Small chamber orchestra, 14 pieces in a semi-circle. Not a great room. Planned on using cardioids in ORTF. My boss wants to hear the (smallish) audience reaction and touted for an A-B pair. I think it's gonna sound mushy so I was thinking Faulkner array to reach in but get some better audience on the rear lobes without hearing the boxy room reflections. Stereo image is not the most important thing in this recording.

Thoughts?

D.

I would humbly suggest starting with spacing wider than the old article's 20cm; when I first experimented with it, I found the stereo image at 20cm to be very narrow; I was always puzzled by TF's use of that spacing; the original article suggests he was approximating human head spacing

When I went to 10-12", the image felt more 'normal'.

In any case, I would experiment with the spacing. Also try parallel hypercadioids, if you have such.

I think the Faulkner 2 mic array might work out very well in your situation. I have used it with success in situations where reflections from the side walls would contaminate the mix.
However my only experience with using them has been in small group situations, such as a piano quartet. So you might have to experiment with the spacing between the mics and/or the distance from the orchestra. (Here, Faulkner's recommendation that the microphone pair be placed farther back from the sound source than is common with coincident techniques might help you out also.)

How about an OCCO array, using the ORTF cards for main capture, and pulling up just enough of the omnis to accent audience/ambience.

small ensemble in semi-circle in a not-so-good room plus a bit of audience reaction to me means m/s (with a cardioid mic for the center) plus a pair of decorrelated ambis.

Thanks all. Only two mics allowed for the main pair due to them being at the end of an 18-foot carbon fiber boom. Schoeps colettes. And yes, an M/S pair might be a good choice but again, it might be a hard mount at the end of the boom. I think I'll try the figure-of-eights; what could go wrong?

D.

The small AB fig 8 pair will work well, especially if you have a little soundcheck time for placement experimenting. No need to go high, TF claims standing head height (approx 5-6 feet) is sufficient. 8-10” spacing, a little angling out (around 10 degrees or less) can help, the fig 8 nulls will kill sidewall bounce very effectively, Use soundcheck time to fine-tune mic’s distance from ensemble

Quick comment from the cheap seats...
The lousy room is going to be there no matter what mics you use. The MK8 is going to roll off everything below 150 at the distances you are going to be using them. For my money, spend a couple of minutes with a 70cm AB and get it in the right spot.
As always, YMMV.
Best,
-mark

There’s not much you can do about a room that’s not so great, but the Faulkner two mic array should work pretty well. Also depends a lot on how far you’re going to place the mics from the group. We don’t know how wide the group is - you’ll have to experiment.

Someone earlier had mentioned angling the mics slightly outward. This could work well in your situation

Seems to me that spaced fig 8s would likely give you too much audience sound, and give no control over it. How about ORTF mains and single mic out in the audience to use as needed?

The figure-of-eights worked out just perfectly. Two mic stereo mix. Just like it should be.

D.

Seems like that Tony fella knows a thing or two...

I’m interested to find out if you were able to (or required to) move further back into the room to get a sufficient direct to reverb ratio…and how was the image width (and centre fill) of your 2 mic capture, compared with the more ‘conventional’ arrays you’d typically use ? Also…did you stick with 20 cms width, and parallel (not angled out) ? ….ref M50k’s posting above (#2).

Mainly wondering if the Sengpiel visualisation (of the image clumped into the centre, with poor width/spread) as shown here tallies with your recording in this case ?

The stereo separation wasn't very good but the pair did stay out of the projector beam, didn't break the 18' boom arm and did capture all the music in a nice sounding way. There is no "hole-in-the-middle". More like most of the music is in the middle.

Fine recording for what was needed.

D.

Thanks Doug, that equates with my experience

I've found that with bidirectionals at 20cm, a 45 degree splay spreads things out nicely.

Glad it worked, I like it, too.

With my pair of Austrian Audio OC 818s, or any mic with a separate out for the back of a figure 8, it’s been an even more useful technique. You can pan the backs differently and even send them to different reverbs - very flexible.

I'm wondering how the addition of a baffle (eg Jecklin Disc) in between 2 fig. 8 mics (ie Faulkner spacing of 20cm or a little wider) would affect the pickup ?

As per the picture below (but without the 90 degree angle shown)...

Might it not prevent some of the inter-channel cross talk in the frontal area (facing musicians) and thus give a perception of increased width, or not being as bunched up in the centre ? This is assuming no angling out of the mics, but in trad Faulkner phased array (both parallel, 0 degrees)

I may have the opportunity to try this at a rehearsal later in the week....

I tried this with a dummy head, but not a jecklin - Curious to see how your results pan out, mine weren’t so great.

Were…or weren’t…so great ? I’ll alternate the Jecklin between fig.8’s and omnis, to avoid introducing too many variables

i find rear baffles on a spaced pair (or triad) of fig8's useful in some situations but then, the baffle behind the mics is aiming at achieving a much different thing than between them - anyway, jürg did try all sorts of mics with different patterns on a disk but IF using a disk at all (sometimes when broadcasting, rarely when recording), he mostly used omni sdc's (or on some rare occasions cardioids).

Definitely “weren’t” - sorry for the typo, still getting used to using the dictation feature.

20cms worked ok with the Mk8 Mark1 Schoeps capsules I was using at the time.

Nowadays I use RODE NTR ribbons instead most of the time, and 30cms works well

Thank you for chiming in!

I got to record a concert with this setup (see pics below….audio samples to follow)

Maybe not if you lift them up a little and point them down. :-)

I note that I missed the event!!!

It’s interesting that when Tony F was chatting with Peter Freedman of Rode in the well-known video below, Peter raised the subject of ‘acoustic treatment’ in the context of recording (and I don’t think he meant for the monitoring/Green Room)

Tony F talked about using acoustic ‘screens’….which I assumed to be the large 6’x4’ cloth-covered standing gobo flats, sometimes with small windows ….as you see in Abbey Road’s larger rooms.

The subject was the use of 8”/20cms parallel fig.8 mics (the original Faulkner phased array) and the damping of the rear out of phase component, to dry out the ambience somewhat.

Clearly this would work for a recording session in a large church or cathedral, but the use of such big panel(s) would be unacceptable for a public concert.

However….Tony then continues to clarify the ‘screen’ concept…. to imply one of the smaller curved sE Reflexion-type of ‘home studio vocal shields’ …which would be necessarily mounted a lot closer to the rear of the mic pair, and (if raised sufficiently high, say 6-8 feet) would be much less visually noticeable or distracting to a concert audience ?

This raises the idea that Tony F considers both approaches to rear-baffling could be effective and valid, depending upon the setting….or is he just referring to the small curved shell variety only ?

Have a listen to the conversation at the relevant points (from 16:36 to 18:58) …. I’ll be interested in your interpretation and any comments on his suggestions.

https://youtu.be/8uCcFIyJJ-w?si=h6Ku81DUszYgJ5bT

By way of illustration of ‘screen’ versus screen examples in post no.27 above …

Here's a baffle Simon Eadon has used; in this case for front / rear sep in a surround setup, blocking the backside of a Jecklin disc.

A large sheet of heavy Duvetyne or commando cloth.

Yes, I can see Simon Eadon’s baffle working well for the intended purpose…some diminished back reflections rather than complete removal.

I think it would be desirable to experiment with distance between the curved screen I’ve shown and the rear of an 8” phased array….again, some reduction of rear reflections rather than a noticeable muting of them would be the desired goal.