for a live performance recording. I wouldn't use them from an aesthetics position, they are way too visible and in the way of the audience. That has been my reaction on the few occasions I saw them at concert recordings. If you don't have an audience to deal with and I had a pair I might try them just because.

I personally am not a big fan of XY. It's what I use for FX recording in the field, but that has a lot to do with practicality. If I can set up a spaced pair I will. I find XY to always sound "smaller" than what I felt in the audience. It just feels like everything got kind of squeezed together. A spaced pair is much more "open" to my ears. The "catch" which isn't really much of one anymore is that pretty much all of the "standard" stereo setups are the way they are to make sure you have decent mono compatibility. IF you need that then you NEED to follow those guides because you can get some really strange results if you sum other stereo set ups. Today I'm not sure where that mono issue really comes up unless you are sending stuff to AM radio stations. I can't think of a project I had to worry about mono compatibility in in... 20+ years.

So what that means is things like having your diaphragms close is kind of a non issue. It becomes an issue if you ever sum the L&R to mono but as long as the L & R are always separate it doesn't really matter.

Again if you know where you need to end up you can make better choices along the way.

For you specifically I would probably try different mic placements/ arrangements before I bought new mics. Mic placement can make a BIG difference in the sound. If you are never going to go mono your flexibility in that placement is pretty much anything that sounds good.
 
In my usage, the LD mics were wide spaced in relatively large rooms for ambient tracks. The instruments and vocals were close mic'd. For two mic stereo recordings, I used the Blumlein figure-eight technique a lot w/ the U87s.. mics close to sound source for less room. This was back in my music recording days (daze) so I usually didn't have visual concerns.
 
You might want to try and find a old book about stereo recording (liek 1960's). These days there seems to be 4 or 5 techniques, way back when there where dozens. The only real problem I can think of is the bulk of your microphone equipment with LDC's. On the other hand, I do not think I have ever heard of hypercardiods like those 4053's being recommended for stereo recording.
 
Given the good advice I've received so far, I'll explain the situation a bit more. The likely venue will be in my 18' x 30' living room. I have a whole bunch of portable acoustic panels so I'll spread those about as needed. The musical group plays mostly gypsy jazz and consists of violin, upright bass, guitar and accordion (no vocals). I plan to record 4 or 5 into 4 channels using my 744 + 302.

My brother who is a jazz studio musician in LA and also does some album producing suggested the following: record the entire group with a stereo pair and then record separate channels for the bass and guitar. The idea being that the violin and accordion may overpower (not his words) the bass and guitar. When editing, this will allow better options for more subdued instruments. We haven't discussed in any detail mic selection, mic placement or phase issues.

As previously mentioned, I have both LDC and SDC options. Although the 4053b is a hyper, I have had good results in limited situations recording music. The AT4050s will be new to me but have cardioid, omni, and figure-8 options.

Grant
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top