Last Saturday night I attended a lovely performance of Beethoven's 9th, among other things, by the Peninsula Symphony at Flint Center in Cupertino. Down stage center was a tall stand with an X-Y pair of microphones. So far so good.
The trouble is that these mics looked for all the world like a pair of Earth Works omnis, the ones with the narrow snout that look like a measurement mic (I own an M-30, I know what they look like). What you might call a "very SDC". Strange, I thought, but what do I know?
After the concert I went back stage to the place the recordist usually hangs out to find him packing up his (nice, expensive) gear. I politely asked about what appeared to be a unique approach to getting a stereo recording and the poor chap appeared to have no clue. "It's what they sent me out with." He got out the fancy wooden box the Earth Works live in and the instruction sheet clearly said "omnidirectional". So it looks like the symphony got a pair of essentially identical mono recordings when they paid for stereo. Is there something I'm not getting here, or do they need to look for a new recordist?
Bewildered,
--Frank
The trouble is that these mics looked for all the world like a pair of Earth Works omnis, the ones with the narrow snout that look like a measurement mic (I own an M-30, I know what they look like). What you might call a "very SDC". Strange, I thought, but what do I know?
After the concert I went back stage to the place the recordist usually hangs out to find him packing up his (nice, expensive) gear. I politely asked about what appeared to be a unique approach to getting a stereo recording and the poor chap appeared to have no clue. "It's what they sent me out with." He got out the fancy wooden box the Earth Works live in and the instruction sheet clearly said "omnidirectional". So it looks like the symphony got a pair of essentially identical mono recordings when they paid for stereo. Is there something I'm not getting here, or do they need to look for a new recordist?
Bewildered,
--Frank
