Hi Steemitarians,
I'm back for part 4 of the series, "First Steps to Recording your Music". Let me first say a great big thank you to everyone who has followed, supported and given me feedback on what i have shared so far, i really appreciate it. I love talking audio and will bring much more to you in the future. Also, if you think think these posts are a help to the community please continue to UPVOTE AND PROMOTE so more people can be reached. If you are a musicians or content creator here, there may be a few nuggets here that could change the way you work.
This time i have made a video for this subject to explain things a little better, as it needs good explanations to understand the techniques. So, for today's subject, Setting up your mics for stereo recording. I will put in a few notes and pics first, then you will find the video at the bottom.
Ok lets kick off, there are 3 main stereo techniques i discuss on this video and two others i didn't mention. They are:
the Spaced Pair (also called A/B formation)
The ORTF - from Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française
The XY formation
The others not mentioned in the video is called the Mid-side matrix and is too complex for this section and i will cover that another time. And the Blumeline method more commonly used for vocals and is more advanced and complex to set up.
As i explain in the following video, each of these techniques uses spatial spreading and positioning to either expand or tighten the stereo field making the acoustic effect heard by the listener much wider than an instrument being recorded with a simple mic and panned to a certain position in a mix. This can be useful on a live recording you wish to make, or acoustic/unplugged recordings as well. The more you can use your natural environmental space to expand and widen your recordings the more professional and interesting it is for your audience and more enjoyable too.
What really makes Stereo micing effective is the blend of natural acoustic space in your mix (and you can enhance it a bit with effects such as light reverb or delay, but not to the point of changing the color of your natural recording). Stereo micing is designed to really capture the acoustic quality of your environment and the instruments within it, thus minimizing the amount of EQing and manipulating your mix. The other very important issue in stereo micing is the way that the polar fields of the mics work together as you can see in the pic below:
The two cardioid fields blend together to provide a wider acoustic receptive region and provides a wider aural perception for the listener
There is an important little tool that can make a lot of your stereo micing more versatile and easy and this is called a Stereo mic bar, you don't need this too for every stereo spacing set up but for these ones we discuss here its the easiest and best tool for the job. For other techniques you can use one or more mic stands to achieve similar results. Remember, the name of this game is SPATIAL EFFECT. now, sit back and check out the video below as i explain these in more detail.!
thanks for watching and remember to upvote or promote if it helpful, thanks!