Surround recording for DVD, care to share a few tips?

[Gerax]

Hello all.

I'm preparing for an upcoming live DVD shoot of a wicked double bass quartet I've been working with for some time. The shoot will take place in mid december, so I still have some time to get everything together.
My main question is: since the final delivery format of the audio isn't decided yet between 5.1 and stereo or just stereo, I'd still like to record the show so that it'll be ready for a surround mix afterwards. I usually record this kind of "semi-classical" gigs with my ORTF main pair and 1 spot mic for each instrument (for a total of 6 mics). Now, being that I'd have to mix in 5.1 (hopefully) will my ORTF pair hold up with a 3 speaker setup, or should I think about putting something up like a Decca Tree so that each one of the 3 mics will have a dedicated speaker in the resulting 5.1 mix? Then, what about the surrounds? Will a simple ORTF pair pointed at the back of the hall be enough to get a good perspective? My idea of the mix is like sitting in, say, 3rd row and have the ensemble in the 3 front speakers, maybe a bit spread over the sides, with the surrounds getting room and crowd.
Also, another issue is that with video being shot I won't be able to place my usual heavy duty boom stand in front of the stage: any partivular solution you care to share for hanging a Decca array or ORTF pair off the ceiling (with surrounds)? We'll have a remote controlled camera mounted on an 8m motorized arm for "sky-cam" shots, with another 3 cameras, 2 L and R and one steadycam.
Obviously I'll be jammed to video black and timecode with my recorders.

Thanx for your help

L.G.

[videoteque]

Ciao!

Where is the shot?? I live near Rome...

This is my first post after a some weeks lurking!

[Legacy]

Hi Lorenzo,

I'm not the most experienced with surround but I've done many records with surround mics up. Most of them never actually get released in surround however

I have found that a spaced pair of cardiods facing the back corners work better for the surround mics than omnis or a coincident pair although neither is bad.

I like having 5 main mics. The main LR pair of spaced omnis, a center omni and the surr. pair. With an ORTF main pair you may not need the center channel. I don't necessarily dedicate them solely to the corresponding speaker in the mix but play with divergence and panning a little to see what sounds the best.

As you likely know the toughest part is really monitoring in surround on location. Most often I can't have a 5.1 system in the makeshift control rooms so how far back you place the surrounds is mostly guess-work.

Hope it helps a little,
Silas

[Gerax]

Silas

Thanx for your reply.

I was reading here on the board that somebody actually managed to record surround gigs by using a self built "star-shaped" bracket mount for the five mics, having them arrayed kind of like Decca for the front, with two additional mics ponied at the back; I also took a look at some dedicated surround recording setups from the likes of SPL (just to see how they are realized) and saw a similar arrangement. So I was thinking about trying to go that route; how far from each other do you place your mics in the front pair? How do you deal with the interaction between the center mic and the phantom center created by the L-R mics of the stereo pair? I think I'll be following the 3 mics on the front approach (with two on the back) because dealing with a simple stereo pair and a 3 channel LCR monitoring (and stem mixing) in post won't be as convenient as having 3 dedicated sources to pan.

Videoteque, the shoot should've taken place in Rome because of two members of the quartet being also musicians in the Orchestra of S. Cecilia, but due to lack of time and the right opportunity it's going to be in a small but very nice theater in the countryside of Florence, nearby Certaldo. Drop me a line if you think you want to come by.

L.G.

[Biber]

Hi Gerax,

i´ve done a few surr recordings

here is a picture of my selfmade Ina5 array which was about four years ago.
it was just for a friends band where i also was doing the live mix, but it was fun
i also did a organ recording in surr last year where i used a ORTF setup wih my neumanns simply adding an omni in the middle
i used that mic just slighly in the center and for feeding the sub.
the surrounds were simply two C414 a few meters away, as far as i remember there were switched to cardioids.
i think it worked very well
if you have a bigger croud, think about adding two or perhaps three mics from the stage to the first row of people and also perhaps two more for the back of the room
but thats at least 10 mics
thats also the way one of germans biggest remote recordist does when recording for dvd
but he has a spl atmos of course

[Gerax]

KUDOS TO YOU Biber!!!!!!

That's exctly the kind of thing I was looking for, and I remember this same picture you posted in another thread but couldn't find it!!!

So now, if you could be so kind to explain me a bit in detail the kind of setup I think I'll be able to adapt it to my scenario.
What mics did you use for your front? Were they all the same type? What pattern? Are they arranged as an ORTF pair? How did you managed to pan and route the three front mics in the surround mix? How did you bounce the mix down to 5 tracks for the encoding?

Thanx a million for chiming in on this post, I hope you'll be available to answer my questions.

Thanx

L.G.

[Biber]

hello gerax, sorry i couldn´t come back to you earlier, my computer was with me to a recording this weekend...

i hope i can help you but i´m afraid, you should not expect soo much, because it wasn´t a very professional thing, well...there was NO money involved, because it was a christmas gig from a friends band and i never made a final mix...but that´s an extra story

soooo...

first the theoretical things you can read here:
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/Surroun...ms-Brauner.pdf

and of course, all five mics should be identical and are cardioids, for l/r i used my trusty Km140 and the rest were some AT mics, we had in stock.

i simply would mix the five mics to the corresponding LS with perhaps a bit of bleeding to taste, leaving the sub empty.
a also think you can make a nice stereo image with the mics, perhaps simply with the lr pair or perhaps adding al little from the center mic, all i can say is just try...

finally the machanical side...
...simple as can be i just a few aluminium strips with some holes and some screws for easy transport, look at the two pictures. you can hang it down or you can put it on a mic stand, if you use sd-condensers, for LD you will need bigger material. the are companies that build such things,
http://www.gefell-mics.com/pr-ina5.htm or
http://www.soundperformancelab.com/u.../in_short.html

but if you have some good mics, why not build it on your own???

if you still have any question, just ask, i`ll do what i can

[pkautzsch]

A paper on different surround setups (from a Banff AES workshop, I think) can be found here: http://www.dpamicrophones.com/Images/DM01488.pdf
This includes a report about needing a few hours to hang a setup...

[videoteque]

Ciao Lorenzo!

I would love to attend/give a hand/enjoy the concert... whatever! I sent you a PM!

[klaukholm]

For surround our main rig is a decca tree of M150's with two wide outriggers of
M150s. In the middle of the hall we put 3 DPA 4003 with black grids spaced 20-30ft apart. By the rear wall corners we place two DPA 4006 or TLM170 for ambience.

[chadly]

Originally Posted by klaukholm

For surround our main rig is a decca tree of M150's with two wide outriggers of
M150s. In the middle of the hall we put 3 DPA 4003 with black grids spaced 20-30ft apart. By the rear wall corners we place two DPA 4006 or TLM170 for ambience.

Nice set up! How did the mix go? Do you have any examples?

[Legacy]

pkautzsch,

Thanks for the link to the great Banff / DPA paper!

-Silas

[Gerax]

Hi all and thanx for the replys

I think I'll be trying the surround Decca setup described in the DPA doc; I don't have 5 M150s at hand , so I'll try to make do with the best 5 matched condenser mics I'll be able to get my hands on; for the rest I'll be having my usual spot mics on the quartet (we are currently discussing the possibility to get DPA 4061 lavs which would make for a "visual friendly" setup) and a pair of pickups for pizzicato bass. I guess panning and routing of the five main mics for a 5.1 mics will be feasible and not too difficult in a DAW environment.

Thanx for the suggestions so far, keep 'em coming.

L.G.

[klaukholm]

Originally Posted by chadly

Nice set up! How did the mix go? Do you have any examples?

We are very happy with the results. Keep an eye out for Spiderman 3 the videogame if you want to hear samples (June 2007).