Originally Posted By: Mark Hayes
Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
Originally Posted By: Mark Hayes
I will say this: If you have a singer onstage performing in a soundproof booth, and an audience is watching while listening to the audio feed through headphones, and you don't get to add any artificial stereo effects... it will sound better with two mics! =8^)

This is actually not true. There are many reasons for this fact, not the least that this is a completely artificial scenario that you have proposed.

Of course, it was intended as an absurdly artificial example, and it would be difficult to test my "hypothesis". My point was that stereo sound, especially on headphones, can do more than just provide gross spatial location cues (i.e., low piano notes on the left, high notes on the right). Human hearing does not like a mono signal fed into both ears, this is not a natural experience. But record anything in stereo and the mics are effectively reproducing the binaural arrangement of your ears, so you will get that "open" experience even of a single point source.


Well since you mention it, human hearing also does not prefer dry stereo recordings played back over headphones because it sounds like the sound travels through the head rather outside of the head. To eliminate that, one needs to record binaurally in a non anechoic situation.

I used binaural head recording for 20+ years, first with Brüel & Kjær binaural heads and then with the “Aachen Head” devices from Head acoustics and now and then with my own home made Jecklin discs. I tried making some recordings of my acoustic guitar with the Aachen Head and I can tell you it is significantly more problematic getting mix worthy recordings than the typical mono and double mic recordings.

This is why even on Aja, you hear quite a bit of reverb added to the vocals even when most of the drums and other instruments are still very dry.


Last edited by rockstar_not; 01/13/22 05:02 AM.
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