Real mid-side recording

[Greg_L]

I had some time this morning so I threw together an actual real mid-side setup.

This is me, a crappy acoustic guitar, an AT4047 as the mid mic, and an MXL R144 Ribbon as the side mic. I'm in my foyer about two feet from the mics poorly playing and singing a song that probably no white boy should be singing, but fuck it. One shot one kill one take.

But this does show what real mid side can do. This is a single mono performance captured by the mid mic and the space is provided by the side mic.

MS RS.mp3

And this is probably the first, only, and last time you will ever hear something like this from me. The acoustic guitar is going back into the closet where it belongs for another 8 years or so.

[Tadpui]

Sounds good man. It has the familiar headache-inducing phase of a real mid/side recording Does it do that to you too, when you're just listening to the side track? It's such a weird sound until you start bringing in the center channel.

It's got a subtle yet definite stereo spread, where the guitar is a little bit left and the vocal is right up the middle. And it has a little ambiance of the space where it was recorded. This sounds familiar from my own few attempts at mid/side.

It's good to hear Greg going all singer/songwriter acoustic solo I actually like it a lot!

[Greg_L]

Sounds good man. It has the familiar headache-inducing phase of a real mid/side recording Does it do that to you too, when you're just listening to the side track? It's such a weird sound until you start bringing in the center channel.

It's got a subtle yet definite stereo spread, where the guitar is a little bit left and the vocal is right up the middle. And it has a little ambiance of the space where it was recorded. This sounds familiar from my own few attempts at mid/side.

It's good to hear Greg going all singer/songwriter acoustic solo I actually like it a lot!

Ha thanks, yeah it has all the headachey phase issues of any mid-side recording. In the side track the vocal is barely there because the null is facing me and the guitar. There's lots of roomy guitar and little vocal. The mid track is where all the focus lies. The side is where the ambience...and phase issues live.

This is done with both tracks equal and even and no EQ or anything. With some work it can be better.

[Lt. Bob]

sounds pretty good to me Flower-gerg

"I LOVE the flower gerg ..... oh I don't know just why ..... he's sounding kind and shy ..... I lo-v-v--eeee the flower gerg .....



lol .... it really does man ...... obviously a cheapish git but it has a clear sound and good definition.

Nice

[rayc]

Proof of the mid side pudding is in the eating...tasted good.

[Greg_L]

Lol it's pretty terrible but it does show how it works. I've never been a fan of mid-side but it does what it does. Some people love it.

[vomitHatSteve]

We've talked about how it's good for capturing the room in these last few threads. So what kind of room is valuable to be captured in mid side?

I'm definitely hearing a stereo spread on this, but I guess I don't hear what the room is bringing to the situation.

[Greg_L]

We've talked about how it's good for capturing the room in these last few threads. So what kind of room is valuable to be captured in mid side?

I'm definitely hearing a stereo spread on this, but I guess I don't hear what the room is bringing to the situation.

The room isn't bringing much because it's not a good room. That's another lesson of mid-side...or any stereo recording. You need a room that's worth hearing.

My foyer is small-ish in footprint but very tall. Whenever I go out there to record something, which isn't very often, I hang mics upstairs pointing down into the foyer to really get the bigness of the space. I've laid guitar cabs down and had them pointing up into the void and mic'd from up there. It sounds huge. But side-to-side, which is what my mid-side experiment had to deal with, it isn't very big. The bigness of the space doesn't really come through. What I really should do out there is mid-up-down.

[Lt. Bob]

from what I hear in Gregs clip, that would absolutely be a sound I'd want IF I were doing a single guitar and a vocal ...... sounds pretty good actually and definitely adds a lot.
And even if I wanted to add a couple more instruments panned to the sides I'd use it.
But I never do stuff like that so far plus personally I'd just find a plug-in that approximates the sound and use that ....... easier to me.

But I do hear the thing that fans of the technique like

[JD01]

Sounds like something that would suit Tony @musicturtle
It definitely sounds like you're in a space, when you go up "..All I ever had..." towards the end you must be turning your head 'cos it drifts off to the right.

How do you set your mics up for this? Its actually something I might try as my kitchen/dinner space sounds quite nice for bashing away on an acoustic.
I've no idea what mid-side actually means. But I have a couple of mics that sound good for vocals and acoustic guitar.

Greg, you're pretty good at this. Can you have a crack at Dr. Graffin's solo acoustic version of Sorrow?

[Greg_L]

Sounds like something that would suit Tony @musicturtle
It definitely sounds like you're in a space, when you go up "..All I ever had..." towards the end you must be turning your head 'cos it drifts off to the right.

How do you set your mics up for this? Its actually something I might try as my kitchen/dinner space sounds quite nice for bashing away on an acoustic.
I've no idea what mid-side actually means. But I have a couple of mics that sound good for vocals and acoustic guitar.

Greg, you're pretty good at this. Can you have a crack at Dr. Graffin's solo acoustic version of Sorrow?

Ha thanks but no thanks I'm not fucking with any more acoustic recording but you should do it to learn this miking technique.

You need a cardioid mic (mid) and preferably a figure-8 (side) mic. If you don't have a figure-8, a matched pair of cardioid mics might work to simulate the figure-8.

The setup is easy: Point the mid mic right at the source. Put the figure-8 side mic exactly under the mid mic so their capsules are lined up, except the null of the side mic should be pointed at the source so the sides are picking up the room signal 90 degrees off axis of the mid mic.

maxresdefault.jpg

[Greg_L]

Here's the same take with a little more effort in mixing and processing. Little EQ, little compression, little better balancing.

MS RS2.mp3

[JD01]

Cool, that makes sense. I'll check my NT1, see if its Fig8 - I don't think it is. So I'll use that as my mid. Then I'll pop up my pair of C1000S mics facing in either direction as my side mics. If my NT1 does Fig8 then I'll use that as the side and the C1000S as the mid. Will be nice to be playing a long way off the mic. Your recording sounds really good.

[Greg_L]

Cool, that makes sense. I'll check my NT1, see if its Fig8 - I don't think it is. So I'll use that as my mid. Then I'll pop up my pair of C1000S mics facing in either direction as my side mics. If my NT1 does Fig8 then I'll use that as the side and the C1000S as the mid. Will be nice to be playing a long way off the mic. Your recording sounds really good.

Since a Figure-8 mic works on positive and negative phase at the same time summed to one track you need to do some DAW trickery. With an actual Figure-8 track you'd copy it, pan the two, and flip the phase on the R channel to make them both positive. Do some balancing and you'll get the real stereo image. I'm not sure how much of that you'd have to do with two mics acting as a Figure-8. Or if it will even have the same effect. It's worth a try. I just don't know. It's not exactly the same. It's almost more like Mid-X-Y.

[vomitHatSteve]

Sounds like something that would suit Tony @musicturtle
It definitely sounds like you're in a space, when you go up "..All I ever had..." towards the end you must be turning your head 'cos it drifts off to the right.

How do you set your mics up for this? Its actually something I might try as my kitchen/dinner space sounds quite nice for bashing away on an acoustic.
I've no idea what mid-side actually means. But I have a couple of mics that sound good for vocals and acoustic guitar.

Greg, you're pretty good at this. Can you have a crack at Dr. Graffin's solo acoustic version of Sorrow?

If you don't have a figure-8, a matched pair of cardioid mics might work to simulate the figure-8.

Does that actually work? If you're using matched cardiods, then you have an actual stereo signal, and you're somehow summing it to a mono one that matches a figure 8 pattern?

[Greg_L]

Does that actually work? If you're using matched cardiods, then you have an actual stereo signal, and you're somehow summing it to a mono one that matches a figure 8 pattern?

The way a Figure-8 works is it's one capsule catching the same signal but from opposite sides, so when the audio hits the capsule and one side yings, the opposite side yangs at the same time. It's like a push and pull on the same capsule. This puts both the positive and negative sides of the signal into one. It's why a ribbon mic on a guitar cab sounds big and boomy even though it seems like it should be just like any other mic. It isn't. A ribbon is a Figure-8 mic and you're also hearing the back side of the mic in the signal. So yeah you'll get right up on the speaker, but you're also getting everything else behind the mic too. But to truly use the Figure-8 mic in MS you need to decode the single Figure-8 side track into two mono tracks and flip the phase on one of them. That's the only way you'll hear the true stereo image.

You're not really getting that same push/pull with two mics but you might be able to fudge it in the DAW to simulate a Figure-8 pattern.

If you really want get techy with it you'd modify the mic cable to put one of the mics reverse phase from the other one.

[Lt. Bob]

so if the one mic is basically to capture the room, how is this much different than simply sticking a mic to capture the room somewhere else in the room?

[Greg_L]

so if the one mic is basically to capture the room, how is this much different than simply sticking a mic to capture the room somewhere else in the room?

Because that's one mic capturing one spot in one room. That's not stereo.

A Figure-8 is one mic that captures way more. The mid mic gets the straight on signal, the side mic catches the sides with the straight on signal in the null. The Figure-8 mic is the key to the whole thing. Without the Figure-8...or a very reasonable facsimile...then MS does not work.

To really boost the whole shebang some people like an omni mic as the mid mic

[Greg_L]

[JD01]

I see, that's making sense now.
My R0DE is just Cardioid as are my C1000S mics. So if I did what I was suggesting I'd just be going for stereo room mics. Still could be interesting to use 3 mics to capture one source and get a sense of space.