Blending recorded conversation-your approach.

[PJD3]

I would be very interested in your comments about how you would try to achive this: If the directive is to play back recorded converstion at a home party or gathering with the intent of fooling the guests into believing that the conversations were actually in the room by real people, what would your approach be to achieve this (mic/orientation selection, placement, range of dynamics in playback, processing, playback volume, etc...). What might you expect to work the best under all the varying conditions. I realize the variables are wide, some obvious variables being, 2 way playback, 5.1 system playback, hidden boombox playback, and the fact that some people would be in close proximity to the speakers and some would be far away. If you "had" to come up with something, how do you think you might do this? (for the majority, I would expect playback in a typical home living room type environment) . I'm listening.

Thank you,
Phil

[RobAnderson]

Hard to really say without seeing/knowing anything about the room, but the first idea that comes to mind is to put a highpass filter on the recorded material (maybe about 200 - 250 Hz) and then play it back on speakers facing the walls/corners/ceiling of the room (assuming the walls are plaster or sheet rock). This way, no matter where you are standing, the sound would be diffuse and directionless, and the highpass filter should help keep the sound from being muffled by the low freq. bending around the speaker cabinets.

I would think the more speakers the better to fill the space, if that's the objective, each with correlated but different feeds (so I guess that would be a surround sound sort of thing - 5.0 instead of 5.1).

I have never tried this, so I can't really say for sure. This is just what popped in my mind. Good luck.

[joelpatterson]

I would set up some mics at corners of the room in question, and then have a bunch of people stand around talking cocktail-party talk, and then play this back from speakers positioned in the corners.

If your signal chain is accurate enough, you'll capture an authentic ambiance from the room... and then playing that back in the room can be eerie... I know, I've done this before with acoustic jam guys and it's strange, I can tell you.

[PJD3]

Thank you Rob and Joel. You've both offered some good food for thought and ideas all worth experimenting with. The 200-250Hz roll-off seems like the thing to do right away otherwise producing unneccesary booming or rumbling that would probably sound like a woofer in a speaker in a room! dead giveaway.
I can also see the "mics in the corner" giving a realistic but also diffuse aspect to the capture of the conversation in the room. Perhaps that with speakers facing the corners would be an interesting combination to try. Maybe try some absorption behind the mics and let the speakers do the diffusing.
Thanks guys, great ideas to work with. Sure appreciate it.

Phil Donovan.