Need Omnidirectional Microphone recommendation (Say What?!)

[DustyCat]

Ahhh, good old Tape Recorder...so cheap, so quick and handy, so easy to use, so comfortable, mine used to work so well at capturing the sound of the room, and playback always sounded just like you were there. When I listen back to those recordings (even after transferred to CD) once the music begins I dont even hear the hiss, I just hear the jams...

So you know where I'm coming from...
Do they match pairs of omnidirectional microphones?
Was it the late Michael Jackson who pioneered this recording technique of replicating a human head?
Do I remember correctly that the gist was that you you point the omnidirectional microphones away from each other, physically simulating the physical location of the human ears, panning one hard left and the other hard right?

I am thinking of a budget of $500 for the two (unless $500/piece makes significant difference).
I also have the H2 by Zoom, and I really like it but I noticed on the frequency response that the highs drop off woefully early..
(was it 10K? Ive been out of the game for quite awhile, Im kind of rusty...err...dusty if you cant tell)

 

[Fat Pete]

I used to know a chap (slightly) called Mike Skeet who was something of a pioneer of 'dummy heads'. I went to his place once to transfer a DAT master to CD - back in the days when CD-R was new and expensive. He showed me his case of microphones - full of stuff like Calrec soundfields worth tens of thousands (pick your currency).

Anyway, he played me some recordings of trains(!) through some high-end Sennheiser cans and it was hard to resist the urge to jump out of the way! Having just Googled him, it looks like he's still around reviewing surround sound mics and such.

Anyway again, my impression is that the 'binaural' recordings made with dummy head setups work extremely well in headphones but tend to 'leave a hole in the middle' through speakers. For a more natural stereo image you may be better using a crossed pair arrangement or maybe a 3 mic setup if you have the mixing option - 1 front facing mono and a separately controllable wide spaced stereo pair. It might be worth having a look at boundary effect mics too, especially if it's going to be a permanent setup in a room.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

I don't know if this will work with your budget, but it worth a shot.  Most (all) of the cheaper mics are produced in China with k67 capsules.  It is odd because that capsule need electronics to compensate for it's high end freq bump, and none of the mics with this capsule circuits are designed for this.  Couple that with low tolerances on the capsule, and you don't get the best mic.  If you replace the capsule with a k47 or a ck12 style capsule, you get a much improved mic.  If you clean up the crappy components in the mics circuit, you get a good mic.  So, these guys made it easy to do that with commonly available cheaper mics.  If you are willing to mod or build a guitar, it is not that big of a stretch to think a mic would be fun to mess with.  It is like modding a Squire when you get right down to it.  You just have to find one of the mics they mod that has the cardiod, omni, and fig 8 patterns on it.  The ck12 will be very clean, the k47's will have color.  If you like more modern rock style vocals, the 47 is probably a better fit.  If you are going for clear acoustic recording the ck12 will suit you better.  The replacement capsule runs about $100, but they really do make a world of difference.  The parts kits for the mics run from 50 to 200, but there are a lot of things you can specify in these kits.
Patrick

 

[drewfx]

There are a number of different techniques for both stereo and binaural recording, but most don't use omni mics.

What technique you use depends on the source and what you're going for, such as whether you're going for stereo or binaural (by which I mean trying to capture 3D localization, not just 2 channel stereo) and whether you want mono compatibility.


I'm pretty sure MJ had nothing to do with coming up with using a dummy head, though he may well have used it at some point.

 

[McGuyver]

I wouldn't suggest omnis for stereo recording, either.  If you're really dead-set on a stereo set of omni mics, and don't want to go vintage; http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/KM183Pair/, I'd suggest the KM183s.  Personally, I would rather be using a spaced pair of cardioid mics, and if I had the money I'd go for vintage KM 84s (I've heard that the 184s just don't really sound much like the old 84s, no such thing about the 183s) if I was going small condenser.  I personally would want to use larger diaphragm condensers.

The problem with using omni microphones and having them spaced close together, IE any less than a couple feet, they're going to essentially be picking up the same sources, at different times, giving you phase issues.  Omnis are great, but most of the time to capture one primary source, you'll only really need one of them, unless you're trying to capture different reactions of a room.  By using cardioids and spacing them close together, you're essentially creating one large microphone that picks up everything.  This is how a blumlein works, where the first figure 8 pattern is cancelling out the sides, the other figure 8 is recording them, and cancelling out where the other figure 8 was picking up.  So in the end, after it's all panned and arranged, you essentially get this one giant sound out of the two microphones.

 

[DustyCat]

Thanks everyone for the info and the tips. I made the choice many years ago to direct my focus primarily on my instrument rather than my recording gear, but maybe its time I caught up!

I like my Radio Shack CTR-117 Tape Recorder because it can be set up in a pinch. Like a ghost trap (from Ghostbusters) you can capture the energy in the room very easily and with only a few minutes of getting volume levels (it actually has an LED spl meter as well as input attenuation with the volume knob, most tape recorders don't even come with tape counters, if they are even being manufactured at all).

And rather than STOP and start (PLAY), Tape also likes to run from start to finish so maybe that is part of the psychological attraction, and there is definitely something gratifying about having physically moving parts (the wheels turning), at least to me. I also like the rugged physical construction of the tapes themselves.  :icon_thumright:

Anywho, its been awhile since my last jam as most of my musician friends have either moved away or got swept away with their own projects, but I plan to get back into it!

??? ==> In the meantime, I see many videos on youtube of guitar players playing along to a previously recorded song and you can hear both sources very clearly. It seems to me that they have a means to get their signals mixed to line level, rather than record the audio of both with the microphone of their camera. In fact, often times you will see the guitar player playing with headphones.

I would like to start uploading some videos of my own but have not the means to do so technology wise. Even going from Guitar signal to .WAV is a pain, and the only video camera would be to borrow my gf's crappy laptop which goes haywire every 2 minutes and makes even writing this post a royal pain. If someone could be so kind as to recommend a simple setup (more modest than the budget I specified for the Omni directional microphones pls) that would be great!

I have a no-thrills ASUS PC, and an old MAC laptop from 2002. I also just got a Behringer V-AMP PRO from a fellow member here on this forum that I was hoping to put to good use.  ???
:help:

 

[McGuyver]

If you're really interested in doing this, you can pick up plenty of higher quality pre-amp/ADDA convertors to achieve this.  However, what you're talking about, mixing to line level, is just that.  You'll have to pick up a DAW to blend your levels and get them sounding mixed like most of those videos do.  I would suggest the Steinberg CI1 which is $100 and is a no-thrills, get the job done, two Mic/line input by USB.

You'll need a microphone, but in all honesty a SM57 will get the job done wonderfully.  For about $250 which would include mic, cables, stand, ADDA box, everything you need to do some high quality videos/recordings.  I'm not familiar with many DAWs that have the ability to import video in them.  However, the movie maker from Windows, which is completely free, would allow you to do single channel video editing (transitions, etc.), and then you should theoretically be able to drop that finished video into your DAW, or vice versa, apply your bounced down Audio tracks to your video.

The only catch with using movie maker to apply the audio TO a video, is that you can only add one audio track at any given moment in the video.  Which means, you would need to mix down the original track + your guitar solo take, before dropping it into the video.