Music Technology BSc (Hons)
Today I learned that I have been awarded a 1st for my degree and I'm over the moon.
As it has now been marked I am now able to share my dissertation in full, for anybody who is interested please follow the link.
An Investigation Into Stereo Microphone Techniques and Their Applications
Any questions or comments please get in touch.
Thanks for reading.
Tom Rawlinson BSc
Finished. Done. Complete.
So there are 22 days left until hand-in, a quick update on my progress.
All of my tracks have now been mastered (using K-20 as a reference point, leaving plenty of dynamic range), normalised to make use of all of the available bits when transferred to the 16 bit CD and noise reduction applied to clean up anything left in there from the noisy pre-amps.
The report itself is going well, I have a rough 1st draft pretty much finished. Once I get feedback from my tutor I suspect there will be plenty of redrafting as well as neatening up all the rough edges that are still present- references missing, diagrams that need scanning, audio samples embedded etc. To get it all done in time I will be spending most days in the library, which has been pretty conducive to a good work ethos so far.
Hopefully I will be finished well before the deadline of the 3rd leaving me time to print and bind well in advance of the queues but no matter what happens, It will be handed in by that date then all I will have left is 1 exam, GradEx and my dissertation presentation and that is it for my university education. Scary, and exciting.
So last night I completed the second of my final stereo recordings, this time a local string quartet- 2 Violins, Viola and Cello.
| AKG C451b's in an ORTF array |
Been very busy since my last post, I will write up in more depth at some point but so far I've conducted one or two more tests in a slightly larger studio which illustrate the stereo effects much more clearly which is good.
| Spaced Omni Pair, ORTF and Mid Side Techniques |
| Blumlein, M-S, ORTF, NOS, XY not shown- Spaced Pair & Binaural |
It's been a while since I've last posted, which isn't to say I haven't been doing work, I just had a lot of other deadlines just before Christmas pushing my dissertation onto the back burner. Now that 2011 is here I've spent the last week putting together my progress report detailing to my tutor exactly what progress I have made, where I'm behind and how my time plan is being adjusted to make up the difference.
Most of the research into microphone techniques is now complete, so I can now move onto researching some methods of reproducing stereo images- over headphones, speaker systems etc. and the processing that goes on to create a coherent image. I will also be investigating the artificial creation of stereo recordings through pan pots, delays and assorted plugins.
This Thursday afternoon will be the first of my experiments into the researched techniques. I will be setting up several techniques simultaneously and then recording sound sources at various points throughout the field, varying the angles of the microphones and the distance from them to gauge the effect this has on the image.
The microphones and techniques I will be investigating are:
Technique | Polar Pattern(s) | Microphones |
Co-incident Pair: Blumlien | Figure of 8 | AKG C414 x2 |
Co-incident Pair: XY 90° hypercardioid | Hypercardioid | AKG C1000s x2 |
Co-incident Pair: XY 180° cardioid | Cardioid | AKG C451 x2 |
Co-incident Pair: Mid-Side | Figure of 8 Cardioid | AKG C414 Neumann TLM103 |
Near co-incident Pair: ORTF | Cardioid | AKG C414 x2 |
Near co-incient Pair: NOS | Cardioid | Matched pair Rode NT1A |
Spaced Pair | Omni-directional | Audix TR40 x2 |
Binaural | Soundman in ear mics | |
Surround Sound | Holophone H3-D |
Not as much progress as I'd have liked due to impending deadlines from other modules and a massive amount of time currently being spent in the studio.
However I have managed to obtain a few more resources through the library which will help with my research into the microphone techniques and how humans localise sound. A Journal article from the AES which is available online and a copy of Spatial Hearing by Blauert.
The good news is that I have completed my placement module today which mean that next semester I will have only a single module and my dissertation to work on, So I will have plenty of time to do the experiments, research, final recording and analysis.
This week, continuing from looking at how humans localise sound, I have been introducing the basics of microphones looking at the moving coil vs capacitor microphones, polar patterns, sensitivity etc and how the right microphone selection is needed for creating a Stereo array.
Have been researching into the history of stereo a lot more thoroughly since handing in my project proposal. Been reading some very interesting books including Stereo Microphone Techniques & Spatial Audio which will come in handy. I also listened to a BBC Archive Hour program on Blumlein, the man who effectively invented stereo recording in the 1930s and it was fascinating, the man was literally a genius.
Today has involved me writing up my notes into the first section of the research looking at how humans localise sound. Basically it is the combined result of the different levels at each ear and the time delay between sound reaching each ear, obviously a little bit more complicated than that but it gives you the gist of it.
Had a meeting with my supervisor today as well which went well, just making sure that the direction of my research is correct and ensuring that I reference things correctly and often.
On the advice of my project tutor to keep a log of the progress I'm making on my project I have decided to keep a blog, this blog. I don't expect this to be of much interest to the rest of the world but you never know- If at the end anyone would like to see my dissertation I'll see about posting it perhaps.
Anyway, my dissertation is titled- 'An investigation into Stereo Microphone Techniques and their Applications' which is pretty self explanatory. During my placement at Modern World Studios different stereo techniques were often used especially for recording drums and strings. One day we setup 9 different stereo techniques at the same time to see how they each recorded the stereo field- this was really interesting but I didn't get enough time to follow it up with any real investigation, hence my dissertation and final year project.