Imagine storming the beach of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. Shell fire from behind almost knocking you flat. Shrapnel flying from your left to your right in a second. Bursts of gunfire directly overheard. The ground shaking as you charge forward. Today, a person does not have to leave the comfort of his or her home to be immersed in this reality. Through the process of stereophonic recording and playback, it is possible to put the consumer directly in the action. This most commonly known as surround sound to the public. Stereophonics is widely used today, but is not a new process. Most living things hear in stereo, humans included. From an evolutionary standpoint this makes a person able to hear approaching threats and avert danger. Localization is the process in how we interpret the things we hear. How this works is through something called HRTFs and Binaural cues.
The outer …show more content…
The engineer is trying to recreate the human ears. There are two basic stereo mic setups, X-Y and ORTF. The X-Y setup is taking both mics and crossing them at 90 degrees. This ensures that everything in front of and to the outside of the mics are picked up. The beauty of miking this way is there is no threat of phase issues. The engineer will have more control by setting up this way because the pair coincides. This is the safest way to record in stereo. An ORTF mic setup is different. The pair of mics are panned hard left and right to give about 100 degrees between them. This is the closest setup to recreate the human head by capturing ITDs. By miking this way, each mic picks up very different sounds. This can cause a lot of work for an engineer because it is more likely phasing will occur. The reason people do mic like this is the outcome. When correctly miking in an ORTF fashion, it produces a robust sound made up of tons of a little differences. This is not the safest way to mic, but for sure the best way to recreate how the human head
The outer …show more content…
The engineer is trying to recreate the human ears. There are two basic stereo mic setups, X-Y and ORTF. The X-Y setup is taking both mics and crossing them at 90 degrees. This ensures that everything in front of and to the outside of the mics are picked up. The beauty of miking this way is there is no threat of phase issues. The engineer will have more control by setting up this way because the pair coincides. This is the safest way to record in stereo. An ORTF mic setup is different. The pair of mics are panned hard left and right to give about 100 degrees between them. This is the closest setup to recreate the human head by capturing ITDs. By miking this way, each mic picks up very different sounds. This can cause a lot of work for an engineer because it is more likely phasing will occur. The reason people do mic like this is the outcome. When correctly miking in an ORTF fashion, it produces a robust sound made up of tons of a little differences. This is not the safest way to mic, but for sure the best way to recreate how the human head