[gregorio]

but for decades speaker spatiality dominated and created conventions that are not so headphone-friendly

Of course, because for decades hardly any consumers used headphones and when headphone use did start becoming widespread, it was non-critical listening conditions (EG. While jogging or travelling).

such as ping-pong stereophony.

Ping-pong stereophony is not now, nor has it ever been a “convention”! It’s use is rare, although somewhat less rare when stereo was fairly new to the market, as already explained more than once.

Had sound engineers solved these issues decades ago, we wouldn't be needing crossfeeders much, would we?

But we don’t need crossfeeders much! Only a tiny percentage of headphone users apply crossfeeders and those who have a serious issue with headphone presentation typically prefer something more sophisticated than a crossfeed, HRTF, head-tracking and speaker convolution for example. Plus, sound engineers cannot solve “these issues” because solving them requires user specific solutions.

You are for some reason against my ideas and views and try to use your authority of decades in the industry to strike me down, but I am not going away.

I’m not using my authority to “strike you down”, I am using basic music recording principles to strike you down. Basic principles even a novice, with almost no authority, should know.

It is reidiculous to say I don't know anything.

You’ve never studied orchestral mixing, by you own admission you’ve never done any yourself, you’ve probably never even seen it done by professionals and are making nonsense suggestions that even a novice would know are impossible/impractical. What rational conclusion can we take from all this other than “you don’t know anything”?

Jecklin Disk-philosophy is about having the strengths of Jecklin Disk (spatial compatibility with speakers and headphones) without the weaknesses and problems.

The Jecklin Disk technique is the use of a pair of matched omni-direction mics, 36cms apart with a baffle (sound absorbent disk) between them. How do you apply that “philosophy” to say 20 or more mics, that are not matched, are not 36cms apart and have no baffle? There is of course no way to have all the strengths of Jecklin Disk and none of weaknesses and if there were, that’s what we’d all have been using for decades.

Well, don't you use close up mics and room mics to make this possible?

Of course not. In a symphony orchestra you’ve got around 90 or more musicians, playing together in close proximity. Plus, most of the instruments are largely reliant on room acoustics to produce their recognisable sound. Close mic’ing significantly reduces the room acoustics captured but would not eliminate “spill”. So, you would end up with 90+ mics/channels, all out of phase with each other and most of them not capturing the desired sound anyway. A great deal of extra time and cost for a hugely inferior result, not smart. What we actually do is have a main array (say a Decca Tree for example), outriggers covering areas of the orchestra furthest away from the main array, spot mics covering sections of the orchestra, some room mics and occasionally, depending on the piece of music, one or a few close mics.

This was the case when I mixed the track of the band on the mixing course and I didn't have too much trouble of controlling the room reverb level. These were somewhat amateurish recordings of a random no name band.

Hang on, you were the one who brought up orchestra recordings, then argued that you’ve experimented for years and know a lot. Now you’re saying your actual experience is mixing a track that was an amateurish recording of a no name band as part of a mixing course? Oh dear.

A rock/pop band is an entirely different thing. Pretty much none of the instruments are reliant room acoustics to produce their recognisable sound and there’s not dozens of musicians all playing at the same time in close proximity. In fact typically, there is no proximity between the musicians because they are not playing together, they’ve probably been multitracked at different times/days. So apart from the drumkit, there is no spill or phase issues and artificial reverb can be applied instead of a natural acoustic. Again, absolute basics, I’d ask for your money back for that mixing course!

Why do you keep talking about orchestras as if nothing else was ever recorded?

Err, because YOU introduced orchestras as the example and continued to do so right up until the moment you started to realise it’s maybe nonsense and now it’s “why do you keep talking about orchestras”?

Incidentally, what I’ve stated doesn’t only apply to symphony orchestras, it also broadly applies to any large acoustic ensemble.

I'm sorry I am not a super-genius who was born with the knowledge of how to record orchestras. I am just a dummy who needs years if not decades to learn and understand things.

No one is born with the knowledge of how to record orchestras and everyone is a dummy who needs years to learn and understand how to. The difference is; when I was a dummy, before the years of learning/understanding, I didn’t argue with those who were not dummies, the professionals who already had years of learning/understanding.

I'm not telling YOU what to do. … I am suggesting everybody working in the field how the problems of headphone spatiality could be fixed.

You are telling me what to do! You are telling me and repeatedly arguing that I should mix according to the “Jecklin Disk philosophy”.

Enough now, others must be getting bored and most of this has already been explained previously anyway. If you don’t know, then ask but please don’t keep arguing nonsense suggestions based on knowing next to nothing about the recording and production process.

G

 

[71 dB]

You aren’t arguing about the subject any more. You’re arguing your emotions and you can’t let go. Gregorio does this stuff for a living. If you listened to what he says and incorporated it, you could grasp what he’s saying and stop putting yourself into the position of punching bag. He isn’t doing it to you. He’s just responding to the same factual error repeated over and over and over. You’re doing it to yourself by being more invested in arguing than the topic being discussed.

This isn’t about spatiality. It never was about that. It’s about your bruised ego. You don’t have to win at all costs. There’s way too much of that around here already. No one listens to each other, and everyone speaks entirely for their own benefit. It’s all a big dumb contest for “king of the forum”. That’s lame. Better to listen and try to understand. It isn’t about winning an argument. It’s about learning from each other.

You have a professional sound engineer talking with you. Take advantage of that. Don’t try to be more of an expert than an expert.

So, if you are 1-99 % expert you should keep your mouth shut. Only when you are a 100 % expert you suddenly know it all...

We all are experts in something, because we all do something for living. My job just never has been producing orchestral recordings. My job has been various things from measuring loudspeakers to writing minutes of meetings to calculating the heat losses of buildings to taking water samples from faucets and many other things someone has been willing to pay me to do, or there has been a need to do by someone.

Of course I take the advantage of all the knowledge available here. Sorry, if I come out ungrateful, but my social skills are really bad (one of the major reasons why I struggle in life so much). It is difficult for me to think about the feelings of other people when I communicate. I am an aspie, practically autistic, just not severely so I can function in society somehow, but it is difficult. Other people just don't understand me.

 

[71 dB]

Of course, because for decades hardly any consumers used headphones and when headphone use did start becoming widespread, it was non-critical listening conditions (EG. While jogging or travelling).

G

Interesting point here. Looks like my problem is I don't do my headphone listening in non-critical listening conditions!

 

[gregorio]

So, if you are 1-99 % expert you should keep your mouth shut.

Not sure what that’s got to do with it, as that’s not the issue here. The issue is more like: Is it wise to argue with say a 90% expert if you’re only a 0%-1% expert (IE. Not even a novice)? Of course it’s up to you whether you “keep your mouth shut” but in your position I’d only open my mouth to ask questions unless I was pretty certain, and I couldn’t be pretty certain if I’d never tried mixing an orchestra, studied it or even seen others do it.

Only when you are a 100 % expert you suddenly know it all...

No one is a 100% expert and those who get close certainly don’t get there suddenly!

We all are experts in something, because we all do something for living.

True but then of course I wouldn’t argue with you about calculating heat loss from buildings because I’ve never done it myself or studied it and my expertise in recording/mixing obviously doesn’t mean I’m also an expert in building heat loss!

Interesting point here. Looks like my problem is I don't do my headphone listening in non-critical listening conditions!

Or probably using a 1980’s Walkman cassette player and bundled HPs? Maybe that’s your solution?

G

 

[71 dB]

Ping-pong stereophony is not now, nor has it ever been a “convention”! It’s use is rare, although somewhat less rare when stereo was fairly new to the market, as already explained more than once.

True. It wasn't really used after the early years of commercial stereo recordings, but those recordings are still "ping-pongy" and the fact that it wasn't a convention doesn't help.

But we don’t need crossfeeders much! Only a tiny percentage of headphone users apply crossfeeders and those who have a serious issue with headphone presentation typically prefer something more sophisticated than a crossfeed, HRTF, head-tracking and speaker convolution for example. Plus, sound engineers cannot solve “these issues” because solving them requires user specific solutions.

My suggestion was to solve the issues on crossfeed-level of sophistication which is not so user specific.

I’m not using my authority to “strike you down”, I am using basic music recording principles to strike you down. Basic principles even a novice, with almost no authority, should know.

I said "use the mics you want." I am not telling to use different principles. I am talking about shaping the spatiality in DAW while mixing the tracks together. Nowadays we have even mics that record using different patterns and combining these afterwards with a software one can adjust the pattern freely.

You’ve never studied orchestral mixing, by you own admission you’ve never done any yourself, you’ve probably never even seen it done by professionals and are making nonsense suggestions that even a novice would know are impossible/impractical. What rational conclusion can we take from all this other than “you don’t know anything”?

Too bad if those suggestions are impossible/impractical. The university I studied in did not teach orchestral mixing. The 101 course in acoustics for exampe used the textbook "The science of sound" by Thomas D. Rossing. The book contains (spread over about 600 pages) parts:

1 - Motion, Energy, Waves and Other Physical Principles
2 - Perception and Measurement of Sound
3 - Acoustics of Musical Instruments
4 - The Human Voice
5 - The Electrical Production of Sound
6 - The Acoustics of Rooms
7 - Electronic Music
8 - Environmental Noise

I thought I learned something from that course/book. Most of my studies were not acoustics. They included things like Math(s), Physics, Electronics, Programming, Telecommunication, Optical instruments, Economics, etc.

The Jecklin Disk technique is the use of a pair of matched omni-direction mics, 36cms apart with a baffle (sound absorbent disk) between them. How do you apply that “philosophy” to say 20 or more mics, that are not matched, are not 36cms apart and have no baffle? There is of course no way to have all the strengths of Jecklin Disk and none of weaknesses and if there were, that’s what we’d all have been using for decades.

I have constructed my own Jecklin Disk, so I know what it is and what kind of spatiality the recordings done with have. I haven't recorded music with it, but just environmental sounds (cars driving by, doors opening and closing etc.) The results have been good in my opinion.

What Jecklin Disk does is it generates simplified ILD, ITD and ISD information to the recorded sound, maps the complex 3-dimensional acoustic sound field into 2 channels of audio in a way that tries to be compatible with both speaker- ja headphone-based reproduction of sound. That's what the philosophy is. It is about the goal, not the physical dimensions of a Jecklin Disk. Listeners do not care what the mics looked like. They care about how it sounds.

Of course not. In a symphony orchestra you’ve got around 90 or more musicians, playing together in close proximity. Plus, most of the instruments are largely reliant on room acoustics to produce their recognisable sound. Close mic’ing significantly reduces the room acoustics captured but would not eliminate “spill”. So, you would end up with 90+ mics/channels, all out of phase with each other and most of them not capturing the desired sound anyway. A great deal of extra time and cost for a hugely inferior result, not smart. What we actually do is have a main array (say a Decca Tree for example), outriggers covering areas of the orchestra furthest away from the main array, spot mics covering sections of the orchestra, some room mics and occasionally, depending on the piece of music, one or a few close mics.

Well, one would think having one mic for every instrument group would be enough. The word "close" is relative. I am trying to learn from what you write here.

Hang on, you were the one who brought up orchestra recordings, then argued that you’ve experimented for years and know a lot. Now you’re saying your actual experience is mixing a track that was an amateurish recording of a no name band as part of a mixing course? Oh dear.

Did I? I have forgetten. I must have mentioned orchestra as an example and I could have talked about anything else. What I have experienced with for years is the electronic music I make myself. I think it is a good area for learning, because spatiality has to be generated from scratch. Nothing is given. Sorry about the confusion. Hopefully I made myself clear now.

A rock/pop band is an entirely different thing. Pretty much none of the instruments are reliant room acoustics to produce their recognisable sound and there’s not dozens of musicians all playing at the same time in close proximity. In fact typically, there is no proximity between the musicians because they are not playing together, they’ve probably been multitracked at different times/days.

In my case, the band (Turkuaz) was recorded playing together meaning there was acoustic leakage on the tracks (drums could be heard on guitar tracks etc.) What I learned is that this isn't necessarily a big problem if handled with care and can make the resulting sound even better (richer).

So apart from the drumkit, there is no spill or phase issues and artificial reverb can be applied instead of a natural acoustic. Again, absolute basics, I’d ask for your money back for that mixing course!

Yes, I think the drums where the only tracks with phase issues and artificial reverb was added, both short and long. The course was free and it wasn't about recording orchestras, but about the basics of using Pro Tools and working in a studio. It delivered what it promised. I have never seen "How to records/mix" orchestral music courses offered. Maybe such education is not given in Finland?

Err, because YOU introduced orchestras as the example and continued to do so right up until the moment you started to realise it’s maybe nonsense and now it’s “why do you keep talking about orchestras”?

Well, we can go from orchestras to say EDM is you want, altho I think EDM producers already know a lot about how to make headphone spatiality good... ...they tend to mix the low end mono-like for example and use the DAW plugins cleverly.

Incidentally, what I’ve stated doesn’t only apply to symphony orchestras, it also broadly applies to any large acoustic ensemble.

Makes sense.

No one is born with the knowledge of how to record orchestras and everyone is a dummy who needs years to learn and understand how to. The difference is; when I was a dummy, before the years of learning/understanding, I didn’t argue with those who were not dummies, the professionals who already had years of learning/understanding.

Okay, I stop arguing with you about this then, because I will never learn/understand these things. I am already 51. It is too late for me.

You are telling me what to do! You are telling me and repeatedly arguing that I should mix according to the “Jecklin Disk philosophy”.

Well, I didn't mean to do so. Sorry! My lack of social skill showed its ugly head again...

 

[71 dB]

True but then of course I wouldn’t argue with you about calculating heat loss from buildings because I’ve never done it myself or studied it and my expertise in recording/mixing obviously doesn’t mean I’m also an expert in building heat loss!

I have not "studied" calculating heat losses of buildings. I was shown at work how its done in 10 minutes and I started doing it, because it is not rocket science. It is pretty simple (for an engineer with university degree). It is just a lot of work, because every single room/hall/etc. has to be calculated separately, but of course if identical rooms exist (say hotels), one calculation can be copied.

 

[bigshot]

If you have limitations, you should make an effort to overcome them. If you make no effort, then it’s all on you.

As I said before, no one is doing this to you. You’re doing it to yourself.

 

[71 dB]

If you have limitations, you should make an effort to overcome them. If you make no effort, then it’s all on you.

As I said before, no one is doing this to you. You’re doing it to yourself.

To my knowledge there is no cure for autism. As for limitations of knowledge/skills getting into orchestral music recording isn't easy, at least in my country. In the area of music theory I have advanced a lot in 3 years studying it myself. There just isn't much discussion about chord progressions and species counterpoint on this board. Somehow we are often talking about stuff that I know nearly nothing about according to experts here.

 

[gregorio]

It wasn't really used after the early years of commercial stereo recordings, but those recordings are still "ping-pongy" and the fact that it wasn't a convention doesn't help.

No they weren’t still “ping-pongy”. An extremely small percentage of consumers used headphones at that time and most stereo reproduction systems were integrated units or relatively small speakers close together. Put your speakers 2ft apart, sit 10ft away from them and then tell me it’s ping-pongy!

My suggestion was to solve the issues on crossfeed-level of sophistication which is not so user specific.

Obviously that doesn’t “solve the issues”. If crossfeed did solve the issues, why then develop individualised HRTFs, head tracking and speaker/room convolution to solve an issue already solved by crossfeed? Clearly crossfeed is preferable to nothing for some people but also clearly, it does NOT solve the issues for the vast majority.

Well, one would think having one mic for every instrument group would be enough.

One would only think that, provided one didn’t know much about orchestras or mics, or using mics to record orchestras! Take just the 1st violins for example, a modern symphony orchestra would typically have 16-20 1st violins arranged two to a “desk” and covering an area of roughly 8ft x 30ft. So …

The word "close" is relative.

When we say “close” mics we typically mean a few inches or less. You can’t close mic an area of 8ft by 30ft containing 16+ musicians with one mic. The mic has to be more distant to cover that area and will therefore pick up far more acoustic reflections and spill, especially as the brass is much louder than the 1st violins. And if we take all the violins, that’s double the number and area to cover.

In my case, the band (Turkuaz) was recorded playing together meaning there was acoustic leakage on the tracks (drums could be heard on guitar tracks etc.) What I learned is that this isn't necessarily a big problem if handled with care and can make the resulting sound even better (richer).

That’s because the freqs of the drumkit are fairly different from the freqs of a guitar, you haven’t got many guitar tracks to “handle with care” and so it’s often a problem that can be dealt with “well enough”, depending on what processing is required. No so with an orchestra where several different instruments all inhabit the same frequency range (say basses, tuba and timpani or trombones, bassoons, cellos and low horns) and you’d have 90+ nightmare channels to deal with rather than just a couple of guitar tracks.

The course was free and it wasn't about recording orchestras, but about the basics of using Pro Tools and working in a studio. It delivered what it promised.

As a double certified Pro Tools instructor (Music and Post), I’ve got a pretty good idea what your course covered, which is barely more than an introduction to studio engineering.

I have never seen "How to records/mix" orchestral music courses offered. Maybe such education is not given in Finland?

There probably are, although I’m not certain. In the UK there are many specialist audio engineering courses but only some include orchestral mixing.

What Jecklin Disk does is it generates simplified ILD, ITD and ISD

Yes, I know what Jecklin Disk is, what it does and the philosophy behind it.

Listeners do not care what the mics looked like. They care about how it sounds.

It requires a “matched pair”, that doesn’t mean the mics look the same, it means the mics perform the same; same polar sensitivities, same freq response and sensitivity, not close but “matched”, virtually identical. We don’t use just a pair of mics with orchestras, we use typically 30+ and they’re not matched because we require mics with different performance depending on the instruments we’re recording. For example wider patterns for the main array, narrower for spot or close mics, widest for room mics. In the case of a band, we’d typically use significantly different mics for say the kick drum and vocals because a kick drum could easily break the delicate large diameter condenser mics that typically give the best results for vocals. Commonly we’ll use 5 or more different mic types when recording a band that are pretty much the opposite of “matched”.

Well, we can go from orchestras to say EDM is you want, altho I think EDM producers already know a lot about how to make headphone spatiality good.

EDM is another kettle of fish again. It’s not that EDM producers intrinsically already know a lot about headphone spatiality, it’s because EDM is commonly initially produced on headphones, is usually “performed” with headphones in clubs, where you generally have to use stereo in a very limited manner and bass is all routed to a mono sub (or subs).

What you suggest just isn’t practical in the vast majority of cases with music, because of the number and variety of mics required. Although some EDM could be an obvious exception.

G

 

[bigshot]

If you make no effort to understand what people are saying to you and you respond with unregulated emotions like this, you’re basically an argument bot. And you’ve found another argument bot to interact with. That is a supreme waste of time and energy… and it isn’t just your time and energy that’s being wasted. I’m done with this for now.

 

[71 dB]

Obviously that doesn’t “solve the issues”. If crossfeed did solve the issues, why then develop individualised HRTFs, head tracking and speaker/room convolution to solve an issue already solved by crossfeed? Clearly crossfeed is preferable to nothing for some people but also clearly, it does NOT solve the issues for the vast majority.

Well then I simply don't have solutions to problems in the World. Sorry!

One would only think that, provided one didn’t know much about orchestras or mics, or using mics to record orchestras! Take just the 1st violins for example, a modern symphony orchestra would typically have 16-20 1st violins arranged two to a “desk” and covering an area of roughly 8ft x 30ft. So …

I do know this.

When we say “close” mics we typically mean a few inches or less. You can’t close mic an area of 8ft by 30ft containing 16+ musicians with one mic. The mic has to be more distant to cover that area and will therefore pick up far more acoustic reflections and spill, especially as the brass is much louder than the 1st violins. And if we take all the violins, that’s double the number and area to cover.

Well, when I say close, I mean the distance is significantly smaller than the size of the sound source. That's when we are in the near field and it has certain effects to the sound. Something like 10 feet is "close" in this case.

As a double certified Pro Tools instructor (Music and Post), I’ve got a pretty good idea what your course covered, which is barely more than an introduction to studio engineering.

You are correct in that assessment.

It requires a “matched pair”, that doesn’t mean the mics look the same, it means the mics perform the same; same polar sensitivities, same freq response and sensitivity, not close but “matched”, virtually identical. We don’t use just a pair of mics with orchestras, we use typically 30+ and they’re not matched because we require mics with different performance depending on the instruments we’re recording. For example wider patterns for the main array, narrower for spot or close mics, widest for room mics. In the case of a band, we’d typically use significantly different mics for say the kick drum and vocals because a kick drum could easily break the delicate large diameter condenser mics that typically give the best results for vocals. Commonly we’ll use 5 or more different mic types when recording a band that are pretty much the opposite of “matched”.

I didn't talk about matched pairs. I talked about what the mic set up looks like. Listeners don't care if Jecklin Disk has a disc, or how much apart the mics are. Anyway, I don't argue anymore.

 

[71 dB]

What we actually do is have a main array (say a Decca Tree for example),

What are the important properties of possible main arrays? Could Jecklin Disk be the main array? How much weight in the mix does the main array signal have typically? How hot is it mixed compared to the rest of the mix? Am I right thinking the main purpose of a main array is to "glue" the orchestral sounds together?

outriggers covering areas of the orchestra furthest away from the main array,

Well, it makes sense to have such mics. "Outrigger" is an interesting name for those.

spot mics covering sections of the orchestra,

These spot mics probably require lots of skills and experience to set up well.

some room mics

Would a Jecklin Disk put to were someones head in the audience would be work as a room mic? Adjusting the row could be used to adjust how "roomy" the sound is.

and occasionally, depending on the piece of music, one or a few close mics.

I think in the 60's it was common to "overdo" very close mics on certain instruments such as cymbals. When the cymbal crashes, I go almost deaf and on headphones the cymbals are "at the ear" because the sound is very dry. More modern orchestral recordings don't really have this kind of issues. That's my experience.

 

[bigshot]

When I was in elementary school I learned to play a song on the violin. After two months, my parents returned my violin to the music store.

That's my experience.

 

[gregorio]

Listeners don't care if Jecklin Disk has a disc, or how much apart the mics are.

If a Jecklin Disk setup doesn’t have a disk and the mics aren’t 36cms apart, then it isn’t a Jecklin Disk setup, it’s an ORTF or another of the more common stereo mic setups.

Well, when I say close, I mean the distance is significantly smaller than the size of the sound source.

In which case the term “close” would be meaningless because nearly all mics would be “close”, with the exception of some room mics. Of course the term is relative, so in certain cases (with a very large sound source) “close” could mean up to a metre or so but typically it means a few inches or less.

What are the important properties of possible main arrays?

As even a coverage of the whole orchestra as possible, with a wide stereo image and a close perspective. A main orchestra array is therefore virtually always flown a couple of metres above the conductor or above and slightly in front of the conductor.

Could Jecklin Disk be the main array?

Any stereo pair could be used as the main array but typically don’t produce as good a result as 3 mic arrangements, such as the Decca Tree, INA-3 or OCT for example. Additionally, the disk/baffle would be largely ineffective in the preferred main array position, thereby defeating the purpose/philosophy of the Jecklin Disk technique. Jecklin Disk needs to be used in front of the source.

How much weight in the mix does the main array signal have typically? How hot is it mixed compared to the rest of the mix?

There’s no absolute answer to this question, it depends. Orchestra recording for film soundtracks sometimes have very little or virtually no weight on the main array. The main “weight” coming from the mixed section/spot mics. At the other extreme, the mix might be almost entirely the main array, with the other mics used minimally just for emphasis. Typically it’s somewhere between these extremes.

Am I right thinking the main purpose of a main array is to "glue" the orchestral sounds together?

It can be used for that but more typically it’s more like the backbone. All the above depends on the circumstances, the exact layout of the orchestra (which varies, even with the same orchestra), the musical requirements of the piece, the artistic desires of the producer and the output formats required (which typically includes surround).

Well, it makes sense to have such mics. "Outrigger" is an interesting name for those.

Not sure if that’s a ubiquitous term but certainly they’re often called that.

These spot mics probably require lots of skills and experience to set up well.

You certainly need to know what you’re doing. Although there’s always going to be a lot of spill. In film score orchestral recording it’s common for the orchestra sections to be separated with screens, to reduce spill but you still get a fair amount.

Would a Jecklin Disk put to were someones head in the audience would be work as a room mic?

At least that would be a position where the Jecklin Disk setup would actually operate as a Jecklin Disk but it wouldn’t generally be very good as a room mic. In addition to the main array, we typically use an “ambience array”, such as a Hamasaki Square, Double ORTF or IRT Cross and then possibly some additional room mics. Exactly what’s used, mainly depends on the acoustics of the specific recording venue. Often the ambience array is flown quite high though, to maximise reflections/acoustics over direct sound.

I think in the 60's it was common to "overdo" very close mics on certain instruments such as cymbals. When the cymbal crashes, I go almost deaf and on headphones the cymbals are "at the ear" because the sound is very dry.

It’s still standard practice to close mic the cymbals in a drum kit, depending on the genre. For example the ride cymbal is particularly important in most jazz music, the hi-hats generally more so in rock/pop and therefore typically requires close mic’ing. Spash cymbals are often just covered by the overhead pair but depending on the piece/style will also sometimes be close mic’ed. In the 60’s it was pretty much required to “overdo” the cymbals because they rely so heavily on the high freqs, which is the first thing you loose with analogue tape recording, bouncing and reproduction. The situation improved slightly in the ‘70’s with better tape formulations, noise reduction that didn’t kill the high freqs and the good old Aphex Aural Exciter. Of course, the same basic issues existed with classical/orchestral music but digital effectively solved the problem and cymbals typically no longer need enhancement.

Incidentally, adding spatial information/reverb to cymbals can be interesting, particularly splash cymbals. Much of the sound is perceptually almost identical to high frequency white noise, so adding reverb commonly doesn’t make it sound spatially any different, it just makes it sound louder. Sometimes there are no solutions to this issue, so overly dry or present sounding cymbals maybe unavoidable in certain circumstances.

G

 

[71 dB]

If a Jecklin Disk setup doesn’t have a disk and the mics aren’t 36cms apart, then it isn’t a Jecklin Disk setup, it’s an ORTF or another of the more common stereo mic setups.

I believe Jürg Jecklin initially used 165 mm distance to imitate the distance of human ears, but later increased the distance as a method to use "acoustic zoom": Sounds coming from the sides create 2 times bigger ITD making them appear coming from a bigger angle. ORTF has two cardioids at 110° angle without baffle in between. ORTF is btw also very headphone compatible in my opinion. I wouldn't hang on to one particular mic distance, as a Jecklin Disk with adjustable mic distance gives flexibility in various acoustic/musical situations.

In which case the term “close” would be meaningless because nearly all mics would be “close”, with the exception of some room mics. Of course the term is relative, so in certain cases (with a very large sound source) “close” could mean up to a metre or so but typically it means a few inches or less.

Well if I just say a mic 10 feet away, we don't need to argue about what "close" means in various contexts...

In orchestras the player tend to move their instrument back and forth as part of artistic expression (especially smaller instruments). "Close" mics at a few inches away make the sound unstable. The distance to the instrument can easily double meaning that the level of the direct sound will vary several decibels while a listener dozens of feet away wont hear almost any change in the sound. So, a very near mic should be attached to the instruments at fixed point in relation to the instrument to overcome this problem. I'm thinking myself loud here based on my knowledge and education in acoustics, so correct me if needed.