stereo processing from the perspective of a Grammy-award winner. professional cook only with water. A few recipes are simple but good. These and other wisdom I had to confirm see as a few weeks ago Greg Zielinsky, in his capacity Grammy Award winner (Leonard Bernstein, Candide) and International Recording Applications Manager at Sennheiser , was with us in State Institute for Music Research Berlin a guest.
Apart from the actual job, to make guitar recordings for the audio guide for the upcoming special exhibition "The World of Guitar" of the connected music instrument museum I could pick up in the trappings many interesting techniques, philosophies and ideas and would like to become a little talk out of school.
there who cares. The guitar recordings, which from the 23rd to September in the Museum hear are all recorded in Curt Sachs Hall of the Institute. Gregor preferred it a little AB consisting of two Neumann TLM67 to Nahmikrofonierung, and another stereo pair of very large base width consisting of two built specially made for him MKH800 TWIN for the room in just over 4 meters high and also about 4 meters away from the guitar. In between were also again as a stereo pair of two Sennheiser. So all in all six microphones worth plenty € 10,000 for an acoustic guitar.
But who's laughing now that must come to the exhibition in Berlin and listen to the recordings. The effort has really paid off. Not least because Gregory is a whole day setting up the microphones, the distances and the orientation Time has left, the result is well balanced in sound. Almost dimensional space and yet curiously, very tangible. .
Toll
reminds somehow of production techniques of the living legend Bruce Swedien , the nuances expressed in colors, and then come according to hearsay rates reached as follows: Hmm, maybe a little more green in the guitar fret sound and a lot more yellow to the drums , or something like that. It should be noted we are still talking of music production, not by Bob Ross.
I digress.
What I really wanted out, you is a small exclusive tip from the man himself to give up the path. Unspectacular but somehow fascinating and yet to be logical. It's theme is about stereo processing.
Suppose you import or recordet a stereo interleaved file, that is, left and right together on one track. Nothing unusual for main microphones or keys, for example.
Note that if you now manipulate the stereo balance on the then most existing balance control to compensate for example, XY-shifts the stereo width will be processed . Actually, if one wants only one channel up or quietly shift the perspective to make, but that did not happen.
the contrary, it is even worse. Using these interleaved balance stories, then mix the respective channel to have on the others. Phase problems and muddy sound are thus inevitable. In addition to the lower stereo width.
How to avoid that? Simply from the interleaved file make a split-file (any decent sequencer or editor should be able) and grab the resulting separate channels on two different tracks. A Pan Pan L and the other with R.
What has happened now following. Would one example, an XY perspective distortion to compensate or relocate the stereo picture makes it easy on the channel fader quieter. The stereo width remains. No phase problems or cancellations. Everything nice.
So simple but extremely useful.
I hope this shows you and me once again that one can influence something as simple grave by his sound. Positive and negative. In that sense.
It is not the technology that limits us in our work, but knowledge of it and the creativity to use it.
you later. Maybe I'll tell you yes a few tips from Mr. Zielinsky, if you want.
