Recording classical and film spatial audio collaboration in the UK: ECHO

[EERecordist]

The algorithm brought me this which ASR participants may have an interest.

We all know and continue to learn about spatial audio playback.

On the recording side, there have been approaches for years on microphone placement which have been up-converted to spatial. There are many projects and approaches to hall-specific microphone setups.

ECHO is a new collaborative: Exploring the Cinematic Hemisphere for Orchestra. AIR studios are famous. ECHO was at AIR.

ECHO Project

We aim to: Advance immersive sound recording techniques for orchestral music; Bridge the gap between academia and the audio industry; Share expert knowledge and high-quality immersive recording resources to support education and research; Study perceptual differences across various recording...

apl-hud.com

The ECHO Project - An Amazing Experience Into New Sound Concepts At AIR Studios | Production Expert

In this article, Mark Gittins reports on the ECHO Project – a collaborative research project on 3D microphone array techniques for orchestral recording which brought together high profile guests from the worlds of immersive audio and orchestral recording to AIR Studios, London.

www.production-expert.com

 

[Blumlein 88]

I don't think they have enough microphones or cables.

I've wanted to do some surround recordings as even in 5.1 I think it can be good. But with smaller groups it is a waste of time. No market or interest in it. Something as extensive as this shows obviously is only for big outfits. Which is okay, plenty of niches for anyone. What I've found is if you cannot put it on headphones you can forget about it. That is what it is.

So of course they offered binaural examples. I don't know why, but apparently I don't hear binaural like others. So my impressions likely don't mean much.

The first example with the Prism setup worked best. It did get the music outside my head almost in a sphere. However just barely so. It was like I was wearing a space helmet and the music was outside my head in a large helmet, but not really spatially large.

The Aircage sounded like most binaural does to me. Everything either right at each ear and the rest at the top of my skull. Not appealing. I actually like the old LCR Decca better. It was completely inside my head, but a nice layered version of that. And unlike most binaural it didn't cluster at the top of my head. It spread out evenly left to right with more of a close detailed sound.

I would like to hear this over speakers, but it appears you need at least a 7.1.4 Atmos setup for that. Which again makes it very niche. If it doesn't provide benefit over phones then nobody outside the movie theater cares.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Was looking at the different arrays they used. Guess it shouldn't be surprising the Prism was all omnis as it had that kind of deep wideband sound you get with omnis. The ESMA-3D of Dr. Lee uses 8 sub-cards and 4 height cards. The 8 sub-cards is a somewhat similar to what J_J used for soundfield synthesis. I'd like to try that one, but have never had that many sub-cards on hand. If I recall correctly J_J uses 7 mics along with one pointed up and down. There is also a matrix for mixing those down to 5 channels which is pretty simple.

Just experimenting for something easy to get sounding good omnis or sub cards for the front three and two vertically oriented rear mics seems to work well. Hypercards or figure 8s in the rear. And maybe add an omni just for the low end if you aren't using omnis up front.

I guess the problem is lots of various configurations sort of work. I'd hope and think that something like the ESMA-3D or J_Js array would actually correspond with the real sound field present during the recording better than others. The focus in the immersive audio industry seems more about processing to fold down lots of channels into Atmos playback. My idea would be for that kind of use a few of the tetra mics or sphere mics with after the fact directional control in a bit more compact headsize spacing would work better. I doubt I'm smarter than those guys and they likely have considered it so it would be interesting why that isn't one of the arrays even though I see them having some of those mics setup for various Ambisonic purposes.