Symbolic Sound has published on their blog called “the eight nerve”, an interview with sound designer Sylvain Lasseur talking about his use of Kyma system and several aspects about his work.

Sound designer Sylvain Lasseur is not just bi-coastal; he’s bi-contintental, working part time in Paris and part time in Los Angeles!  We recently had a chance to ask him a few questions about how he uses Kyma for 5.1 sound design and to explore some of the differences between post production work in Paris and Los Angeles.  By the end of the interview, the discussion turns to food, wine, and the Marx Brothers.  Read on!

[Written by Tim Nielsen]

I’ve been recording with MS since I started in this industry, about 12 years ago now. There are of course many other recording techniques available, and I own microphones suited to most of them. I tried to elaborate a tiny bit on some of the other stereo techniques in my previous article, and that’s when I realized that MS really needed it’s own article.

Of all the stereo formats I record in, MS is my favorite. I find it to be the most compact, and by far the most versatile, of all the stereo recording techniques I know. It’s also a bit tricky to wrap your head around the first time you try to understand it. I remember at USC the day I asked Tom Holman, creator of THX, to explain something about MS that had been puzzling me (probably the entire idea behind it and how it worked at all). For the next hour or so, he proceeded to draw math equations on the dry-erase board. I sat, staring and dazed, occasionally nodding to feign understanding. The fact is, MS is a strange recording method.

I’ve had quite a few people, even ones I work with, tell me they don’t like MS, but many times it seems to me that they can’t tell me why. Maybe it’s simply that it’s a bit too much like voodoo. But properly done, MS recording is basically another form of XY recording. David Farmer and I, while both in New Zealand, did some tests between his Schoeps XY microphone, and my MS rig. Neither of us could hear much difference, and my memory is that both of us slightly preferred the MS rig when we felt we could hear any differences. There is really nothing to be afraid of with MS.

For those who don’t know, an MS rig consists of two microphones (or more, as there is a Schoeps Double-MS setup and I’ve personally set up and tried a Triple-MS rig of my own Frankensteinian devising). In the stereo version, there is a Mid microphone, and a Side microphone, hence the name MS Recording, or Mid-Side Recording. The mid microphone faces forward, and can be of any pickup pattern, although almost always a cardiod or hyper-cardiod microphone is used. The side mic is always a Figure-8, or bi-directional microphone, whose polar pattern is perpendicular to the front facing microphone. The two microphones are ideally very well matched, and most of us use mid microphones that have in their family a Figure-8 version as well, for instance the Schoeps MK series of capsules, the Sennheiser MKH series, or the Neumann KM100 series with AK capsules. All of these have cardiod, hyper-cardiod and Figure-8 mics available and are ideal to use in an MS setup. There are also self contained MS microphones, made by companies like Pearl and Sanken, or the Neumann RSM-191, which I know several people here use. The only reason I tend not to like microphones like the RSM-191 is that they use external powering and matrixing boxes, which I find cumbersome. But the RSM-191, the Sanken CMS-7 are very nice sounding MS microphones as well.

You can see pictures of my two MS rigs in the previous article on microphones. My rigs consist of separate microphones in an MS array, rather than a single MS microphone. In my case my first MS rig consists of a Schoeps CMC6XT / MK41 hyper-cardiod mid microphone, with a CMC6XT / MK8 side microphone. My second rig consists of a Sennheiser MKH50 hyper-cardiod mid mic, and an MKH30 Figure-8 mic.

So how exactly does MS work? Basically through some summing and phase manipulation, you can derive from the two channels, a stereo image, which will sound about the same as an XY rig aimed somewhere between 60 and 120 degrees apart. Rather than explain too much how exactly it works, I’ll simply link an article on WikiRecording that explains it better than I could.

So why record in MS instead of XY, ORTF or any other method? I’ll list some of the advantages, but first I’ll admit there are a couple of disadvantages. Let’s get them out of the way first.

The first major disadvantage to recording in this format is that MS Recording requires processing after the sounds have been recorded. This is because what you are actually recording is a forward facing microphone, and a side facing microphone, or two mono channels. Only though some summing and phase manipulation can you turn this into a stereo recording. Many recorders now have the ability to do this during the recording process, and many single MS microphones can do this internally or through the use of an external box (like the Neumann RSM-191), but most of us who use MS prefer to process the sounds in ProTools. The Sound Devices 722 that I use actually has a brilliant feature to decode MS only to the headphones, allowing me to record the raw channels, but hear the decoded stereo channels. I prefer to record MS as the raw mono channels, load the files into ProTools, and master them into stereo files. Processing consists of either using a plugin such as Waves S1 Imager (there are others) or else building a set of tracks to do the MS Decoding. If people here are really interested, I’m happy to write another article explaining more the details of building MS mastering tracks in ProTools. Just make some comments here if you want that kind of thing.

The second disadvantage is that if you decide not to master the MS recording into usable stereo, and store it as an MS file, and forget, you might have problems later. This is because the two channels of an MS recording won’t sum nicely together into mono. In fact the phase will be all over the place. If later you forget that a file in your library is MS, and you use it as stereo, you might not actually catch it just by listening to it. I’ve found that even raw MS files can dupe your ears into thinking it’s stereo. But later, especially in a film environment, in a mix for example, those channels maybe get summed together, and result in a very strange phasey sound.

But now for the advantages, and this is where it gets fun, and why I’d really encourage that your first rig or main rig be an MS Rig.

First, for a stereo recording rig, the MS system can be quite compact, compared to say XY, ORTF, Spaced Omnis, etc. Because the two microphones are placed one above the other, it’s quite easy to fit an MS Rig into a single Rycote zeppelin, even one designed for a mono microphone. In the pictures in the previous article, you can see that in practice, the smaller rigs are Schoeps rigs in mono Rycote suspensions. Unless you’re building a miniature XY set, or using a compact XY microphone, MS is going to provide you with the most compact rig.

Secondly, in an MS rig, you always have a forward facing mono microphone, and for a lot of general effects work, this is incredibly helpful. I mentioned in the previous article the usefulness of a short or medium length shotgun mic, like the Sennheiser 416. While this is true, most of the time, I’m perfectly content to use the hyper-cardiod mic in my MS rig as my mono effects microphone. The MK41 Schoeps, and the MKH50 Sennheiser in my MS rigs are not as directional as the 416. But they are actually close. Close enough for a lot of what I want to record. I’ve built some cables to connect my stereo rig in the Rycote to just one input on my 722, so I can easily use my stereo rig as a mono rig, the cable simply dropping the figure 8 channel out of the way.

Third, MS allows for post processing of the stereo image width after the recording. This can be quite useful. This is done by varying the amount of the side microphone signal against the amount of the mid microphone during processing. Pull the side microphone out completely, and you’re left with only the forward facing microphone going to both channels. Adding the signal from the side microphone back in adds width to the stereo image. This is over simplified, but the advantage of MS is that you can vary the width of your stereo image.

Fourth, a small one, but because the microphones in an MS rig are coherent (the capsules aligned vertically), stereo files derived from an MS recording are fully mono compatible, which can still be important in the film sound business. XY recordings are mono compatible too, but other methods like ORTF or Spaced Omni recordings may not be.

Fifth. OK, I’m going to reveal one of my best kept secrets. Quite some time ago, I realized something. If you’re recording in MS, you’re not recording in stereo. You are in fact recording in LCR. Think about it this way. If you recording a forward facing microphone and a side microphone, and then use them to create two stereo channels which behave like XY recording, then what happens if you add back in the raw mic microphone? Think of the screen channels across the front. Decoding the MS files into stereo give you the Left and Right. The mono forward facing microphone can give you the back the Center.

I now master most all of my MS recordings into LCR instead of stereo. Again I’m happy to build a walkthrough on how to do this in ProTools. It’s not complicated, but there are a couple of pitfalls to be avoided. But I’ve found it incredibly useful. First, LCR recordings are very useful in film. I’ll give you an example. When recording backgrounds, say you record something in stereo. Now you take that material to the mix stage. One thing that mixers tend to do, is to pan in the stereo channel to get some bleed into the center channel. They do this because they need help masking the natural background of the dialog. But this results in your nice wide stereo background now being panned into something less wide. If you instead have a natural LCR file, there is no need to pan in the sides, instead, the mixer will have a natural center channel to be brought up to fill in the center channel. I find LCR backgrounds sound incredibly natural. Things panning across now pan from Left, to Center, to Right, for instance, and the sound image for film use is very smooth and very natural. Crowds sound brilliant in LCR, as do city backgrounds, just about anything really. Just as stereo is a huge improvement over mono, I feel like LCR is a big improvement over stereo.

The other great thing about mastering your MS recordings into LCR is that you are then preserving that forward mono facing microphone. Need a mono version of the effect? You already have it, just use the center channel by itself. When mastering into LCR, you will be placing the raw forward facing mic as the center channel. Need a stereo version, no problem, just drop the center channel of the LCR and you’ll have the normal XY version of the sound. So what you are preserving is a mono, stereo, and LCR version all in the same file. Later versions of Sound Miner will supposedly allow you to just select the left and right channels of an LCR effect for spotting right to a stereo track in ProTools. This will be very useful. For now, I tend to spot to an LCR track, and from there, drag it down into three mono tracks, to allow me to work with the LCR file. It’s cumbersome, but still useful enough to me to make it worth doing.

And if I haven’t confuzzled you enough (for the definition of confuzzled please see the brilliant stop-motion film Mary and Max), here is where it gets really interesting. Imagine an XY rig, consisting of two microphones, the forward facing mono mic, and a Figure-8 microphone. Now, imagine we simply add in another mono microphone, but this time, facing backwards, in the opposite direction to the forward facing microphone. By adding in only one more microphone, we have actually now created another MS pair. This is because the side microphone will also still be facing perpendicular to the newly placed ‘rear’ microphone. It only requires the phase to be flipped the opposite way, and it will work to create backwards facing channels. Schoeps actually makes a microphone doing exactly this. It’s very expensive, but with only three channels, you can derive a quad recording.

But wait, if I told you earlier that recording MS is really recording potential LCR, then a Double-MS rig must be recording Double-LCR, or the ‘potential’ for them. A Double-MS rig can actually be decoded into Left, Center, Front, Left Rear, Center Rear, and Right Rear. Six channels can be derived from just three recording channels. This is very easy to do, once you’ve built a template in ProTools to do it.

Still with me? A few years ago, while living up in Vancouver, I had a crazy idea. To understand it, remember that I mentioned that you could use any polar pattern as a mid mic, but that mostly a cardiod or hyper-cardiod microphone is used? Now imagine we build a simple MS rig, but this time with an omnidirectional mid microphone. What this actually yields are two channels, aiming 180 degrees apart. Or imagine that using the omni, you create a stereo image that follows the polar pattern of the Figure-8 microphone. So back to my crazy idea. I realized, that in a Double-MS setup, adding in a fourth mic, an omnidirectional one, would allow me to derive two more channels, a hard left and a hard right. And actually, the omnidirectional mic itself would be placed right in the center of the image, and could be called a true ‘center’ channel, or top channel for instance. Also, since the omni would be very flat down to extended frequencies, I could use it to derive a .1 channel if I wanted. So what I came up with was that a Triple-MS rig (consisting of two hyper-cardiods, one Figure-8 and one omni) could really record 9.1 channels of info into four recording channels. With it, you could derive the following:

True Center, Left Front, Center Front, Right Front, Left Rear, Center Rear, Right Rear, Left Side, Right Side and LFE.

I am the first to admit that this is silly and fairly useless. But it does indeed work. I set up a Triple-MS rig with the Schoeps, recorded some city sounds, and mastered them in that format. I didn’t have the proper speakers to hear it in it’s full glory. And I can’t say for sure how great the separation of channels would be. And the truth is, in film work, you find that most multichannel recordings don’t sound ‘wide’ enough, so you for instance cheat another sound for the surrounds in an attempt to create that wide spacious sound you want. But hey, I love to do silly things to see if they work, and I can say that with a ridiculously elaborate ProTools session, you can indeed master four Triple-MS channels into 9.1 channels of sound.

That then is a little MS primer. Post any questions in the comments below. Later when I’m home from traveling, maybe I’ll make a screen capture movie showing MS mastering in ProTools, I don’t have ProTools with me at the moment.

But I hope that might give you some ideas of what you can do with MS.

[Written by Tim Nielsen]

My name is Tim Nielsen, and I’m a micaholic. It has been four months since my last microphone purchase, an adorable little Neumann XY set in a Mono Rycote. I bought them from a friend, because when I saw them I just had to have them. Trust me. They’re really cute. You’d want them too.

I probably won’t be writing a lot of technical articles here on Designing Sound. There seem to be plenty of those already. I don’t have much interest in sharing endless plugin settings, or even mastering chains. I don’t much care about fade file type preferences, or your scheme for color coding tracks. I have those too, but explaining mine in depth won’t really do you much good.

But maybe with regards to recording sound effects, I might have some advice that some might find useful. So today I want to write about microphones.

I bought my first microphones from one of my professors while still at USC film school. It was a Schoeps MS Rig, two CMC4 T-Powered bodies, with an MK41 mid capsule, and an MK6 side capsule. By the time I bought them, they were already 15 years old or more. Over the years I swapped out the T-Powered bodies for phantom powered ones. About three months ago I finally parted with them, selling them to a friend at Skywalker for her first rig. That’s the first thing about recording equipment, and in particular microphones. Buy good ones, as they will last you a long time. Plugins, software, computers, will all become obsolete very fast. But a good recording rig should last you a long time. I have no doubt those Schoeps mics have another 20 years in them.

So this in article, I thought I would give a run-down of the mics in my personal arsenal. It’s a bit of a running joke around the ranch, my mic collection. I’m sure Charles Maynes has beat by a long shot! :) But the truth is, every one of these mics has a purpose, even if they’re not used all that much. So here it is, a list of the mics that are currently in my possession:

• Schoeps MS Rig: CMC6XT Bodies with MK41 Mid and MK8 Side
• Sennheiser MS Rig: MKH50 Mid with MKH30 Side.
• Sennheiser MKH416 Shotgun
• Schoeps CMIT-5U Shotgun
• Sennheiser MKH816 Super-Shotgun (x2)
• Neuman XY Rig: KM00 Bodies with AK40 Capsules
• Schoeps CMC6XT with MK2 Omni (x2)
• Sennheiser MKH8020 Omni (x2)
• Telinga Stereo DAT Parabolic
• DPA 8011 Hydrophone
• Sennheiser MKH800
• Rode NT1A (x2)
• C-Ducer Ribbon Contact Mic (x2)
• AKG C411pp Contact Mic (x2)
• Sennheiser MK421 Mark II (x2)
• Countryman E3 Lavalier (x2)
• Crown SASS Mk. II

MS Rigs:

My preferred and go-to rig is always an MS rig. If I had to choose only one set of microphones from the list above, it would still be the ones I started with, a Schoeps MS Rig. Most of my friends have one. I have two MS Rigs, one based on the Schoeps and one on Sennheiser mics. Either of these would make a great single rig for a person starting out (although both are quite expensive for someone just starting out). I realized as I started to write a bit about MS that it really needs it’s own article, the part two to this one, so please check back for something more in depth about MS and some tips and tricks I’ve found.

Shotguns and Super-Shotguns:

Back when I was starting out at USC, the main rig we had at our disposal was a Nagra 4.2 and a Sennheiser 416. It was really the first high quality microphone I had a chance to play with. It’s an amazingly versatile mic, and in many way would also be a very good first microphone purchase. It’s durable, has a great sound, a narrow pickup pattern, and the design hasn’t changed in decades. It’s a very versatile go-to microphone for almost any FX work, from animal recording, doors, machines, impacts, cars, even guns. The other shotgun that I own, the Schoeps CMIT-5U is very similar in pickup pattern, but is lighter and more clinical sounding. The 816s I admit don’t get used much. They’re cumbersome, and I actually don’t much like the sound of such a long shotgun. The off axis pickup sounds bad, and these days, if I want a super narrow field, I’m more likely to grab my parabolic. The 816s do look cool though, I’ll give them points for that. And one I bought very cheap years ago, and the other I traded for a Mackie Mixer. So I didn’t spend much on them, nor wood I. I know Tim Prebble in New Zealand records with them and has gotten some amazing stuff. For me I just don’t like the sound of them so much.

But a single good medium length shotgun like the 416, the Rode NT1G, Neumann KMR81, any of these would be a nice addition to any microphone collection. But the MK41 capsule in my Schoeps MS rig, or the MKH50 in the Sennheiser rig, is already a ‘short’ shotgun, being a hyper-cardiod, and for most uses, it’s reach is enough. That’s another reason I find the MS rigs so versatile, you’re already carrying a mono FX mic as part of the MS rig.

Neumann XY Rig:

Until I bought the little Neumann KM140/AK40 combo from my friend, I had never owned an XY rig. This is simply because with two MS rigs, I found no need. MS decoded is basically XY, the sound of them is very similar. David Farmer and I did a test in New Zealand between his Schoeps XY rig, and my Schoeps MS rig, and for the most part, it was hard to tell the difference.

But XY is a versatile recording method as well, very useful for backgrounds and general stereo work. The normal downside is that because the microphones are angled (where in MS the microphones line up on top of each other) it can be cumbersome. But XY has a fairly smooth stereo image, and in the case of my XY rig, is using cardiod capsules for a fairly even stereo field. In the case of the Schoeps XY mic, or the Neumanns I have, where the bodies are separated from the capsules, it’s still possible to get both microphones into a single Rycote zeppelin. I’ll buy the AK20 figure eight capsule for this rig soon, which will allow me to quickly convert the XY rig into an MS rig by swapping out one cardiod capsule for a figure 8. This should be the ultimate travel microphone set, allowing me to record MS or XY in a tiny package.

Spaced Omnis:

Spaced omni recording is a technique that can provide a very nice stereo image, particularly for things like backgrounds. It consists exactly of what it says, two or more omni-directional microphones, spaced some distance apart, anywhere from 30 inches or so, to up to 20 feet or more. There are few rules, so really just adjust the distance between them to taste. Omnidirectional microphones have a couple of very desirable qualities. First, they tend to have very low self noise. So this technique can be used to record very quiet sounds, even the simplest of room tones, where something like an MS rig might have too much self-noise. Second, omnidirectional microphones tend to have very flat frequency responses, especially in the low end, and they often go noticeably lower than other microphones. The downside is that you need two mic stands, at some distance apart, so it’s not ideal to a run-and-gun style of recording. Because the microphones are not coincident (their capsules are not aligned vertically) there are potential phase problems if the two sides are summed to mono. It’s advisable to use a phase meter when mastering spaced omni recordings to check for phase issues.

I have two sets of omnidirectional microphones, some Schoeps CMC6XT bodies with MK2 capsules, and a pair of Sennheiser MKH8020s, which are tiny and awesome, and are exceptionally wide in their frequency response, going from 10Hz to almost 60kHz. They all sound gorgeous, very flat in their responses, very low self-noise, very natural.

A variant of the spaced omni method is to use a boundary layer in between them, for example a Jecklin Disc or a Schneider Disc (http://core-sound.com/jecklin/1.php). I have one of these, and it’s a way to get a wider stereo image without having to move the microphones so far. It’s quasi binaural recording, as the disc simulates the spaces of the human ears, and the effects on the sound that a human head has. I find I don’t use it much, as if I’m recording with spaced omnis, I prefer an even wider image than I tend to get with the disc.

Teling Stereo DAT Parabolic:

Of the fairly specialized microphones in my collection, I love this microphone the most. I’ve owned it now quite a few years, and it still amazes me how useful it is. Most people think of a parabolic for bird recording, and it is quite useful for that. But it’s also amazingly useful for other things. I remember standing in a field in Minnesota, late one summer night, recording insects with it. The incredibly narrow field of it allowed me to get very different sounding insect beds by simply moving the microphone a few inches at a time. I could single out individual crickets even. The parabolic I have is made by Telinga, and it’s actually a stereo parabolic, and so is also incredibly useful for quiet backgrounds. Because of the acoustic gain of the dish itself, the microphone is very quiet, with very low self noise. So for simple airs, winds, I find it very useful.

It’s not a cheap microphone, but honestly it’s been one of my favorite purchases, and of all the mics that my friends ask to borrow, this one is probably the the most asked for.

DAP 8011 Hydrophone:

OK, I have to admit, that this microphone, the DPA 8011 Hydrophone, doesn’t see a lot of use. And it was expensive. And yes, you can easily wrap a microphone in a condom, or buy or build some cheap hydrophones. But I wanted this one for a few other reasons. First it’s pretty much impervious to chemicals and cold. It can be frozen in a block of ice (which I did). The problem with hydrophones seems to be, no matter what you think you’re going to get, you end up with something different. Because it is a contact mic, it has to be touching something other than air to pickup any sound. In the case of freezing it in a block of ice, as soon as the ice started to melt, air formed around the microphone and it didn’t pick up any sound. I still got some interesting material by adding water back in. Some of the best recordings I’ve gotten with it were in a Jacuzzi, moving the microphone around the jets of water. I’m not sure I could advise anyone to spend the money for the DPA, the amount of really useful stuff I’ve gotten with it probably wasn’t worth it.

Sennheiser MKH800:

This is a mono studio microphone that I use mainly for recording on the Foley stage. It’s a very quiet microphone with variable pickup patterns. But the really nice feature of this microphone is that it has an extended frequency range. It is relatively flat up to about 50kHz. For recording at 96k, and with the right source material, it preserves and captures some really high end harmonics, that when pitching sound down, can keep the sound from sounding muted. Mind you, most of what you record will not have any sounds that high. But for recording metal, even human vocals, and a variety of sounds, having that extended reach can be useful. It’s not ideal for use in the field, it’s a side-address microphone, and I’ve never bothered mounting it into a zeppelin. But for War Horse, the recordists borrowed it, put it quite a ways downstream and recorded some amazing artillery bys with it. It’s the most expensive single microphone I own. Someday if I win the lottery I’ll buy another one to do some stereo recording with it.

Rode NT1A Pair:

I bought these microphones years ago for two reasons. First, they’re very inexpensive, I think $199 each. Second, they have the lowest self-noise of any microphones I own, coming in around 5dBA I think. I bought them for recording the quietest types of sounds. They don’t sound brilliant, but they’re still useful sometimes for super quiet sounds, or when I want to put a microphone in harms way without worrying too much about the cost should it get destroyed. It’s a large diaphragm studio mic though, so they’re cumbersome to use out in the field.

C-Ducer Ribbon Contact Mic Pair:

These were the first contact microphones I bought, but I wouldn’t recommend them. They sound fine, but since they were designed to install in a lid of the piano, they just don’t work well in the field. The problem is that they’re a tape / ribbon type, which I thought would be great for wrapping around things, etc. And it’s true, it works. Sort of. The problem is that the adhesive slowly lets them microphones pull away from the thing it’s touching, and you get a recording full of tiny ticks and pops any time you try and use them, unless you hold them very very tight. The AKG contact mics below were a much better purchase.

AKG C411pp Contact Mic Pair:

These are much smaller point source style contact microphones, and I find them very useful. For those who don’t know, a contact microphone (of which a Hydrophone is also an example) only pick up sound through vibration, through contact. In the air, they’re pretty much silent. But touch them to something, and they pickup the sound. And it needed be anything visibly vibrating, they’ll gladly record doors, cars, just about anything, as long as you’re touching it. This can yield some pretty interesting things. Contact mics are mostly fun because you just never know what you’re going to get. The main problem is that recordings from them are very dry sounding, unnaturally so. But for gathering sound design source material they are very useful. Glass, metal, equipment, trains, anything moving, rolling, vibrating can give you some quite interesting sounds.

Sennheiser MK421 Mark II Pair:

These are cardiod dynamic microphones that are useful mainly for very loud sounds, as they’ll handle a very high SPL. They were probably originally designed to record kick-drums. We’ve used them on guns mostly, although they’re nice sounding microphones, and would work well on anything loud, crashes, impacts, etc. They’re also not so expensive, so are another set of microphones I don’t mind letting get into harms way. Great for crashes or anything that might overload a condenser microphone.

Countryman E3 Lavalier Pair:

Having a pair of lavalier microphones in your bag can be very useful. For miking up cars, even guns. They’re also tiny and can fit into very small places, giving you interesting perspectives. They handle very high SPL, making them useful for guns, explosions, anything loud. They also tend to break easily, the wires getting ripped out. DPA makes some of the best omni lavaliers, but they’re very expensive, and I’m not sure the extra price is worth it. I know people who have built super tiny recording packages with just a pair of DPA Omnis though, and they string them up anywhere they can, using them in a spaced-omni setup. I find the E3 to be a good blend of decent quality and low price. And when someone closes the car door on them, severing the cable, I won’t be too upset. If you intend to record cars, a very common technique is to place one tapes to the underside of the hood (close it gently) and the other rigged up near the tail pipe (sometimes inside a wheel well for a back tire). Then by mixing them together you can get a nice blend of engine and exhaust.

Crown SASS Mk. II:

This is a microphone I bought on a whim. It was for sale on eBay cheap, and needed some work. $200 and a trip back to Crown saw the mic restored, and it’s been a fun mic to have around. It’s in a way similar to set of omnis in a Jecklin disc, it’s a variant of a spaced omni boundary microphone. But the mic elements are piezzo elements, and they’re placed right up against the flat surface of the microphone. While not the quietest, in fact the self noise is fairly prominent, on loud or even medium-loud sounds, it can be useful. It has a very smooth stereo image, and we’ve found it great on a variety of material, especially crowds and louder ambiences.

Next up a bit more about MS, about MS rigs, MS recording, and MS mastering, for anyone interested in learning more about it. But at the moment these are the microphones I have. Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments field below.

To get things rolling on this month’s featured sound designer, here’s a little introductory interview with Coll Anderson.

Designing Sound: How did you first get interested in sound?

Coll Anderson: My Mother was a DJ at a country radio station in Des Moines Iowa. She did that and was a VO artist… I started hanging out at the station when she was doing her show, and then hanging at sessions… That led to playing with stuff, the record players, making mix tapes, faders… I was like 12… I mean I was a little kid playing with cutting 1/4” and stuff to make my mix tapes. Then one day I got the microphone to work… That was it. My brain just exploded. I recorded music for a while, played the drums for a while but it was always that microphone thing that illuminated so much for me. Then Allison Humenuk asked me to record sound on her thesis documentary and the two ideas, recording sound, and working on movies just came full on.

DS: What was your first gig like? Did you learn anything profound thatʼs stuck with you throughout your career?

CA: My first gig was recording production sound (that is what I used to do, and how I got into post…) on a Documentary for a student at Harvard’s Visual and Environmental Studies Department. I fell in love with Documentary film making. We drove around the country filming three couples and how they functioned in their relationships… It was so amazing to just go and watch people exist, and then to see it through a camera and see how we affected their reality by filming it… I think the Jack Handy “deep thought” I learned was “keep your mouth shut when you are rolling…” I still can’t seem to get that one to work, but then neither can anyone else. No really, learning how to keep your thoughts to yourself until you have had time to let them work out. It is a balance between just trusting yourself and trusting yourself enough to not have to open your mouth just this second… What we, or anyone on the inner circle for that matter, say to a Director can really change the path they are on, not to mention we have their ear directly… That is a pretty big responsibility. I try (often unsuccessfully) to let my thoughts simmer for a while before opening my mouth and putting my foot in it.

And of course the most mundane always give me pause, pin two is hot, up is louder… Right is later and left is earlier… Oh and always, anything good is better louder. Work hard, love what you do… Don’t put it up till you can stand behind it. Let people know when you don’t know what you are doing and are experimenting…

DS: How has living and working on the East Coast shaped your career?

CA: I think starting in Boston, and then NYC have been huge for my Doc. resume. I really love Documentary film making and I think that the home of creative Documentary film making is here. NY is less of a company town and I think there are a lot of outside influences here on “our” art that keep you thinking…

DS: You work in a lot of different genres. What do you look for when deciding whether or not to accept a project?

CA: It always comes down to how sincere a Director is. Take Disturbing the Universe and Death Race… Could not get further apart than those two films. Sarah and Emily (DTU) made a film about their Father. I mean this was their life on view… Exploring your story while telling your Father’s could not put you out there more. They were wonderful that way, and they were open to sounds that let you connect to the material not just on a literal way, but on a way that let you in to the emotionality of the film and their history with it. Then on the other side of the same coin, Death Race. Paul is just in love with big and fun and loud. He is like a kid who just lights up when a film gets into amusement park mode. His reactions are so honest during playback that you know when you are on or when you need to work more on things… Knowing you are going to get honest and sincere feedback, knowing that you are going to be an important part of the “team”… That is what I look for when I take something on.

DS: What do you find challenging about your work, and what do you find rewarding?

CA: I find most of the things that challenge you provide you with rewards… And with that the greatest challenges provide the greatest rewards. Simple I know, but for me new ways of looking at problems is always the challenge. Creating new sounds, not resting… Trying new things and always searching. I am not much for “cool” sounds… Yes, it is nice (and fun) to make “cool” things but what I really love is when people have no idea what I or my crew have done to make the sound and the story, seem totally normal. I am always trying to achieve this sort of sonic invisibility that does not interrupt the connection between the audience and the story, and perhaps even extends the subconscious understanding or emotional connection to that same story…

DS: Where do you find inspiration to apply in your work as a sound designer and mixer?

CA: I am pretty immature and am constantly breaking things and making things and just playing… I find movies move me. They help me to dream and pretend and I carry that to what I do. I had an opportunity a few years ago to build a mix stage on top of a mountain in the woods and for me building a room that is much more a living room than a “stage” in an environment where at any time I can walk outside and feel the ground, the air… Record outside at the drop of a hat… That is my inspiration. That and I try to keep reading a lot. Something worth mentioning, that we should not overlook, is the work of our peers… Listening to Craig H. or Skip L. or Craig B. or Sean G, Barden, soundjohny… the list just goes on and on and is full of people whom are so amazing at what they do… I find serious inspiration in the work of the guys out there who are WAY better at this than me.

DS: How does your work-flow or approach change between theatrical and broadcast projects?

CA: Differences between Film and TV really means differences in Dynamic Range to me. I can be a bit subtler with Theater. Broadcast I usually have to keep things a bit less dynamic and usually a bit louder. That said, I don’t have a creative approach that changes much, short of the schedule limitations that broadcast often imposes, but some of my favorite work is in the episodes that I have done for The American Experience.

DS: What are some of your “go to” tools, in either the field or studio, that you canʼt live without?

CA: Schoeps Microphones, Contact Microphones, a few different dynamic microphones, Sound Devices Recorder… Lots of clips and clamps and shock mounts. Black Powder. Oxygen. Gas. Lots of different kinds of shoes. Tubes of all sizes. Metal bits… Some big enough two people are needed to move. Junkyards (bring cash…). I have few Sony D-50 recorders as well. I use Pro-Tools. I have to say I am a big fan of Arjen’s plug-in’s. Altiverb and Speakerphone but I go back to River Run all the time. Mondo Mod… Can someone please make a good in the box dynamic EQ / filter set for mixing dialogue? How about Coffee? I can’t live without Coffee.

DS: Whatʼs your ideal project?

CA: For me, projects where the Director, the Editor, even Producers, and the Sound department are on the same team are ideal. When Directors and Editors come to the sound department with what they are trying to “say” and listen if we can at all help them “say” or express that. Good Directors / Editors listen to what we have to offer and use the tool-set we bring to the project to make it better. Really for me, all the good directors, good editors have that trait in common. My favorite thing to hear is a Director say “I am trying to get this scene to be about (X) but it does not feel like it is working or I think it can work better… Can you help me with it?”

DS: What projects are you working on now?

CA: I just finished Martha Marcy May Marlene for Sean Durkin and am now mixing Simon Killer for Antonio Campos. I am recording EFX for Warren Shaw and Tower Heist. I have a long form Doc for the American Experience that I am really looking forward to… And then Sundance is right around the corner.

DS: If you could plant an idea into the head of every sound professional (or student) out there, what would it be?

CA: I think the one that sticks with me is “every day is new.” What we do, every single day, can be different from the last. There is a beauty in that. I love when people bring new sounds to the stories we help tell. More than that remember that we help tell stories. If you fill your life with ever new experiences, they will inform and improve the creativity you bring to the projects you commit to.

Rabbit Ears Audio has released its fifth library, called Military Vehicles, a huge collection of seven sfx packs, featuring recordings of the following military vehicles:

• M5A1 Stuart Tank: In service WWII and Korean War. Engine: 2x Cadillac Flathead V8.
• M60A3 Combat Tank: In service 1961–1997. Engine: Continental V-12
• M41A2 Walker Bulldog Tank: In service 1951-1970s. Engine: Continental AOS-895-3.
• M106A1 Mortar Carrier: In service 1960s-1980s. Engine: 212 hp Diesel.
• M4A2E8 Sherman Tank: In service 1942–1955. Engine Diesel GM 6046 (2×6-71 inline).
• M42A1 Duster Tank: In service 1953-1963. Engine: 6-cylinder air cooled gasoline.
• M75 Armored Personnel Carrier: In service Korean War. Engine: 6-cylinder AO-895-2.

All those vehicles where recorded by Michael Raphael and Rob Nokes of Sounddogs.com at the Fort Snelling Military Museum in Minnesota.

The gear used – Exterior: Schoeps MS pair, Neumann RSM 191; Onboard: Sanken CUB 01 (multiple), Sennheiser 835S(multiple), Crown PZM; Recorders: Sound Devices 744T and Deva 5,

Military Vehicles is available now at Rabbit Ears Audio. The tanks are being sold individually at $95. There’s a complete collection priced at $499  and packed with over 30GB of sounds.

Now let’s read an interview I had with Michael and Rob, who talked about the making of this huge library.

DS: Could you tell us how do get started with this project and how was the process for getting access to record those vehicles?

MR: I was living in Minneapolis from 2007 – 2009 and Rob had hired me to record some different things from Minnesota and Wisconsin and one day we started exchanging emails about possible tanks there. I started to do some hunting around and after some research I found the Fort Snelling Military Museum on the outskirts of Minneapolis. The museum is not very visible to the public and oddly enough it is located on an Air Force National Guard base. Most of the locals have no idea that it exists.

When I first visited there, I found an amazing group of mostly civilians, who got together on weekends to restore the vehicles. Every weekend members are out at the museum working on vehicles and getting them up and operational for visitors. Everyone we met there was deeply passionate about the vehicles and the history they represented.

Our driver was Dan Little and was killer to work with. He is devoted to the museum and took 3 days off from his full-time job to drive the vehicles for us. Dan was also an experienced driver, which was extremely important! We knew that we could safely record while these heavy vehicles would be driving very closely by us. Also, Dan was very interested in what we were doing and would always point out where the interesting sounds were.

RN: It was all Michael I don’t recall the details other than being really excited to record a lot of Tanks with him.

DS: How was your collaboration ?

MR: I first met Rob back in late 2007 when I was working for a nationally distributed public radio show. I was on a project in LA for 3 months during the spring of 2008 and at that point I had never done any vehicle recording. I literally emailed Rob and asked him if I could do some work with him while I was there. I ended up crawling under cars with him and doing a few other gigs. During that time Rob was incredibly generous with his time and during those few months I learned an incredible amount. I had already been doing lots of field recording, but not on the scale that Rob had been, and it was great to learn first hand how he approached his work. Rob’s really passionate about finding new and interesting sounds and it’s hard not to have that rub off on you!

When we started discussing tanks I was back in Minnesota and we both knew it would be a great project. Rob came out and we recorded 7 vehicles in 3 days. It was a tremendous amount of work, but it was also tons of fun. Rob has so much experience recording cars (http://designingsound.org/2010/08/rob-nokes-special-guide-to-recording-cars/) which made everything go so smoothly. I had never had a tank roll by me at 30 MPH, which also meant I had never had a tank kick up a cloud of dirt and smoke over my body. We finished every day completely covered in dirt and the smell of fumes. At the end of the session I had to have all of the contacts for the buttons on my 744 replaced and the capsules on my schoeps cleaned.

RN: Very easy and simple, good team work. The location was adjacent to Minneapolis Airport so we had to always shoot shotgun and directional away from the taxi area. Fortunately the tanks are loud.

DS: Could you talk us about the mic choices and setup for exterior and onboard recordings?

MR: In terms of the exteriors I was used my Schoeps MS pair and Rob used a Neumann RSM 191.

RN: Like I mentioned the external mics battled airport noise as the tanks got further away from the mic, for this reason I shot shotgun directional. I recall that we really tore up one area with tanks and it got pretty dusty so we broke out some masks. As for the onboards Tanks are really loud, I will always remember the first tank I recorded with Greg King in 1993, it was shockingly loud inside. For this reason I stuck with microphones that could handle high SPL (sound pressure level).

DS: Was the process similar between all the vehicles or did you find any exception or variations of setup for recording different vehicles?

MR: There were two vehicles that had similar chassis, but all of them were different in so many ways. The personnel carriers we did were much lighter and could go much faster. They were also much smaller. Each vehicle had different engines and layouts, so while we set up our onboards we relied on our driver Dan to help us find the best spots to place the microphones. Some of the smaller vehicles like the Stuart and the Sherman were amazing to crawl inside and learn how cramped the quarters were for the men who had to use these vehicles in combat. It was quite amazing.

RN: I recall one Tank was like a jet engine, it was substantially louder than the other tanks. Other tanks had diesel engines that were smoother or rough sounding. I think the most noticeable thing about tanks is the treads, steel track or rubber track. Typically we only find rubber track in America because the Army does not want to tear up all the roads with steel tracks. As I recall I think one of the tanks had steel track.

DS: Anything else you’d like to add?

MR: Personally we’re very excited for this library and the diversity of vehicles we put together:

• M5A1 Stuart Tank
• M60A3 Combat Tank
• M41A2 Walker Bulldog Tank
• M42A1 Duster
• M106A2 Mortar Carrier
• M4A2E8 Sherman Tank
• M42A1 Duster
• M75 APC

Some of this vehicles have had little to no coverage previously available. I also hope to have more opportunities to work with Rob again in the future.

RN: It was a pleasure to work with Michael and get to know him, and Michael shares the passion of sound recording.

[Ric Viers has prepared a series of quick videos, where he will be sharing some useful tips and tricks for anyone who records sound effects in the field. All the videos were produced directly from the Detroit Chop Shop and will be published exclusively on Designing Sound TV during this month]

Today, Ric shares his tips on using a portable recorder, and the importance of protecting its microphones against the wind.

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[Ric Viers has prepared a series of quick videos, where he will be sharing some useful tips and tricks for anyone who records sound effects in the field. All the videos were produced directly from the Detroit Chop Shop and will be published exclusively on Designing Sound TV during this month]

Today, Ric shares some tips for organizing your batteries by colors.

Watch the video on DSTV

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Today, Ric shares some tips on cable repair, directly by professionals of the matter.

Watch the video on DSTV

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I just wanted to remind you that the “Sound Effects Bible Starter Kit” special offer is coming to its end, since it’s only during Ric Viers’ month.

For more information about the deal, please go to the original post.

Today, Ric shares some tips for dealing with cables.

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