Stereo Lab - Microphone Technique

10/24/2018 Stereo Lab - Microphone technique
Chapter 5 Microphone technique (excerpt)
To buy the book from which this article came (as a paper or
as a Kindle book) go here.
Stereo microphone techniques
Because rock musicians and producers hold great store in the creation of
entirely artificial (synthetic) sound worlds, a multimicrophone technique is
preferred. On the other hand, in a classicalmusic recording, whilst
possible in principle to mikeup every instrument within an orchestra and then with a combination
of multitrack and electronic panning create a stereo picture of the orchestra, this is usually not
done. Partly because the technique is very costly and complicated and secondly, because this
multimiked technique has not found favour amongst classical music aficionados, all of whom agree
that it fails to provide a faithful representation of the experience of listening to an orchestra in a
concert hall.
The exception to minimalist techniques for orchestral recordings sometimes exists in recording
orchestral music for movingpictures. For various, practical and artistic reasons, film scores are
often recorded using a multitrack technique in which every instrumental group (and sometimes
almost every instrument), is allocated its own microphone and fader. As with all close miking, this
has the effect of heightening each instrument's character resulting in a "hyperrealist" and deeply
dramatic rendering of the orchestra. Adopting this technique results in a recorded sound in which
there is less blend: bowed double basses rasp and thunder, strings sigh, brasses blare, and
woodwinds are breathy and plangent. The result is a mannered style which complements the
heightened nature of cinema images.
Obviously some logistical situations militate against the use of multimicrophone technique. That
such a technique would not work for a recording of the dawn chorus should go without saying! With
the notable exception of sound recording for cinema films, most historical recordings of orchestras
and choirs depended almost exclusively on the application of simple, or "purist" microphone
techniques where the majority of the signal that went onto the master tape or disc were derived
from just a few microphones. It may be said with certainty that the orthodox canon of classical
recordings were made this way. Sadly recent fashion has tended to encourage the use of
cinematographic, multimiked techniques for "serious" recordings in an attempt to rejuvenate the
rather limited repertoire of classical music. But fashions change, and no doubt they will again. And
"purist" microphone techniques will be there when they do.
Surprisingly there are no fixed rules as to how these main microphones should be arranged in
these "minimalist" recording techniques; although a number of popular deployments have evolved
over years and these are discussed below.
Spaced Omnis (A B) technique
This technique utilises two, spaced, omnidirectional microphones set about one metre apart.
http://www.pspatialaudio.com/microphone%20technique.htm 1/13

Fig. 16 Theory of spaced omnidirectional microphones as a stereo pair
There is a "golden rule" for the deployment of spaced omnidirectional microphones called the 3:1
rule. This tenet states that for every one unit of distance from the artists to the line of the
microphones, there must be three units of distance between the two microphones. For orchestral
recording, this implies one metre separation when, operating just behind the conductor. Any greater
separation than this and a "hole in the middle" appears in which the centre of the stereo stage
recedes with respect to the sides, requiring a centre microphone to reinforce the middle. The pair
should be rigged about 2 metres high.
The theory behind this technique is illustrated in Figure 16. Each omnidirectional (pressure
sensitive) microphone simply transduces either the left channel signal, or the rightchannel signal.
This technique captures the position of a particular instrumentalist by means of timedifferences
between the signals arriving at the microphones. The signal from each microphone should be
panned hard left or right as appropriate, or recorded directly to the left and right channels of the
stereo master. Recordings using this technique suffer from a slightly vague stereo effect because
the technique relies on capturing timeofarrival cues and not amplitude cues on which stereo
ultimately depends. Nevertheless, this technique ensures that the left and right signals are un
correlated and this leads to a "warm and wet" signal with pleasing reverb and ambience.
Furthermore, this technique enables the recording engineer to use omnidirectional microphones
which do not require the compromises in design that we noted with cardioid types. Cardioid
microphones never seem to offer quite the "openness" of an omnidirectional microphone and this
reason alone has kept spaced omni's a favourite with many recording institutions and engineers.
Fortunately there are electronic matrix techniques for capturing a sharp stereo image from spaced
omni's as discussed below; although these are not well known.
Coincident (XY) technique
This is the technique usually attributed to Blumlein in which two figureofeight or cardioid
microphones are mounted as close as possible with a 90° angle between them; as shown in Figure
17. The coincident pair should be placed on a line directly behind the conductor at a distance of
zero to two metres.

Fig. 17 The classic, coincident pair
Crossed eights or crossed cosinemicrophones

Fig. 18 The polar response of two, coincident eights (or cosine) microphones
The ideal response of a velocity microphone is given by |cos θ | where θ is the angle of incidence
of the sound wave upon the microphone. An ideal polar response of two cosine microphones
mounted at 90 degrees to one another and at 45 degrees each side of the soundstage is
illustrated in Figure 18.
If it were possible to fabricate a perfect velocity microphone with a perfect cosine polar response at
all frequencies, it would represent an almost perfect encode system for the capture of real, acoustic
sounds for replay over loudspeakers. Such a microphone array would be in effect an acoustic
sine/cosine pancontrol as illustrated in Figure 19. The theory of stereo is covered in much greater
detail in chapter 18. For the moment, simply note that, at 30 degrees off centre (which is the usual
loudspeaker position and hence the practical limit of the stereo soundstage), the ratio between the
wanted "live" channel and the "dead" channel is about three to one. And, at the extremes of the
stereo stage, the response from the "dead" channel is suppressed entirely. Crossed figureofeights
may legitimately be termed "Blumlein technique" since most of his team's later work on stereo was
conceived with crossedcosine microphones.

Fig. 19 Response of two, ideal, velocity microphones rigged at 90 degrees to one another
provide an ideal sine/cosine panning law. Note that, at 30 degrees off centre (which is the
usual loudspeaker position and hence the practical limit of the stereo soundstage), the
ratio between the wanted "live" channel and the "dead" channel is three to one.
Unfortunately, all figureofeight microphones tend to "beam" and become more directional with
frequency. An example of the polar response of a practical microphone is given in Figure 20. This
represents a very good performance, and many practical examples show a more pronounced effect
than this.

Fig. 20 Polar response of a practical, cosine microphone. Note how the polar response
narrows at high frequencies, illustrating that the microphones become more directional at
HF
The result of this narrowing of the highfrequency response will be to exaggerate HF cues with
respect to LF cues because for a given obliquity ( θ ), a greater interchannel ratio will be encoded
at HF than at LF. This will lead to distortion of the HF image which will bias sideresponse with
respect to centreresponse. This too may be corrected electronically although this is rarely done in
contemporary practice.
There is a further, gross distortion which is introduced by crossed, figureofeight microphones. This
is that the reararc is encoded and remapped, in a mirrorimage form, onto the forward arc. The
practical result of this is the collection of a greater reverberation signal, which is distorted in as
much as it appears from infront and reversed in L/R sense.
Crossed cardioids
In order to address the limitation noted in relation to crossed, velocity microphones and their
characteristic of encoding the entire 360o soundstage, recording engineers have developed
versions of the coincident microphone technique using cardioids which, by their nature, reject
sound from the rear of the capsules. In usual deployments, the microphones are rigged on sturdy
stands about two metres or more above the performance area floor and pointing slightly down. But
to what extent is the response pattern of the cardioid microphone suitable for accurate stereo
encoding?

Fig. 21 The theoretical response of a cardioid microphone
The theoretical response of a cardioid is given by (1 + cos θ ) where θ is the angle of incidence of
the sound wave. This curve is plotted in Figure 21 and the curves for two, superimposed cardioid
responses at ninety degrees to one another are plotted in Figure 22.

Fig. 22 Cardioid responses of two microphones mounted at 90 degrees with respect to one
another
The curves of Figure 22 are translated from polar form to rectangular form in Figure 23, so that they
may be compared with the ideal panning laws of the panpot and the crossed cosine microphone
array which were illustrated in Figure 19.

Fig. 23 Pan laws for 90 degree mounted cardioids (lower curves are empirical data for HF
response in practical microphones)
As can clearly be seen, the crossedcardioid arrangement will fail to produce adequate levels of
interchannel level difference at θ = ±30 degrees from centre. The interchannel ratio (upper
curves) is a less than 0.7:1 at 30 degrees from the centre; wholly inadequate for proper stereo
encoding at low and middle frequencies. In fact, the only reason crossed cardioids give an
adequate stereo effect is due to HF beaming effects (shown as the lower curves in Figure 23). This
data is empirical and indicates that HF beaming effects create greatly exaggerated interchannel
ratios at highfrequencies. These results were measured from a selection of practical, recording
microphones.

Fig. 24 Polar and amplitude responses of crossed cardioids disposed at 135 degrees to
one another
One way out of this impasse is to arrange cardioids at an angle greater than 90 degrees with
respect to one another, as is illustrated in Figure 24. This has the advantage that adequate inter
channel ratio is provided, but the microphones are so widely set that the stereo image is badly
compressed laterally.
From the above we can conclude that crossed cardioids will provide insufficient level differences to
provide correct stereo reproduction over loudspeakers at low and middle frequencies (<1kHz). This
fact alone accounts for the lack of "spaciousness" or "lowfrequency bloom" so often attributed to
this microphone arrangement. It is also incorrect to refer to crossedcardioids as "Blumlein
technique" since he never and surely never would have endorsed such an approach.
Another, intuitive way to comprehend why crossedcardioids are not an accurate way to encode
stereo information is to consider each cardioid microphone as a combination of a cosine (eight) and
omnidirectional response. (We have seen it is correct to do this in the previous chapter where we
saw the Western Electric 639a, one of the first, practical, cardioid microphones, which comprised a
combination of a velocity and pressureoperated capsules.) Looked at in this way, we can see the
crossed cardioid pair is equivalent to a crossed pair of eights in combination with two, coincident
omni's: that's to say, a mono microphone! The signals from a crossedpair of cardioid microphones
would be mathematically identical to those produced by a pair of eights mixed 50% with a mono
signal as shown in Figure 25.

Fig. 25 The crossed cardioid pair is equivalent to a crossed pair of eights in combination
with two, coincident omni's; that's to say, a MONO microphone!
It may seem incredible given this consideration that this technique works at all. In fact, as shown
above, the only reason the crossedcardioid technique gives reasonable results is due to the HF
"beaming" which the microphones normally possess which ensures the exaggerated high
frequency channel differences predominate over the mono signal at higher frequencies. Happily,
there are electronic techniques for correcting for these effects and producing perfect stereo images
from coincident cardioids. A commercial unit for so doing is the Phædrus Audio SHUpHLER,
illustrated in Figure. 26. Pspatial Audio's Stereo Lab digitally implements Phædrus Audio's
algorithm in software. This processing has become known as Phædrus Audio crossedfours
processing.

Fig. 26 The Phædrus Audio SHUpHLER which contains correction matrices for coincident
cardioid microphone signals and which may also correct for beaming effects in crossed
eights. See below and chapter 18 for more information
ORTF technique
In the ORTF technique invented by the publicservice French broadcaster (Office de la
Radiodiffusion et Télévision Française) in the nineteensixties, a delayderived "helper" cue is
contrived to compensate for the inadequate LF interchannel intensity signals derived from a
coincident cardioid array. The technique calls for two cardioid microphones mounted on short
stereo bar. Each microphone is angled 55° off axis (110° between the two microphones), and the
distance between the capsules is 17 cm as illustrated in Figure 27.

Fig. 27 ORTF microphone arrangement in which the microphone spacing adds a time
difference "helper" cue to assist the insufficient level differences when using crossed
cardioids. The graph indicates the "trading" which exists between time and level cues and
these help the engineer to rig microphone angles and distances intelligently
The ORTF pair should be placed about 2 to 2.5 meters higher than the floor of the performance
area and positioned anywhere from directly behind, to two metres behind the conductor or, in a
small group without a conductor, in front of the instrumentalists and angled about 5° downward
towards the floor. Exact distance and height should be adjusted for best results in the listening
booth. The ORTF pair may be operated further from the performers than spaced omni's; the
distance determining the degree of ambience pickup. There exist numerous variations of the
ORTF technique developed by other European broadcasters. These include the NOS technique,
developed by the Dutch, the RAI technique from the Italian state broadcaster and the DIN
technique which was proposed as a German standard. All these other techniques are almost
identical to the ORTF array with slight variations in microphone angles and spacing.
The Decca Tree
The Decca Tree is a microphone technique pioneered by the UK based Decca Company. The
technique utilises three, omnidirectional microphones; resulting in three signals which are mixed
down to two tracks. The left and right microphones should be set for the appropriate level for the
recording. In the control room, you should hear a good stereo sound but with a "hole in the middle"
where the sound stage at the centre seems "further away" than the sides (because the microphone
spacing is >1 metre). This is due to inadequate commonmode (L+R) signal. It is to ameliorate this
inadequacy that the centre microphone exists. The centre microphone signal should then be
adjusted to be minus 5 dB to minus 10 dB with respect to the pair's signal so that its contribution is
not perceptible as such, but so that the "hole in the middle" effect is removed.

Fig. 28 The Decca Tree utilises three, omnidirectional microphones; resulting in three
signals which are mixed down to two tracks
The choice of mounting the centre microphone forward of the pair ensures that its contribution to
the centre is disproportionate to its amplitude contribution and has a remarkable stabilising effect
on the central image despite its low level. The dimensions of the Decca Tree are illustrated in
Figure 28, but numerous slight variations abound and these measurements should be taken as a
rough guide. The array is placed so that the centre microphone is directly behind the conductor and
2 to 3.5 meters above the performance area floor. The alignment of the left and right microphones
can be used to tailor the sound of the Decca tree; the outer microphones can be toed slightly
outwards to widen the stereo stage and include more ambiance. Decca often complemented the
"tree" with separate omnidirectional outriggers at low level. Although short on theoretical
justification, the Decca Tree produces excellent results and is a very popular microphone
arrangement today for film and TV work, because the stereo signals captured in this manner
translate well when recording and working with multichannel sound recording and replay systems.
Blumlein δ (or difference) technique or TIHM
What makes Blumlein's 1933 "stereo" patent so important is his originality in realising the principle
that interchannel intensity differences alone produce both highfrequency interaural intensity
differences and lowfrequency interaural phase differences when listening with loudspeakers.
Sadly Blumlein's perspicacity is rarely appreciated and it is still common to see his ideas
misunderstood eighty years later! As he says in paragraph 10 of the patent document,
It can be shown however that phase differences necessary at the ears for low frequency
directional sensation are not produced by phase differences at two loudspeakers (both
of which communicate with both ears) but are produced by intensity differences at the
speakers............... It will be seen therefore that the invention consists broadly in so
controlling the intensities of the sound........emitted by a plurality of loudspeakers.
Therefore, the technological problem Blumlein set out to solve was how to "capture" the sound
field; so that directional information was encoded solely as intensity difference.
Blumlein noted that a crossedpair of velocity microphones mounted at 45 degrees to the centre of
the stereo image has the technological advantage that a pure intensityderived stereo signal may
be obtained from such a configuration without the use of electrical matrixing. His instinct proved
right because this has become one of the standard arrangements for the acquisition of intensity
coded stereophony as described above. Indeed the crossedcosine pair became the standard
arrangement for his team's practical stereophony system (known as the Stereosonic system)
developed in the nineteenfifties by EMI.
Nevertheless, and surprisingly, the greater part of Blumlein's patent is concerned with a primitive
"dummyhead" (quasibinaural) stereophonic microphone arrangement in which,
.........two pressure microphones a1 and a2 [are] mounted [20 cm apart] on opposite
sides of a block of wood or baffle b which serves to provide the high frequency intensity
differences at the microphones in the same way as the human head operates upon the
ears.
The arrangement is clearly visible in Fig. 1 of the patent (given as Figure 29 here).

Fig. 29 Blumlein's stereo system illustrated "end to end" in Figure 1 of his patent
document
Blumlein noted that, when listened to with headphones, the direct output from the microphones so
arranged produced an excellent stereo effect. But, when replayed through loudspeakers, the stereo
effect was very disappointing. The transformation Blumlein required was the translation of low
frequency, intermicrophone phase differences into interchannel intensity differences. To do this,
he invented an ingenious circuit which he called the Shuffler (his was the original use of the term) in
which,
The outputs from the two microphones are taken to suitably arranged network circuits
which convert the two primary channels into .......... the two final [left and right] channels.
Blumlein's implementation of the necessary circuit technique is illustrated in Figure 30 (Fig. 5 of his
original patent).

Fig. 30 Circuit technique for converting primitive binaural stereo into stereo suitable for
replay on loudspeakers; known as "the Shuffler". (From Blumlein's original patent
document.)
Frankly, the circuit proposed by Blumlein (Figure 30) betrays its age and looks very odd to modern
engineers. Perhaps that is why the technique has been so widely and wrongfully ignored.
Modern implementations of Blumlein's circuit are available, as in the Phædrus Audio SHUpHLER
described above.
The advantages to the recording engineer of this technique, which was dubbed by me TIHM, for
Time Intensity Hybrid Microphone technique (Brice 1997) and by Gerzon (1994) as the Blumlein
difference technique, are legion. Indeed Gerzon said of the technique,
Although Blumlein shuffled stereo techniques have never been used commercially, they
have unique advantages.
Firstly, omnidirectional microphones are usually considered to sound slightly more "open" and
"uncoloured" than their cardioid brothers; even as mono microphones. Spaced omnidirectional
arrays, despite the paucity of theoretical support for this arrangement, and the rather poor stereo
image they produce, persist in the recording engineer's arsenal largely for this reason alone. Using
the Blumlein difference technique, this compromise is no longer necessary: omni's may be
employed to capture pinpoint sharp stereoimages.
Secondly, it is clear that Blumlein regarded his claimed microphone techniques of crossedeights
and the Blumlein difference technique as functionally identical, in that each of them allowed the
eventual recording or transmission of highfrequency and lowfrequency interchannel intensity
differences which translated to the appropriate aural signals when replayed over loudspeakers. But,
his analysis was based upon knowledge of the human hearing system in the late 1920s! What
Blumlein could not have realised in 1933 was that the TIHM or Blumleindifference technique alone
is capable of collecting highfrequency interchannel time differences which would permit the
recording and replay of HF envelope cues detected by Henning forty years after Blumlein's patent.
As I wrote back in 1997,
....... using Blumlein's quasibinaural microphone pickup and a modern implementation
of his phase to amplitude difference translation technique it is possible to construct a
microphone system which detects, codes and replays (even over loudspeakers) the
correct auditory Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 cues identified [above] ........ Such a
microphone system would, therefore, have a better chance of accurately reconstructing
a stereo soundpicture than any other stereo microphone technique currently employed.
Lastly, as Gerzon saw clearly, the method of Blumlein difference technique may even be extended
to use directional microphones which enable very nice stereo recordings to be made which
suppress rear pickup. In fact, even hypercardioids and gun microphones may be employed which
permit good, fullwidth stereo recordings to be made of relatively distant events something which
no other technique can achieve. This has obvious applications to TV, film and live theatre and
music.
The microphones in the TIHM or Blumlein difference technique should be placed about 22cm apart
(not widely spaced as in conventional technique). Various baffles may be inserted between the
microphones to good effect too, so this method suits various binaural and quasibinaural
microphone arrangements like the Jecklin's OSS disc, Faulkner's Phasedarray, the various
spherical microphone baffles and the inear microphones available on the market. Positioning of
the pair relative to the instrumentalists is similar to that of the coincident system. Processing of the
microphone signals may be made using the matrix either at the inserts of the mixing desk or in
postproduction; the signal direct from the microphones being recorded at the session.
Recording an orchestra
The microphone setup for a typical orchestral session is illustrated in Figure 31. The main
microphone array on this occasion is a Decca Tree, set up behind the conductor's position and high
(2.5 metres). The levels are set up as described above. Left and right (usually omnidirectional)
outriggers are set up over the first and second violins and panned hard left and right respectively.
These microphones should be set high, looking out over the whole orchestra and their levels
adjusted for the desired ambience. A stereo, coincident pair is rigged above the woodwinds, just to
give these a small degree of focus. The left and right of this pair must not be panned fully left and
right on the mixer; otherwise the woodwinds will not "sit" within the picture and will have an
exaggerated stereo width. The horns always require a reflecting wall to contribute correctly to the
orchestral balance and it is a good idea to place a microphone between them and the wall (or
wooden flat if there is no natural wall). Once again, this microphone signal will need to be panned
to the appropriate position and will serve to add focus and strength to the horn parts.

Fig. 30 Microphone arrangements for recording a large orchestra
A spot microphone is placed near the timpani; without which the drums can sound woolly and
indistinct. The signal is panned so that it appears in the correct overall position and reinforces
rather than conflicts with the signal from the main array. A harp (if the score calls for one) is
usually miked as well, because the harp often fails to carry sufficiently and this signal can reinforce
this instrument's all too subtle contribution. It is very important the spot microphones are used with
great subtlety. If they are not, they can exaggerate the apparent size and contribution of an
instrument. Final levels should always be adjusted in discussion with the conductor during a
rehearsal playback. If the score calls for a soloist or a number of soloists, it is usual practice to
spotmike each one.
Often, the appropriate level for a spot microphone's contribution to an overall mix is difficult to find.
This is due to its proximity to the instrument in question and to it receiving its signal before the main
pair. This has the effect of exaggerating its contribution and making the signal seem a little
unnatural. It will be found that it is much easier to set the contribution of a spotmicrophone and /or
a second stereopair (like that for the woodwinds) if a compensating delay is set, so that the signal
arrives at the mixer's mixamplifier cotimed with the signal for the main pair. Modern digital mixers
permit the programming of these delays on a channel by channel basis. Even better, now that
multichannel, digital recording is so cheap, multitrack the various signals and combine the signals
together in the postproduction phase during which quality decisions can be made with time and
under better conditions than experienced on a session. During the postproduction phase, the
compensating delays may readily be selected and applied to the individual audio files with sample
precision accuracy. The only job on location is to make measurements and notes, so that the
correct delays can be set at a later date.

To buy the book from which this article came (as a paper or as a Kindle book) go
here.

References
Blumlein, A. British Patent 394,325 June 14th 1933

Gerzon, M. Applications of Blumlein Shuffling to Stereo Microphone Techniques. J.Audio Eng. Soc.,
Vol. 42, No.6, 1994 June

Brice, R. (1997) Multimedia and Virtual Reality Engineering. Newnes

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