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DPA 4061 + MKH50 compatibility


RyanDoesSound

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I'm far from an expert on this, but as I understand you can either get phase issues by the sound recorded at different times (usually different distances to the sound source or delay in the signal path) or to a lesser degree by room reflections (echo).

the former can be adjusted in post by shifting the ISOs in timing until they are aligned, the later is hard (impossible?) in post. also, if you have multiple sound sources on different mics at the same time in the same room (like in music recordings) things get more tricky.

chris

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Usually you can correct that in post production...iso channels of lavs are "synced" with boom mic. Boom is reference signal so you move your lavs so they are perfectly aligned with signal from boom mic.
You can hear the difference in dialog when you correct this. Also if you didnt turn phase (on mixer/recorder) on boom mic during recording of production sound you need to turn phase of lavs (or boom) so they match.

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Phasing is not a product of combining two specific brands of microphones, but rather the product of combining the signals of any two microphones capturing the same sound source (whether on axis or off, though the former may accentuate phasing more strongly than the latter), but that may show slight differences in timing on the time domain. These time differences can be caused by the differences in distance between the microphones and the sound source. You can even try this yourself. Take the exact same two microphones, point them at your mouth or someone else's, and have one be slightly further away from the sound source. Listen to each signal individually and then mix them together, and voilà, hear the phasing in action. You can notice how much phasing is affecting the final mixed signal by moving one of the microphones in and out, and/or on and off axis, while the sound source continues to produce sound. Additionally any wireless system will add latency to the signal, further adding to the potential issue of phasing.

Any professional location sound recorder will allow you to dial in the latency for any specific input, allowing you to better mix these inputs while providing less likelyhood of phasing. This is an audible artifact that you can deal with on location. However, without the visual aid of waveforms and spectral representation as you have in post, it is a much more difficult task to do during production. As long as you provide isolated tracks for each input to post, they can absolutely deal with any phasing issues by sliding any of the tracks forward or backwards until they have a match, even down to the sample.

To be honest, though, these are some pretty basic concepts that IMO every sound engineer and sound mixer should possess, and the idea that you're inquiring about this while referring to two high end microphones that are typically found in professionals' kits seems odd to me. Assuming that you are recording the same sound source using both a boom mic and a lavalier mic, I also question why you need to mix both of these inputs, when one of them probably suffices, and in all likelyhood, sounds more than amazing on its own. This is not to say that there aren't situations where you won't find a need to mixing both, because I have in some occasions, but for the most part, the MKH50 will deliver amazing sound on its own, and will eradicate any phasing issue you could come across. As the owner of multiple MKH50s and DPA mics, I can attest to how well these two mics can be mixed together when done properly, but for a single subject interview for example, I let the $1200 mic do the heavy lifting, not the $500 one.

Lastly, I will close by saying that I don't mean to discourage your questions in my response, as I always encourage folks to ask questions. I still ask many questions and will never stop doing  so in my lifetime. But I do expect for folks asking questions that they do their due diligence. You could've easily found your answer by doing some searches online and doing some reading.

Hope this helps. Best of luck.

Cheers,

José

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If only it were that simple...

As a general statement their are two terms phases often confused as one: Audio phasing which happens when the audio from two separate sources ( microphones) are combined as one and electrical phasing where two electrical signals ( representing the audio signal) are combined as one .
There is also degrees of audio phasing all other values being equal occurring where more than one microphone is used in a mix variable to the distance from the source sound and the physical distance to each microphone. No two microphones are in the exact physical location, sometimes inches sometimes feet apart . The effect can be subtle or extreme and is always changing variable as the actors wearing radio mics move in relation to EACHOTHER and the boom mics



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If only it were that simple...


Hmmm...
What do you mean when you say that Constantin?
Every time when i do postproduction of something first thing is to check in what relation are timing of boom-lav(s)...and shift left-right until they are in the same spot..
Also boom and lav are in opposite phase for 90% of time.. so ..turn up side down :)

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Hmmm...
What do you mean when you say that Constantin?
Every time when i do postproduction of something first thing is to check in what relation are timing of boom-lav(s)...and shift left-right until they are in the same spot..

That makes sense

Also boom and lav are in opposite phase for 90% of time.. so ..turn up side down

That doesn't. You mean 90% of the time boom and lav (s?) are exactly 180 degrees out of phase with each other? The circumstances I can think of for that statement to be true are pretty rare - unless 90% of your jobs involve two absolutely stationary mics.
In my case, where I usually have one boom on Zax wireless and between 1 and 10 actors on Lectro (i.e. very different latency times) all constantly changing their positions relative to each other and frequently unexpectedly, flipping the phase is not going to alleviate the problem at all.
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Ryan, as Jose says, we now generally take the isos, select the boom as the master track, and sync the lav isos to the (main) boom. Whatever phase problems might be there are not important in post - but obviously might be still important enough for trouble with dailies etc.

De Juan and Constantin:

It's true that VERY OFTEN the isos are (beyond the general distance-phase) also 180 degree off. Maybe not for me 90% of the time but certainly often. For me maybe 10% but that's often enough. Not quite sure why, and it's I guess a workflow or equipment thing but there you go.

One percent of the time you have a real bugger of an iso that will not sync in any way easily - maybe that's our job?!

j x

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De Juan and Constantin:
It's true that VERY OFTEN the isos are (beyond the general distance-phase) also 180 degree off. Maybe not for me 90% of the time but certainly often. For me maybe 10% but that's often enough. Not quite sure why, and it's I guess a workflow or equipment thing but there you go.

Yes, that's true, actually. There are some lavs which are wired out of phase by the manufacturer. I think Sanken's COS11 is ine of those mics. But this is a known issue and should be compensated for on set - ideally. So 10% is a figure that sounds much more likely than 90%, but, as they say, YMMV.
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It's not necessarily a matter of the mic being manufactured out of phase.

The COS-11 is a case in point.  It is a three wire lav, and when connected as such, is in phase.  However, when terminated in a two wire configuration, it is then out of phase.

With Lectrosonics for instance, their earlier (pre-servo) preferred connection for this lav was with a three wire configuration, and was therefore in phase.  With the advent of Lectro's newer circuitry, the common connection is using a COS-11 in a two wire configuration, and thus they are out of phase.

Zaxcom uses a two wire configuration. 

Sennheiser also uses a two wire configuration.

(NOTE:  "in phase" refers to the industry standard of a positive acoustic pressure at the diaphragm resulting in a positive electrical signal at the output.)

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  • 2 months later...

Just because 2 microphones are both wired "in phase", doesn't mean you won't have phase issues. Phase is about the relationship each microphone shares from the point of the source. You can have a sanken cos11 wired "out of phase" and use it with a shotgun microphone wired "in phase" and have them both be in phase with each other. It's all about placement from the source. 

14 minutes ago, manuelchk said:

Someone told me that DPAs lavs and DPA mics match perfect in terms of phasing, that if you review the phase charts you will see how good the are together. I haven't check them yet but if that's true brand matters.


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