MS-Stereo
 

I am looking for a member that uses an external MS-Stereo mic on the cam, like I do. My equipment: Canon XH-A1, Sennheiser MKH 418 (MS-Stereo), Sony Vegas for editing.

I'd love to exchange experience and/or sample audio files.

Mid Side
 

I don't but sure would like to discuss... would this be an appropriate tool for:
1) mic ing a chorus ranging from 20-70 kids? Venue would be a performing arts hall that also hosts commercial productions (broadway plays, orchestra, etc).
2) wildlife video, such as me in a blind shooting big game (elk, bear, etc.)
I know they have nothing in common, but both are my passions.

I don't use an MS mic on my camera, but I use one off the camera to record wind bands. I record on a hard drive recorder and edit with Vegas.

Regards,
Jerry

Jerry, I edit with Vegas, too. How do you manage to mix the mid/side channels (by plug-in?)

Michael,
I do not use a plug-in. This is how I mix MS stereo in Vegas. Put the mid on the timeline. Put the side underneath and make a copy. Now you have three tracks, one mid and two copies of the side. Next invert the phase on one of the side tracks (there is a button on the track header for this). Pan the phase inverted track all the way to the right, and the other all the way to the left. Make sure that the pan model is set to "constant power" by right clicking on the slider and selecting it. Otherwise you won't get the correct stereo effect. At this point I create a bus and connect the two side tracks to it, this makes the next step easier. Adjust the relative gains of the mid and sides bus while listening to get the stereo field you desire. (I set the level on the mid and adjust the sides bus. The higher the gain on the sides the more spread out the field.) I then create another bus and connect the sides bus and the mid track to it. This allows me to change the gain on the stereo signal during the show without changing the stereo field. (I use a volume envelope on the stereo bus for this. One could also put an envelope on the sides bus to change the stereo field if needed.) Finally make sure that the position of the instruments in the resulting stereo field matches what is seen in the video. If not reverse the pan directions on the sides.....

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Jerry

Soundforge will do a M-S conversion. Also, recorders like the Sound Devices 702 will record a M-S signal, as well as decode for monitoring.

Thanks Jerry, I have to try this. Up to now I have been using a Vegas plug-in (I guess it is the one Bill is talking of- thanks Bill!) that does the MS-decoding automatically. But I was never sure, what exactly the plug-in is doing. It sounds okay, but i will "verify" the sound with the sound of your "pure" mixing solution.

Thanks, Jerry, for your demo sound clip. Can you share an undecoded MS-sample as well?

James,

MS stereo is ideal for video, as there is no distortion when it is played back in mono. Spaced mikes will result in comb filtering distortion in mono.

The MKH 418s which is a shotgun, would not be ideal for music, as off axis sounds will have reduced high frequencies, and this will sound unnatural. Also the side capsule of the MKH 418s is not of the same quality as the centre (MKH 416) microphone.

If you can afford it, two Schoeps CMC6 bodies, one with a MK4 cardioid capsule and one with a MK8 figure of 8, which is what I have, sound superb. The Sennheiser MKH40 with MKH30 are probably equally good.

Whatever microphone you have, you want your microphone off camera, and closer to the performers. See this article

http://www.tape.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart...tml?E+cassette

by Bruce Bartlett, and read his other article in the link at the end.

Patrick

Wow, great article, best I've seen about stereo mic techniques, and I've been reading online off-and-on for years.

A pair of cardoid condensor mics, a good mounting bar and one or two mic stands will give you basic tools to try lots of techniques - a/b spaced pair, x/y coincident pair, and, near-coincident pair.

I mostly work with the near-coincident ORTF config mentioned in the article (2 cardoids at 110 degrees 7 inches apart) and have had great results.

While on paper ORTF doesn't collapse to mono as well as x/y or m-s, in practice any consumer TV that collapses the signal to mono isn't very hi-fidelity anyway, and doesn't sound any worse than usual with ORTF stereo content.

A buddy has a Neumann RSM 190i M-S mic. If I had $5,000 US to drop on a mic, this would be it. It sounds fantastic, I had the opportunity to record some acoustic music with it in a series of shoots, it is an amazing mic. Since replaced by the RSM 191 AS, http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ughType=search

It is magic to record in M-S then dial-in the stereo spread in post...