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Rode SF-1 or adding figure-8 to 8040 pair for affordable surround recording?


sonnenstudio

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Dear JWsoundgroup,

 

first of all, this forum has been an amazing source of information for me in the past months - really the best forum I know on the web, so thanks to all members for that :)

 

first time posting here so bear with me

 

I'm checking options for a portable/sturdy surround/multichannel recording setup.

 

I have an ORTF Sennheiser mkh8040 setup with a rycote, and 2 DPA 4060's that I have been using  until now as a guerilla/far-from-perfect quad setup, in which the 8040 pair is the front pair, and a spaced array of the 4060's as the back pair using a thin metal bar that's screwed to the boom pole.  I've had some decent results with this setup, but it's a cumbersome setup to carry around and not exatcly according to the book...

 

As I see it now, there are two options to attain a portable surround recording setup which I can afford : either purchase a Rode's SF-1 soundfield microphone, or add a small figure-8 mic (like the kortwich figure 8 mic)  to the 8040's that would fit into the rycote to create a double M/S setup. It's important that the whole array can fit in a single windshield.

 

Now I have two questions :

1)what are your experiences with Ambisonics vs Double M/S? Both in terms of specific gear /setups/protability/sturdiness and in terms of its sound quality & flexibility of the recordings in post.

The advantage of the Rode SF-1 is that it is very flexible in terms of mixdown formats and practical/small to carry around. However, I'm a bit concerned though that it would be a large step backwards in terms of sound quality compared to a stereo 8040 pair... I don't work in VR, my field recordings are mostly used for my own work, art installations, or for no-budget films, so I am not obliged to go down the ambisonics route.

The advantage of the double M/S setup is that I keep a setup based on the 8040's, but I am a bit concerned with phase issues and I am unsure how to intergrate a figure-8 mic into the windshield (also: which figure-8 mic to use for this purpose?). I've done some stereo M/S recording in the past and I've had the impression one has to be so precise to make it work (mic distance etc.) that I am unsure about how reliable it is for field recording?

 

2) While doing research online, I found one review on thomann.de where the user described experiencing serious hum using the SF-1 in damp weather. This is something I have read also on this website (https://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/31493-abisonic-microphones/&page=3) Has any of you experienced similar issues? I've done some field recording both in very cold, and very damp/tropical environments, so i can't risk bringing a mic that can't handle such weather conditions.

 

 

Thank you in advance for any thoughts andf help

 

Best regards,

 

Sonnenstudio

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If you decide upon double MS get yourself an MKH30 for the closest possible matching / quality to the 8040s. (Slightly different output levels though). For whatever reason the long expected "8030" never appeared (even though in the interim they gave us the 8090). Although the 8040s are pleasantly petite the larger MKH30 is actually quite compact in use (and extremely light). It wouldn't be too much of an effort to construct an MSM rig around it in a larger rycote (or no more so than any other 3 mics in a vertical line).

 

Although you are considering spending decent money in order to get a 'one horse' rig. I don't know what your work is (beyond what you've mentioned) but I would certainly consider hiring just in order to experiment between ambisonics, double ms and other techniques ... such as IRT. That is if you're near somewhere you can hire (eg 2 more 8040s, an MKH30 and a Soundfield type mic).

 

Jez

 

 

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+1 for the MKH30, best possible match with the 8040s.

I had very good results with double MS, especially thanks to the excellent free plugin by Schoeps https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/schoeps_double_ms.html

The only drawback with double MS is that your are stuck in the horizontal plan, or you have to ad a figure of 8 vertically witch is less than practical.

Cinela and Rycote offers excellent sollutions for double MS.

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I've done a bunch of DMS and horizontal array recordings with MKH30's, MKH20, and MKH800 Twin.  That might be as 'apples to apples' as you can get in terms of sound comparison.   Both work well.  

 

My only observation is in the processing, there may be a DMS option I haven't found, something beside the Schoeps which is EQ'd for their specific mics.  With any of the ambisonics processors, you can rotate the 0º orientation, I don't see that with DMS, and it should be possible.  Depending on what you are recording, that may not matter at all.  

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If portability is important I think you should have a look at the Ambient Emesser and make a double MS rig with it. It's very light and sounds good (on a standard M/S combo anyways - both with Schoeps and Sennheiser hyper/shotguns in my case). You probably know the limitations of double MS (same as Ambisonics) - nice stereo imaging but not very exact localization. Personally, I could live with that considering that it's very portable and works well outdoors.

Only reason I would go MKH30 over the Ambient would be if you are going to record very quiet ambiences where signal to noise is of high importance, and if the additional weight of the 30 isn't an issue. I wouldn't go Ambisonics over this combo (since both are coincidental arrays and the Sennheiser capsules are surely of higher quality than the Rode's).

To get beyond that quality-wise I think non-coincidental setups are a must. The only more or less portable one I would consider is double ORTF like Schoeps offers, but that is quite expensive for the kind of work you mention. I have been playing with the idea of building an affordable double ORTF setup for the occasional surround recording with two Superlux ORTF sets stuck back to back but that might be hard to fit into a regular windshield. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Dear all,

 

thanks for all your help and insight!

Thanks ramallo for sharing your opinion on the Rode, that's very helpful.

Thanks to Cristian, henrimic and Mr. teas for pointing out the noise floor of some of the less expensive  fig8 options : since I record very quiet ambiences or sounds quite often, it would be unfortunate to end up compromising the noise levels just to gain the added surround channels.

@ Cristian - I'm afraid a double ortf schoeps setup is way out of my means though :)

As an alternative to DMS I have been toying with the idea of adding another km184 to my arsenal (I have one already and they're not very expensive second hand) to use the Neumann's as a back pair in a double ortf setup, with some Bubblebee Windkillers. The obvious disatvantage of double ortf is obviously the reduced portability...

My plan now is to rent an mkh30 and a KM184 for a few days and do some tests.

Will report back once I've done my tests!

Best regards to all of you and thanks again for your help,

Koenraad

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