Garry

Greg,garrysue@arach.net.au Hi Greg / all, I dont know if this is how to jump in here, 1st time on this site, just hit reply, hope I havent committed some que jumping or bad manners. I travel to Bali each year and want to record the ambient street,rice fields, markets, nightsounds etc. I have started back the front , I have made a great set of binaurals using light brass tubing, heat shrink and epoxy araldite foer $20 AUS. Now after reading all the postings Im confused more than ever. I had my heart set on an ols MZ-R50 (bullet proof) I can get one for ~$120 Australian. But Ive read that wen I drop it down onto my PC I will lose sound quality, and that USB is the only way to go. I'm on a very low budget. I'm with Gerry on this, re: microphones.. Most shows are in mono through PA systems. Stereo might be handy to you if what you're looking for is a feeling of immersion when you listen. Crowd ambience et al play a big part in feeling like you're there again. I have a pair of those in-ear binaurals from Sound Professionals and while I haven't used them to record a show indoors yet they sound quite decent with anything I've tried them with. The thing about [true + earworn] binaurals is that they're not meant for playback over speakers, though. The recordings you get with something like the SP-TFB-2 mics can sound great over speakers as well but the stereo image is a bit strange compared to normal stereo recordings. The kind of mics that you can wear pinned to your glasses or shirt/jacket are probably better for bootlegging, IMO. Mic placement in that instance for reasonable stereo imaging [for playback over speakers] has more to do with distance between the mics [small phase delays give separation] and the direction they're pointing [both forward rather than out as with binaurals, as pointing out means everything is in a completely different phase angle]. For recording ambient sounds [nature sounds etc.] I prefer the earworn binaural method as the stereo field is often pretty diffuse anyway - and with surround-sound/matrix decoding you can get some really interesting results on playback. For instance: the back channel with surround is made up of signals that are 180 degrees out of phase - meaning that with the binaurals, which are pointing in almost the exact opposite direction from each other, anything directly to your side ends up predominantly in the rear channel. Clip-on omnis are great for general-purpose recording. You can use them like binauarals, or as a stereo pair [like a440 suggests], or even as dual-mono mics, or just using one for very close pickup of sounds like for foley use. They are also great as replacements for lapel mics in interview situations. Where they lack is in situations where you really need a directional mic that can reject sources other than your subject. For a starter rig though, you should be able to get plenty of good use out of something like Reactive's Auris stereo mics. BTW - the real treat in making stereo recordings with pairs like this comes when you have the chance to set up for an acoustic gig, like at a small coffeehouse or something, where the crowd ambience is likely to be a bit more subdued and the instruments and vocalists are relying only on their own sound, without reinforcement. Catching an array of instruments set across a small stage from front row can sound pretty fantastic.