Hi Marcos,

Thanks for sharing Danny's trick!

Gary


-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Marcos Sueiro Bal
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 8:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Setting azimuth from program - a caution

This is an interesting point, Richard and Gary.

A trick I learned from Danny Sbardella is to adjust azimuth for maximum output of the bias tone played at half speed.

Cheers,

Marcos

Marcos Sueiro Bal
Senior Archivist, New York Public Radio
646 829 4063

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gary A. Galo
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2016 10:48 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Setting azimuth from program - a caution

Hi Richard,

I am also an ORTF fan. By the early 1980s I had hung Schoeps MSTC-5 ORTF Stereo Microphones in both of our concert halls, and during a renovation of one of them in the late 1990s I was able to add an MSTC-64 to my arsenal, always having one as a backup. The ORFT system has good mono compatibility, and works well under a wide variety of circumstances, which is important in a busy school where you're cranking out concert recordings every day and don't have time to spend two hours fiddling with microphone placement.

One observation using the RTA on the DEQ 2596 - sometime the azimuth adjustment makes very little difference in the top band, but the two or three bands below 20k show a peak when the azimuth is right. I guess it just depend on the exact spacing of the microphones when the recording was made.

Best,
Gary

____________________________

Gary Galo
Audio Engineer Emeritus
The Crane School of Music
SUNY at Potsdam, NY 13676

"Great art presupposes the alert mind of the educated listener."
Arnold Schoenberg

"A true artist doesn't want to be admired, he wants to be believed."
Igor Markevitch

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Richard L. Hess
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2016 9:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Setting azimuth from program - a caution

Hi, Gary,

Thank you for reinforcing my point about the widespread nature of the spaced mic recordings and for the tip about the Behringer RTA. In many halls, I've seen them far apart, typically ten feet or so. Often the mics are angled so their axis hits the stage. I guess I placed them that far apart as well early on, but brought them closer together (about six
feet) later.

For years after I got stuck with a difficult-to-cut organ master, I used ORTF spacing starting in 1978. These were AKG C-451s usually with CK-1 cardioid capsules. I stopped hanging mics at that time after buying a 15-foot PIC stand.

In my more recent incarnation of a recording engineer I'm using omnis spaced about 0.3 to 0.36 m apart. In this case, I am using DPA 4006TLs with UA0777 nosecones. Still with the same PIC stand. BTW, I just sold my Sound Devices 722 and joined the ranks of Zoom F8 owners. In my limited testing (and that of others) there seems to be no difference between the Zoom and the 722 and 744. I've not heard of comparisons against the 788T.

Cheers,

Richard




On 12/3/2016 17:48, Gary A. Galo wrote:
> Richard & Karl,
>
> That's what I do. I have a Behringer DEQ 2496 that I use strictly for the metering. Crane made a lot of stereo recordings from the 60s through the mid-70s with two spaced microphones. I most cases, I can adjust the azimuth for maximum high-frequency level on the Behringer's RTA. I've had a few tapes where there's very little difference, but most of the time it works. The Behringer's peak-reading level meters are also great for machine alignment. The bar-graph display gives both peak and RMS indications, along with a digital readout for both with 0.1dB resolution. When I got it years ago I checked it on the bench to make sure that it was accurate up to 20k and found it to be spot on with my test equipment. Whatever anyone may think of the EQ functions on this device (I've never used them) or any of their other products, the DEQ 2496 is worth the $350 US just for the metering and RTA.
>
> Best,
> Gary
>
> ____________________________
>
> Gary Galo
> Audio Engineer Emeritus
> The Crane School of Music
> SUNY at Potsdam, NY 13676
>
> "Great art presupposes the alert mind of the educated listener."
> Arnold Schoenberg
>
> "A true artist doesn't want to be admired, he wants to be believed."
> Igor Markevitch
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karl E. Fitzke
> Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2016 5:31 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Setting azimuth from program - a caution
>
> Richard,
>
>
> Great point to bring up! You are talking about being mislead by a lissajous pattern (phase scope) or phase torch under these circumstances, right?
>
>
> Instead the best we can do is to fall back solely on our ears and live spectrogram, trying to establish maximum high frequency response, yes?
>
>
> -Karl
>
>
>
> Karl Fitzke
> Audio/Visual Specialist
> 214 Olin Library
> Ithaca, NY 14853
>
> 607-255-5521
> [log in to unmask]
> ________________________________
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
> <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Richard L. Hess
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, December 3, 2016 2:44:16 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [ARSCLIST] Setting azimuth from program - a caution
>
> I have been digitizing a batch of tapes for a university music program's archives. Most were made in a the several campus performance spaces, and from the sound of it and experience, the preponderance of these recordings were made with spaced hanging cardioid microphones. While stereo mics were also widely used, these sound like spaced mics.
>
> Anyway...none of the tapes had tones and from time to time there is a tape with an offset solo instrument. Remembering that we're looking for fractions of a degree accuracy in adjusting azimuth playback, when we see two separated mics, all bets are off.
>
> With the speed of sound being about 1100 feet per second, we can see how moving a mic less than a foot is the length of a complete cycle at 1 kHz.
>
> So, this type of recording is almost impossible to accurately adjust.
> While full ensembles work well with the stripchart in StereoTool, a solo instrument or voice can show a huge azimuth error which is really an artifact of microphone placement relative to the source.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
>
> --
> Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada 647 479 2800
> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>
--
Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada 647 479 2800
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.