DAT-heads Digest #371
Contents:
ORTF (Edwin Hurwitz)
Re: DAT-heads Digest #370 / ORTF question (acffh)
Re: DAT-heads Digest #370 (New Homebrew)
FS: Sony R300 & SCMS (waynefb@earthlink.net)
re: ORTF question (Randy Vogel)
Steve Morse Band - Dixie Dregs Mini West Coast Tour (craig.chambers@mindspring.com)
Re: DVD5.1 vs. DVD-A
Toots & the Maytals taping policy? (Colin Liston)
Re: ORTF Question ("Gregory Morgan")
Re: ORTF question (Eugene Hu)
Do Sharon Jones / Dap Kings Allow Taping? (DeMatt Harkins)
Fw: ORTF question (ev)
blumlein matrixing for surround... (Nick Zuccaro)
Looking for Davey Dave, from daveydave.com (gregory bigot)
From: Edwin Hurwitz <edwin@indra.com>
Subject: ORTF
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 10:49:27 -0700
ORTF was not developed for rock recording where a PA is involved. It
is meant to capture an acoustic performance in an acoustic space.
While it can be argued that what you are recording is that, I would
say that you should experiment with pointing at the stacks and
anything else you can think of. Since the music is amplified through
a less than hifi situation (assumption on my part. Perhaps you have a
Meyer system and Gamble console), it's probably time to break the
rules and just try everything!
Good luck and have fun!
Edwin
PS Just don't record from under the balcony.
>From: Colin Liston <cliston@cs.utk.edu>
>Subject: ORTF question
>Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 13:04:04 -0500 (EST)
>
>
>Okay I realize that ORTF is a stereo taping technique, but I have a
>question/dilemma.
>
>My dilemma is this:
>
>I usually tape in a small club (Freebird Live), the speaker stacks are
>about 21' apart and I usually tape with my mics (DPA 4023's) hanging from
>the balcony about 28' back and I can use either the DPA ORTF bar or a
>regular t-bar . If I run ORTF then my mics are pointing toward the walls
>of the club, one wall being the bar area, which can get chatty.
>
>My question is this:
>
>Is it better to point my mics at the stacks or run ORTF with my mics not
>pointing at the stacks?
>
>Thanks,
>colin
>
>
--
Edwin Hurwitz
Boulder CO
http://www.indra.com/~edwin
http://www.cafemontalban.com Location Recording Services
From: acffh <morst@tds.net>
Subject: Re: DAT-heads Digest #370 / ORTF question
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:00:58 -0600
>Is it better to point my mics at the stacks or run ORTF with my mics
not pointing at the stacks?
Short answer- Try both and use your ears tell you, or post samples of
both and let us take a listen?!
Long answer-
You have a really great pair of mics there, and you may as well take
advantage of what some marketing blurb-writers call "extremely smooth
off-axis response" and point 'em outwards.
The nice thing about the cardioid pickup pattern is that the mics pick
sound up somewhat directionally, so you can exclude unwanted sound from
the signal. I am going to compare ORTF which aims quite wide to A-B
where the mics are run parallel to one another since these are pretty
much the extremes. If the mics are run A-B you will only be excluding
reflected and unwanted sound from one direction- straight back. In
ORTF, the 110 degree spread is not just a spread of the pickup pattern,
but also a spread of the rejection pattern in the back of the mics. I
am not a math buff, but between one mic or the other, you can just
about reject sound from anywhere behind the mics, which has to be good
for forward pickup. In your situation, I think ORTF can be useful
because of the one mic that aims AWAY from the bar area! At least you
have one channel, and if the club ever gets quiet your stereo image is
wide and intact.
Now as to aiming inside the stacks or outside, there is a bit of
strategy involved. For mics with flat off-axis frequency response like
yours, there is no need to aim directly at the stacks for direct sound
QUALITY, it's a matter of stereo image and rejection of unwanted audio
like reflections and crowd and bar noise. I am assuming that ORTF is a
wider pattern than pointing at the stacks would be. I run ORTF almost
all the time, and I think it is a little wide, but when you play it
back, it concentrates the stereo image in between the speakers. I used
to run 90 degrees, but found that the wider stereo image on playback
was not necessarily desirable to me, and the overall sound was better
with a wider spread. I also have a pair of mics which offer excellent
off-axis response, the KM140's. If I had cheap directional mics with
non-linear off-axis pickup, I would definitely aim them at the sound
source to get the best signal-to-noise ratio. The DPA's are so quiet
that is not an issue, and they have extremely flat frequency response
throughout the pattern so you have the opportunity to let them do their
stuff if you spread 'em out and let them pick up everything they can.
It's too bad that the bar is near the optimal mic position, I bet a
DAT-HEAD does not own that club! But it must sound good in there or you
would not think to tape there. When it sounds good, you capture that,
if the crowd is distracted, you capture that. The world of audience
taping. save those masters. You might find that a tape that you
thought was talky talky is very listenable years later when you can't
remember the face of that obnoxious person hooting in the left channel!
I personally try to ignore people who yell incessantly, so that I
don't picture them when I play back the show. I enjoy it more that
way.
Somewhat on the subject- but not addressing your question- I know you
have a pair of cardioid capsules, but It seems like a mid/side
technique would be really useful for your situation. You could have a
mono front-facing cardioid capsule and a sideways figure-of-eight and
then matrix it later. This would allow you to mix down a live mix of
the front and side channels to keep the signal level good while
allowing the stereo image to spread out when there is less noise
interference. M/S has the added advantage of being fully mono
compatible which is great for radio broadcasts.
hope that helps.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
On Jan 24, 2005, at 10:50 AM, Digestifier wrote:
From: Colin Liston <cliston@cs.utk.edu>
Subject: ORTF question
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 13:04:04 -0500 (EST)
Okay I realize that ORTF is a stereo taping technique, but I have a
question/dilemma. My dilemma is this:
I usually tape in a small club (Freebird Live), the speaker stacks are
about 21' apart and I usually tape with my mics (DPA 4023's) hanging
from the balcony about 28' back and I can use either the DPA ORTF bar
or a regular t-bar . If I run ORTF then my mics are pointing toward
the walls of the club, one wall being the bar area, which can get
chatty.
My question is this: Is it better to point my mics at the stacks or run
ORTF with my mics not pointing at the stacks?
From: New Homebrew <newhomebrew@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: DAT-heads Digest #370
Reply-To: New Homebrew <newhomebrew@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:17:16 -0600
Just a very obvious point - standard DVD video content can and often
does use uncompressed LPCM audio which was completely left out of the
discussion.
In the rush to convert stereo recordings into 5 channel affairs this
seems to have been forgotten.
> From: "john e. bogus" <bogusisme@surfbest.net>
> Subject: DVD-A, DTS, and surround sound taping...
> Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 14:14:49 -0500
> type video content......DVD-V allows video content, but the audio (again, up
> to 6 channels) must be in DTS, Dolby Digital (both are lossy compression
> schemes), or Dolby ProLogicII (a matrix method of surround encoding or
> decoding which works in the analog realm, sort of a modern version of the
> old-school SQ or QS quad encoding) because you can only get so much data
> into or out of the disc at once.....
--
DVD & CDr trading:
other artists=> http://home.midsouth.rr.com/hardluck/other.htm
jeff buckley=> http://home.midsouth.rr.com/hardluck
From: waynefb@earthlink.net
Subject: FS: Sony R300 & SCMS
Reply-To: waynefb@earthlink.net
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:00:24 -0800 (PST)
I have too many home decks and now that I've sold my DA-P1, I'm out of the DAT business, so I only need 1 deck for listening to those master tapes I made over the years.
Sony R300 with 1172 hours on the head. This unit has already been sent into Pro Digital for the transport upgrade, so it won't break and you won't have to deal with that. Kept in a smoke free atmosphere and used primarily as a playback unit (80% was playback, 20% recording/cloning).
Looking for $250 for the unit.
Next up, my Friend-chip SCMS stripper. I always ran this when cloning DATs so the clone I sent to people had the bit set to original on the tape. Can handle both coax and optical inputs/outputs.
Looking for $125 for the unit.
Wayne
From: Randy Vogel <randy@funfolks.net>
Subject: re: ORTF question
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:11:25 -0800
Colin, it seems to me that the obvious thing to do is to experiment a
bit in order to decide for yourself what sounds best!
And keep in mind that while ORTF may be the best known, there are plenty
of other stereo-micing techniques to try out; I tend to use a modified
version of DIN Stereo most often (crossed cardiods at about 20cm
spacing, 90 degrees).
-randy
From: craig.chambers@mindspring.com
Subject: Steve Morse Band - Dixie Dregs Mini West Coast Tour
Reply-To: craig.chambers@mindspring.com
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 14:37:19 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
Hi Dat-heads!
I am looking for any of the SMB/DD shows from the current mini tour on the =
West Coast. I managed to capture the Slim's show in San Fran on Tuesday (1=
/18)...what a smokin' set. I saw some setlists posted and noticed they hav=
e been mixing up the sets a little, so I would be interesting in trading fo=
r other shows.
In addition to the Slim's shows, I have many other SMB/DD shows including s=
everal masters.
Steve Morse Band/Dixie Dregs Slim's-San Francisco 1.18.2005
Recording Info: CS Cards>Batt Box>PCM-M1
Transfer Info: Tascam DA-20MkII>SP/DIF>Zoltrix Nightingale>PC>CDR
Here is my tracking--
Steve Morse Band
1.=09Medley =96 Mississippi Queen/Freebird/Summertime Blues
2.=09The Introduction
3.=09Battle Lines
4.=09Highland Wedding
5.=09Mechanical Frenzy
6.=09Tuneups and Intros
7.=09Acoustic Duet 1
8.=09Acoustic Duet 2
9.=09Rising Power
10.=09Night Meets Light
11.=09Stressfest
Dixie Dregs
1.=09Cruise Control-Assembly Line
2.=09Holiday
3.=09Ionized
4.=09Ice Cakes
5.=09Road Expense
6.=09Shapes of Things
7.=09Introductions
8.=09Hereafter
9.=09Aftershock
10.=09Divided We Stand
11.=09Kashmir
12.=09Bash
13.=09Odyssey
14.=09Crowd before encore
15.=09Rod and Van Drum Duet
16.=09Bloodsucking Leeches
Some EQ was done to add a bit more low-end. Recording is a B+/A- complete =
show. Btw, this was my first time taping at Slim's...geez, what a dump.
Please get in touch if you have any to trade from this tour. Thanks!
craig.chambers@mindspring.com
From: <fluffhead@cox.net>
Subject: Re: DVD5.1 vs. DVD-A
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:31:07 -0500
I'm by far not an expert at this topic but be forwarned. Not all DVD+-R will record/read DVD-A. I have a Sony 4X +- that wont record the format but will play it fine. I believe most newer drives should.
Also... I played with the 5.1 around a year ago taking some of the 'From the Vault' series DVD's that were only two channel and then mixing them to 5.1. After mixing the disks from 2.0 to 5.1 from the original source I ended up getting quality AUDS of the shows and mixing those primarily to the rear channels. Sort of a fake matrix. The results came out quite good. The only issue I had was time sequencing some parts of the recordings.
Dana
From: Colin Liston <cliston@cs.utk.edu>
Subject: Toots & the Maytals taping policy?
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 16:21:23 -0500 (EST)
Does anyone know if they will be allowing taping at the Toots & the
Maytals.
Benevento-Russo Duo will be opening the shows, and I know they allow
taping so I am curious if Toots will too?
thanks
colin
From: "Gregory Morgan" <cardinalchunder@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: ORTF Question
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 13:54:14 -0800
Hi Colin,
ORTF is more than just the use of a particular microphone configuration.
The placement of microphones is VERY specific, that is dead center and half
the distance across the stage back. (ie if the stacks are 21 feet apart then
you would set up 10 and a half feet back). Given your placement, I would
think you'd want to set up with a narrower angle on the microphones than 110
degrees.
Cheers,
Gregory
Colin Wrote:
My dilemma is this:
I usually tape in a small club (Freebird Live), the speaker stacks are
about 21' apart and I usually tape with my mics (DPA 4023's) hanging from
the balcony about 28' back and I can use either the DPA ORTF bar or a
regular t-bar . If I run ORTF then my mics are pointing toward the walls
of the club, one wall being the bar area, which can get chatty.
My question is this:
Is it better to point my mics at the stacks or run ORTF with my mics not
pointing at the stacks?
Thanks,
colin
From: Eugene Hu <eugene@overture.com>
Subject: Re: ORTF question
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 17:05:01 -0800
> Okay I realize that ORTF is a stereo taping technique, but I have a
> question/dilemma.
>
> My dilemma is this:
>
> I usually tape in a small club (Freebird Live), the speaker stacks are
> about 21' apart and I usually tape with my mics (DPA 4023's) hanging
from
> the balcony about 28' back and I can use either the DPA ORTF bar or a
> regular t-bar . If I run ORTF then my mics are pointing toward the
walls
> of the club, one wall being the bar area, which can get chatty.
>
> My question is this:
>
> Is it better to point my mics at the stacks or run ORTF with my mics
not
> pointing at the stacks?
Point at the stacks if you're taping from the PA. Run your
favorite stereo technique (ORTF, NOS, XY, etc.) if you're taping
on-stage or if you're taping unamplified music. Just MHO.
-Eugene
From: DeMatt Harkins <dharkins1@jam.rr.com>
Subject: Do Sharon Jones / Dap Kings Allow Taping?
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 20:44:06 -0600
SSIA
From: ev <ericmv17@optonline.net>
Subject: Fw: ORTF question
Reply-to: ev <eric@vandercar.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 22:28:38 -0500
> From: Colin Liston <cliston@cs.utk.edu>
> Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 13:04:04 -0500 (EST)
>
> Okay I realize that ORTF is a stereo taping technique, but I have a
> question/dilemma.
>
> I usually tape in a small club (Freebird Live), the speaker stacks are
> about 21' apart and I usually tape with my mics (DPA 4023's) hanging from
> the balcony about 28' back and I can use either the DPA ORTF bar or a
> regular t-bar . If I run ORTF then my mics are pointing toward the walls
> of the club, one wall being the bar area, which can get chatty.
>
> My question is this:
> Is it better to point my mics at the stacks or run ORTF with my mics not
> pointing at the stacks?
The short answer is that you are probably better off pointing the mics just
outside of the stacks such that the center of their pattern overlaps the
area in front of each P.A. where the sound is the richest. Often this
entails running my 4021s at angles between 80 and 100 degrees in smaller
rooms or where the stage is narrow, similar to what you describe. I haven't
taken trig in almost 30 years, but what you describe sounds like the angle
between the mics would be less than 45 degrees if pointed right at the
stacks. You may want to try running an X/Y pattern. ORTF is probably much
too wide. This technique was developed by the French national broadcasting
system and was intended to record full symphonies (think wide stage, dozens
of instruments) with a specific center location a given distance from the
stage. While it may sometimes give wonderful results recording a stereo PA,
it is not a given.
Having written all that, my best advice is that next time you are attending
a show at that venue where you don't mind experimenting, or you can bring a
friend along or at least his or her rig as a backup, try running different
patterns for different sets or even songs. Document what you're doing so you
can make accurate comparisons when you get home and listen. Lastly, there
are tons of resources on the internet where you can learn about mic
placement and other recording techniques. Here are a few:
http://www.dpamicrophones.com/ and click on Microphone University
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/chris.burmajster/O.htm
http://www.pfarrell.com/prc/michints.html
http://www.sonicsense.com/micplace.htm
peace, further...
e
From: Nick Zuccaro <nmz77@yahoo.com>
Subject: blumlein matrixing for surround...
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 04:39:22 -0800 (PST)
hey there, there's been a lot of talk about surround micing and
such, and i was wondering if a blumlein stereo configuration (2
figure 8's at 90 deg) can be matrixed into L,R,LS,RS? seems like
about the same thing as a MS decoder, just invert the L to get
RS and invert the R to get LS - has anybody done this?? one
thing about that is any (2-channnel) recordings that have
already been done can be directly matrixed into surround. i
guess this is a different approach than using the board for the
front and the aud for the rear channels, it's more of an
ambisonics approach...the schoeps site has a bunch of stuff on
single point micing for surround, they make several different
configurations of mic holders and de-matrixing boxes, pretty
interesting stuff :) l8r...Nick
From: gregory bigot <gregory.bigot@gmail.com>
Subject: Looking for Davey Dave, from daveydave.com
Reply-To: gregory bigot <gregory.bigot@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:42:26 +0100
HI all,
I'm trying for a while now, maybe tow years, to get in touch with this guy.
We set up some u2 trades in the past, but after sending him more than
12 cds in 2002 summer, he never gave me news from him any more.
If somebodoy has some infos about him, his current email, it would be great.
I don't care about the discs, i just want to understand his behavior
greg
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
To unsubscribe from this digest, please send email to
dat-heads-unsubscribe@datheads.phish.net
If your email address has changed, you may (optionally)
send the message to
dat-heads-unsubscribe-oldaddress=olddomain@datheads.phish.net
and the old address will be removed.
Problems or questions about a subscription should be addressed
via these avenues and then if needed to
dat-heads-owner@datheads.phish.net
or
postmaster@datheads.phish.net
never the list itself
You can submit a message for inclusion in the next digest via this address:
Internet: dat-heads@datheads.phish.net
Archives of DAT-Heads digests and related files are available on
the DAT-Heads home page:
http://www.solorb.com/dat-heads/
End of DAT-Heads Digest
******************************