Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere - I've searched but coudln't find a whole lot.

I'm about to purchase my first pair of ribbon mics so I can't find the answer to this empirically just yet: When arranging ribbon mics in a blumlein configuration, what is the effect of the contribution from the 'out of phase' sides of the mics ? Reflections plus whatever else is going on in the room, I assume' If so, I assume that the spacing between the source and the mics can be manipluated to change the relationship between the two signals. Or have I misunderstood something ?

Any enlightenment appreciated.

From dpamicrophones.com microphone university:
"It has a higher channel separation than the XY stereo, but has the disadvantage, that sound sources located behind the stereo pair also will be picked up and even be reproduced with inverted phase. "

So yes, reflections plus everything else, with inverted phase. Might sound good, might not!

As usual, it's 'suck it and see' time.

I suppose the real problem I have is that being de facto recorder for my band, I have to try to guess in advance what I'm going to have to need to do in advance - with little or no experimental time in the practice room. Every recording is an adventure - albeit a rather stressful one. Hence the desire for some 'general purpose' solutions.

Apparently, no one else has time to read the equipment manuals.

Oh ! For a permanent recording space.

Ta.

It's my favourite stereo micing technique for room mics by far. Had really good results organising a live band all in the same room, no seperation around the blumlein in the positions you want to hear them in the mix (stereo kit straight ahead, bass back middle, guitars back left and right)and panning close mics to opposite sides or to same position. really wide cool stereo image and you tend to have very few sereious phase problems

bubbleboy wrote:It's my favourite stereo micing technique for room mics by far. Had really good results organising a live band all in the same room, no seperation around the blumlein in the positions you want to hear them in the mix (stereo kit straight ahead, bass back middle, guitars back left and right)and panning close mics to opposite sides or to same position. really wide cool stereo image and you tend to have very few sereious phase problems

This is also an excellent, if not best (although time consuming) way to mic a small acoustic ensemble (duet, string quartet, wind sextet, etc...) in a good room. The time consuming part being that you want to establish a balance of room/direct/stereo width with positioning of the ensemble within the space, and then with the arrangement of the ensemble in relation to the mics, and the relationship of the mic to the ensemble versus room.

When it all comes together the results can be astonishing, and will often sound equally good on headphones as through monitors.

Blumlein pairs are THE shit...

I've had very good luck with Blumlein for drum overhead pairs and also as primary stereo source for small acoustic ensembles in halls. Just more them closer or farther to get the direct to reverberent mix that you want.

bob

Thanks for the replys.

Bob's point about using blumlein as drum overheads takes me back to the original question really. i.e. I'm assuming that you really need to isolate the kit from other sources to avoid picking up a mixtute of reflections ( I don't have an ideal recording environment) and other instrumentation ?

I'm also guessing that the success of blumlein in overhead drum miking is partially due to the relatively narrow physical space occupied by a kit (compared to say, an orchestra) combined with the precise spatial localisation obtained from the mic arrangement ?

I was going to try this out yesterday, but our drummer didn't show up.