Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - Recorderman overheads technique: important question

666666 · 17th April 2007

That string technique is cool, but...

Since the mics are pointing at an angle to each other, I'd think there is still some level of phase imperfection between the two.

To exaggerate my point, when you have a snare top mic pointing directly at a snare bottom mic, they're 180 degrees out and will just about canel each other out (and you have to flip the phase to get it right). So... when you have mics that are say even just 90 degrees or 50 degrees out from each other (spaced apart and pointing at the same object), there would still be some level of phase imperfection.

The string method gets the TIMING (TIME that the signals arrive at the mics) as good as possible but doesn't eliminate ALL phase imperfection. Of course, a Little Labs Phase Tool would come in handy here and would help deal with the resulting phase imperfection.

Also, the timing itself is not too much of a problem anyway since in most DAWs, it is super easy to nudge tracks around by milliseconds or even samples until you get things lined up just right per ear (or even visually on screen, but doing by ear is always better of course). The string method is really more useful when recording live to tape where time alignment / nudging will not be possible later. But in a typical studio situation, it almost always IS possible.

To eliminate all phase related headaches on overheads, I still use XY, keeping the heads of the two mics as close to each other as possible. Then you need not worry about any of this. If placed right and with the right mics, you still get a super wide ultra stereo capture of the kit with XY... no strings attached!

Regardless of whether you use the string method with a spaced pair, or XY, you'll still have phase challenges when you bring in the close mics... but these days, with the ability to time align in DAWs, plus the existance of the Little Labs Phase Tools, things can be dialed in quite nicely without too much grief.

17th April 2007	#24
666666 Lives for gear Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Long Island, NY Posts: 2,560	That string technique is cool, but... Since the mics are pointing at an angle to each other, I'd think there is still some level of phase imperfection between the two. To exaggerate my point, when you have a snare top mic pointing directly at a snare bottom mic, they're 180 degrees out and will just about canel each other out (and you have to flip the phase to get it right). So... when you have mics that are say even just 90 degrees or 50 degrees out from each other (spaced apart and pointing at the same object), there would still be some level of phase imperfection. The string method gets the TIMING (TIME that the signals arrive at the mics) as good as possible but doesn't eliminate ALL phase imperfection. Of course, a Little Labs Phase Tool would come in handy here and would help deal with the resulting phase imperfection. Also, the timing itself is not too much of a problem anyway since in most DAWs, it is super easy to nudge tracks around by milliseconds or even samples until you get things lined up just right per ear (or even visually on screen, but doing by ear is always better of course). The string method is really more useful when recording live to tape where time alignment / nudging will not be possible later. But in a typical studio situation, it almost always IS possible. To eliminate all phase related headaches on overheads, I still use XY, keeping the heads of the two mics as close to each other as possible. Then you need not worry about any of this. If placed right and with the right mics, you still get a super wide ultra stereo capture of the kit with XY... no strings attached! Regardless of whether you use the string method with a spaced pair, or XY, you'll still have phase challenges when you bring in the close mics... but these days, with the ability to time align in DAWs, plus the existance of the Little Labs Phase Tools, things can be dialed in quite nicely without too much grief.