Double M/S setup - Any Experience here?

[Suda Badri]

Hey aracu,

Spaced MS arrays are great, I am using one ms set up in front of talent, another ms set up behind that array (still facing talent), and also a ortf sdc set up facing talent from behind, just gotta get phasing right, the pain in the arse is I don't have a surround set up at home, but it sounds wicked in stereo.... ill try add pics... I just have to make it over to a friends studio and matrix it in surround to see what it sounds like...

The most intense immersion I have had was at an australian SAE, had a ssl K and ran 5 C414's with 5 sennMD441's making 5 spaced MS signals, plus an 11th omni mic directly in front of talent for centre (dont think we used it though), placement was 2 MS rigs facing talent looked like AB, 2 MS rigs facing talent from sides, and one MS rig facing talent from behind... so L and C had their MS from the rig in front of the talent to their left, C and R got theirs from the ms rig in front/right of talent, R and Rs got the MS from the ms rig pointing in talent from the right (pointing from the side of the stage style), the Rs and Ls got theirs from the MS rig pointing at the back of the artist, and L and Ls is vice versa the set up on R and Rs.... I know there is a far easier way to explain what I just said but I just plain suck at explaining things.... and anyway we spent about 6 hours getting the mics set up properly and got the proper distances between the arrays, we spent 2 or so hours getting things like phasing right and matrixing everything the way we wanted, and when we hit record we were just surrounded my gorgeous music, it was the best... I want to recreate it with 5 214s and 5 414s haha dreams are free! We even came up with a name for it, the OTT technique (over the top)!










Cheers all I have learned so much from most of you in this thread and others. Also, I have tried the Sanken Double MS mic, plug and play solution, really expensive and it sounds it...

Suda

[aracu]

Originally Posted by MBishopSFX

I've used double M/S for surround orchestral sessions many times over the years. Each M/S pair faces somewhat to the sides of the hall and each pair is panned as follows: Pair 1 LF/LS, Pair 2 RF/RS.

I'm not sure if I understand this correctly. Are you saying that you use
4 mics placed coincidentally as possible, as two ms pairs, one pair pointing towards the left (at maybe 45 degrees) the other pointing towards the right
at the same angle, this entire array set back further than the main array?

[recordinghopkins]

Originally Posted by Yannick

Just to react to the pic above:

double MS should be a point-source setup, not a spaced setup. That will never work ...

Can you elaborate a little and tell me how I have it wrong? I have seen it done this way before with 414's and it sounded magnificent...

Should I have the mid front mic vertical, Side mic horizontal 90˚, and the rear facing mid upside down so all three capsules are nearly touching?

[boojum]

This is a picture of how Schoeps does it and a good starting point.

Elastic suspension for Double M/S A*DMS*LU - Overview - SCHOEPS.de

[Roland]

Originally Posted by aracu

I'm not sure if I understand this correctly. Are you saying that you use
4 mics placed coincidentally as possible, as two ms pairs, one pair pointing towards the left (at maybe 45 degrees) the other pointing towards the right
at the same angle, this entire array set back further than the main array?

Each MS array (in this instance) would be faced sideways with the fig.8 (side mic) facing front and back, the cardioids facing left and right 180 deg. opposite each other, and yes the capsules should be as closely aligned as possible. A variation on this is with the cardioids facing forwards and backwards with the side mic facing left and right, like a conventional MS set-up.

Roland

[Yannick]

Originally Posted by recordinghopkins

Can you elaborate a little and tell me how I have it wrong? I have seen it done this way before with 414's and it sounded magnificent...

Should I have the mid front mic vertical, Side mic horizontal 90˚, and the rear facing mid upside down so all three capsules are nearly touching?

Anything with more than 20-30mm between the capsules (large capsules are IMO already a big problem) gives no stereo info at all above 5-3 KHz ...
I think this is also a good reason why MS has been considered to give poor stereo.

We put the caps above each other, so at least you can time algin to the centre of the source, and hope the the sides of the source touch the caps almost at the same time.

[recordinghopkins]

Thanks for the suggestions.
I have since decided to use the groove tubes for spot mics and a royer sf12 for blumlein room rather than double MS. /However after re-reading this thread and looking at the pic I posted, it occurred to me that this config might be a great way to implement an LCR setup.