Re: [ARSCLIST] Stereo of recording of oral histories ?

[Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Scott D. Smith" <sdsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:: 


>We have been seeing quite a few oral history recordings as of late that 
>have been done in stereo. Other than the improved intelligibility, I 
>don't see any compelling argument for taking this approach. With the 
>increased availability of single-point stereo mikes, though, it is a 
>much easier route to take than in the past. The AT-822 and 825 are both 
>good choices for this kind of work.

I spent three years working for a daily one-hour radio program that
often featured two persons, either host-and-guest (sometimes over the
phone), announcer-and-host, interviewer-and-interviewee, or in one
program's case, two principals whose job it was to take one point and
argue opposing sides.  In all these cases I would record each voice
onto separate tracks for clarity - when I went back to edit these
programs before broadcast, I would digitally silence the track for
whichever person was NOT speaking. That way the final mono mixdown
(this was an AM radio program) would feature person 1 speaking but not
the rumbles, breaths, sniffles and coughs emanating from person 2. 

If you want to feature just one voice but still record in stereo for
ambience, I would suggest using a single stereo mic (or a coincident
pair) and recording in M-S stereo. This would give a much cleaner
sound if mixed to mono than using X-Y stereo for two reasons.  One,
X-Y often attenuates anything directly in the center, because that
space is slightly off-axis to both mic diaphragms. Second, when you
sum M-S stereo to mono you effectively get the input from one cardioid
microphone, because the stereo information is cancelled out completely
due to its being out of phase. When you sum X-Y stereo to mono you get
the signal AND THE NOISE from two microphones. 


Michael Shoshani
Chicago