[bigshot]

The classical recordings from the mid 50s on RCA might have used something like an A-B setup, then they started using three mikes (L, C, R). I don't think it's at all common today. No reason to not take control with more complicated setups when we have so many tracks and such sophisticated mixing boards to work with.

 

[ironmine]

Another crossfeed in the form of VST plugin, it's worth checking out: Airwindows Monitoring

Just move the slider to the right, there are two settings: cans A and cans B.

 

[71 dB]

Another crossfeed in the form of VST plugin, it's worth checking out: Airwindows Monitoring

Just move the slider to the right, there are two settings: cans A and cans B.

Chris from Airwindows is a very interesting "out-of-the-box" thinker of audio processing. His idea of using Benford's law in dithering totally blew me away.

His cans A and cans B are clearly designed for monitoring purposes rather than headphone listening. In my opinion adjustment of crossfeed level for each individual recording is important in listening in order to optimize the spatiality on natural levels and as we know every recordings has it's own spatiality, different levels of excessive spatiality. For some of the music samples even the stronger "cans B" processing was imo too weak to remore all excessive spatiality. So, I'd say this plugin of his is great for monitoring purposes (work), but for headphone listening (enjoyment) there are perhaps better options out there.

*

 

[gregorio]

[1] One of my biggest pet peeves is the lack of information about how a recording session of classical music (and why not other genres too) was made. Typically the information given is limited to date of recording, name of the sound engineer and the brand/type of microphones, but almost never is there information about the mic setup.
[2] I believe at least BIS label has used A-B mic setup, but I can be mistaken. If you have professional insight into these things, I am all ears to learn.

1. This "pet peeve" unfortunately demonstrates a lack of understanding of the issues involved in creating recordings. The information you are after is far more likely to be misinterpreted/misunderstood than actually be useful information because mic setup is only one part of the equation and in most music genres, one of the least important/relevant parts of the equation! Even in those genres where it is particularly important, most classical music for example, the placement and balancing of the mic inputs within the mix is more important. Furthermore, in such genres, the mic setup can/will vary considerably according to a number of variables: The music itself, the orchestra/ensemble, the recording venue, the delivery format of the product and the artistic desires/intentions of the artists and producer. It's a bit like asking for the information of a car's engine size: On it's own that information is largely worthless/misleading, it tells us little/nothing about the car's performance. It's only useful information when COMBINED with all the other relevant information (vehicle weight, aerodynamics, engine tuning/power output, power train delivery, etc.). In the case of recordings, all this other relevant information is impractical to publish in say a CD booklet; it's too much to fit, in the case of some recordings is never written down (and can't be), is often not desirable to publish from a marketing or commercial perspective and unlike with cars, pretty much no consumers would appreciate/understand what this other "relevant information" actually means!

2. Bis have produced some very good recordings but never, as far as I'm aware, with an A-B mic setup. Sure, they *sometimes* employ an A-B pair as do many/most other labels but only as part of a much larger array of mics. I believe that Bis' early releases (pre CD era) did only use a mic pair but I believe that was a single stereo mic or a coincident pair (such as a Blumlein pair) not an A-B pair. For at least 3 decades or so though, Bis have used a multi-mic setup, as do all the other labels (going back as far as the 1950's), which in the case of an orchestra recording would typically be 20+ (as many as about 50) mics. Here's the mic setup for a Bis recording of Mahler's 5th http://kazuyanagae.com/20180815BIS/16BISRecordsMinnesotaOrchestraSetup.pdf, using an A-B pair for the left and right surround channels, a not uncommon sort of setup.

The classical recordings from the mid 50s on RCA might have used something like an A-B setup, then they started using three mikes (L, C, R).

I can't say for sure that RCA didn't use just an A-B setup in the 1950's but I think it's very unlikely, as in most circumstances it would give inferior results to other stereo mic setups (X-Y, M-S or some other near-coincident pair). By the mid/late 1950's most were using a Decca tree, some other more than two mic array or (like EMI) a near-coincident pair, plus outriggers. Some of the experimental stereo recordings made in the USA in the late 1920's and early 30's used just an A-B pair but I don't think those recordings were ever released.

In my opinion adjustment of crossfeed level for each individual recording is important in listening in order to optimize the spatiality on natural levels and as we know every recordings has it's own spatiality, different levels of excessive spatiality.

You can't just keep repeating the same false facts in this sub-forum! Pretty much no commercial music recordings have natural "spatiality", crossfeed CANNOT alter a recording and magically optimize/make it "natural" and there is no "excessive spatiality", only potentially the opposite, a lack of "spatiality" when listening to some recordings designed for speakers using headphones. How many times? jeez!

G

 

[71 dB]

1. This "pet peeve" unfortunately demonstrates a lack of understanding of the issues involved in creating recordings. The information you are after is far more likely to be misinterpreted/misunderstood than actually be useful information because mic setup is only one part of the equation and in most music genres, one of the least important/relevant parts of the equation! Even in those genres where it is particularly important, most classical music for example, the placement and balancing of the mic inputs within the mix is more important. Furthermore, in such genres, the mic setup can/will vary considerably according to a number of variables: The music itself, the orchestra/ensemble, the recording venue, the delivery format of the product and the artistic desires/intentions of the artists and producer. It's a bit like asking for the information of a car's engine size: On it's own that information is largely worthless/misleading, it tells us little/nothing about the car's performance. It's only useful information when COMBINED with all the other relevant information (vehicle weight, aerodynamics, engine tuning/power output, power train delivery, etc.). In the case of recordings, all this other relevant information is impractical to publish in say a CD booklet; it's too much to fit, in the case of some recordings is never written down (and can't be), is often not desirable to publish from a marketing or commercial perspective and unlike with cars, pretty much no consumers would appreciate/understand what this other "relevant information" actually means!

2. Bis have produced some very good recordings but never, as far as I'm aware, with an A-B mic setup. Sure, they *sometimes* employ an A-B pair as do many/most other labels but only as part of a much larger array of mics. I believe that Bis' early releases (pre CD era) did only use a mic pair but I believe that was a single stereo mic or a coincident pair (such as a Blumlein pair) not an A-B pair. For at least 3 decades or so though, Bis have used a multi-mic setup, as do all the other labels (going back as far as the 1950's), which in the case of an orchestra recording would typically be 20+ (as many as about 50) mics. Here's the mic setup for a Bis recording of Mahler's 5th http://kazuyanagae.com/20180815BIS/16BISRecordsMinnesotaOrchestraSetup.pdf, using an A-B pair for the left and right surround channels, a not uncommon sort of setup.

Very interesting. Thanks! The kazuyanagae link seems very interesting! Thanks! My lack of understanding comes from the fact I have never seen this stuff done in practice. I have only studied theory of it and the theory just states the different mic setups, not when, where and how these set ups are used.

You can't just keep repeating the same false facts in this sub-forum! Pretty much no commercial music recordings have natural "spatiality", crossfeed CANNOT alter a recording and magically optimize/make it "natural" and there is no "excessive spatiality", only potentially the opposite, a lack of "spatiality" when listening to some recordings designed for speakers using headphones. How many times? jeez!

G

Facts or false facts, I stated my opinion. I have my opinions no matter what you think the facts say. I change my opinions when I see it's necessory, not because you have different idea of what the facts are. I'm not fighting anymore and you can have your opinions.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I thought it might be a nice idea to see who likes or dislikes crossfeed.

Please vote and share your opinion either way. I wanna hear what people here have to say about it one way or another.

For me it depends on the individual track. Most often I don't like it. I would say I almost never prefer it, I consider it more of a tool like a parameter EQ to deal with screwed-up recordings.

The only amp I have that has this feature is a Meier Corda Jazz ff. I have no idea how other implementations sound or whether they help or not.

 

[gregorio]

[1] The kazuyanagae link seems very interesting! Thanks!
[2] My lack of understanding comes from the fact I have never seen this stuff done in practice. I have only studied theory of it and the theory just states the different mic setups, not when, where and how these set ups are used.

1. It's maybe somewhat interesting but it doesn't really tell us much. For example it tells us that we have a 3 mic main array, that each of the orch sections are spot mic'ed (with one or mics) and that they're using an A-B pair for the ambience/surrounds BUT, as this is pretty much how every commercial orchestral recording has been made for more than 30 years and not much different from the majority of commercial orchestral recordings going back nearly 70 years, what does this information really tell us? It's a bit like drawing a crude diagram of a car with 4 wheels ... It doesn't really tell us anything because nearly all cars have 4 wheels! Maybe it would be interesting to someone who doesn't know that almost all cars have 4 wheels? There is some vaguely interesting details in there, such as the model of mics employed and some of their polar pattern orientations seem a bit unusual but this is of very limited use because we don't know the height of the mic's and more importantly, we don't know the balancing between them and of course we can't know that because it's likely to change anywhere from a few times to almost continually.

2. And that's because "the theory" provides little more than clues/suggestions on when, where and how these setups are used. All the variables I mentioned previously are never identical and therefore the mic setups vary and the balancing/mixing of those mic inputs always varies. The theory to which you seem to be referring, as found in most books/articles, just lists and explains the basic different stereo pairs, main arrays and soundfield mics, not how they are employed in practice. With the exception of a relatively tiny number of commercial binaural music recordings, these stereo pairs and arrays are virtually never used in isolation, in any genre of music! Many/Most audiophiles seem to falsely think we just choose a basic mic/stereo pair which provides the most accurate capture of the sound waves at a particular listening point. And indeed, that is pretty much what recording engineers did, up until the 1950's when the engineers and the labels for whom they worked found a better approach which consumers voted for with their wallets. Ultimately, although it involves a great deal of science, recording is an art. All this is typically less true with rock/popular genres though, where it's mostly all close mic'ed with a single mono mic and nearly all the spatial information is created/added later, during mixing.

Facts or false facts, I stated my opinion. I have my opinions no matter what you think the facts say. I change my opinions when I see it's necessory, not because you have different idea of what the facts are. I'm not fighting anymore and you can have your opinions.

1. You are perfectly entitled to your opinion. For example, you would be entitled to have the opinion that 1 + 1 = 3, however, you should expect that if you post that opinion in a science forum, it will be refuted! You may (and obviously do) prefer the effect of crossfeed but it does not "optimize the spatiality on natural levels" and, while "we" do know that "every recordings has it's own spatiality", "we" do NOT know that every recording has "different levels of excessive spatiality" because "excessive spatiality" is a term you've invented to describe your personal perception and NOT something that actually exists!! How many times?

G

 

[71 dB]

The shadow effect of human head at bass frequencies is about 0-3 dB. This should be a scientific fact. That's the "natural" range of ILD at bass frequencies. This range increases with frequency, because the shadow effect gets stronger so that at high frequencies the "natural" range of ILD is about 0-30 dB. This is scientic fact that can be verified by calculating how a ball of similar size of human head affects soundwaves and it is verified by HRTF-measurements. So, "optimazing" spatiality is about scaling for example ILD of 0-7 dB at 100 Hz into the 0-3 dB range. The closer the original ILD is to natural level, the less we need to "scale" it and vice versa. Sure, making psychoacoustically exact calculations is very difficult, but that doesn't mean we can's do calculations at all using simple models. I set the crossfeed level based on what sounds best (most natural) so I always get the best result. Analyse of my choises for crossfeed level and the technical channel separation of the recording show a consistent relationship so that I have very little reason to think my reasoning doesn't work, because it works for me. Apparently doesn't work for some other people. I can't help that.

 

[bigshot]

I looked up some info on the first stereo recording. It was produced by David Hall and used three microphones. Two of them fed a stereo recorder and the third one in the middle fed a separate mono recorder. That gave them a stereo and a mono master. Living Stereo recorded with three mikes too, but they were recorded to four track and the center channel was used in the mix to beef up the phantom center. Both RCA Living Stereo and Mercury Living Presence were recorded this way. The mix required a delicate balance to create optimal depth and space- too much and the sound went flat. The recent RCAs SACDs used these masters to create a 3.0 version, but that wasn't what the engineers were intending in the first place.

For Cinerama, the mike placement was determined based on the layout of the speakers in the auditorium. They actually recorded sound three dimensionally and then aurally "projected" it into the theater. I've heard a few of these recordings adapted to 5.1 and they sound stunning.

 

[aukhawk]

One of my biggest pet peeves is the lack of information about how a recording session of classical music (and why not other genres too) was made. Typically the information given is limited to date of recording, name of the sound engineer and the brand/type of microphones, but almost never is there information about the mic setup. I believe at least BIS label has used A-B mic setup, but I can be mistaken. If you have professional insight into these things, I am all ears to learn.

I think this link is an interesting read:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/bbc-proms
it describes in fairly strategic terms, the mic setup for the annual Proms season in the Royal Albert Hall. This appears to have evolved steadily and incrementally ever since BBC stereo broadcasting started in the '60s. The RAH is notoriously problematic (being a large circular domed building) and for example it's interesting to read that the engineers sometimes achieve such a dry sound, in this reverbrant space, that they have to feed digital reverb back in to the mix.

Regarding RCA and Mercury, AIUI in the late '50s they used three spaced omni mics, recording initially onto a 3-track tape machine or sometimes onto 3-track 35mm film magnetic stock (which runs a bit faster than a 15 ips tape so in theory has better HF response). These latter can still be distinguished by a sprocketed image on the CD sleeve art (on Mercury recordings). Whatever they did, the results are often quite stunning - lacking only the fullest extremes of frequency range, but the amount of inner orchestral detail they captured with this setup is amazing.

Regarding BIS - didn't that label sometimes have a message on the sleeve about "no compression was used in this recording" or was that some other label, I forget. Whoever it was, I regard this claim as disingenuous, and think it almost incredible that any commercial orchestral recording could actually be produced "without compression". I would think any such recording is sub-optimal, for normal domestic listening. There are several stages in the process where compression can be applied, so probably by avoiding using compression at one major stage - the mixdown stage for example - they could then make that statement by conveniently ignoring the other less obvious stages.

 

[bigshot]

I have some BIS CDs that I can't listen to without reaching for the volume all the time. Not my favorite label, but they do have some really good Sibelius.

 

[ironmine]

Chris from Airwindows is a very interesting "out-of-the-box" thinker of audio processing. His idea of using Benford's law in dithering totally blew me away.*

What do you think about his using Benford's Law in dithering? Which one of Chris' dithering plugins is based on this principle? He's got so many dithering plugins on this website.

 

[71 dB]

I have some BIS CDs that I can't listen to without reaching for the volume all the time. Not my favorite label, but they do have some really good Sibelius.

I have among others J. S. Bach's cantatas, the 55 discs in all (latter half of then SACD's) from BIS and they work well since baroque music is less dynamic than orchestral music of the romantic era. Yes, BIS has put a lot of effort into their Sibelius, but I am not into Sibelius (even if I am a Finn) so I don't have any of those,

What do you think about his using Benford's Law in dithering? Which one of Chris' dithering plugins is based on this principle? He's got so many dithering plugins on this website.

Using Benford's Law in dithering is a brilliant idea because it's a mathematical rule of nature so the result is forced to be natural and the dither kind of hides behind the sound. Not Just Another Dither is the one which Benford's realness calculations.

 

[71 dB]

I think this link is an interesting read:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/bbc-proms
it describes in fairly strategic terms, the mic setup for the annual Proms season in the Royal Albert Hall. This appears to have evolved steadily and incrementally ever since BBC stereo broadcasting started in the '60s. The RAH is notoriously problematic (being a large circular domed building) and for example it's interesting to read that the engineers sometimes achieve such a dry sound, in this reverbrant space, that they have to feed digital reverb back in to the mix.

Regarding RCA and Mercury, AIUI in the late '50s they used three spaced omni mics, recording initially onto a 3-track tape machine or sometimes onto 3-track 35mm film magnetic stock (which runs a bit faster than a 15 ips tape so in theory has better HF response). These latter can still be distinguished by a sprocketed image on the CD sleeve art (on Mercury recordings). Whatever they did, the results are often quite stunning - lacking only the fullest extremes of frequency range, but the amount of inner orchestral detail they captured with this setup is amazing.

Regarding BIS - didn't that label sometimes have a message on the sleeve about "no compression was used in this recording" or was that some other label, I forget. Whoever it was, I regard this claim as disingenuous, and think it almost incredible that any commercial orchestral recording could actually be produced "without compression". I would think any such recording is sub-optimal, for normal domestic listening. There are several stages in the process where compression can be applied, so probably by avoiding using compression at one major stage - the mixdown stage for example - they could then make that statement by conveniently ignoring the other less obvious stages.

Thanks for the link! I'll read it when my headache goes away…

…so a lot of mics when recording large orchestral works. How about piano sonatas? Chamber music? I'm pretty sure the amount of mics drops significantly.

 

[bigshot]

I think Gregorio outlined the way solo piano is miked a couple of years ago. It was interesting.