| Reelsound
has always striven to keep up with the latest improvements
in mobile recording equipment and over the last 20 years
has constantly updated sound recording gear and particularly
microphones. To maintain the best sound quality available
one piece of equipment that has been a consistent part
of our recording equipment from the very beginning,
the Soundfield
microphone.
The Soundfield
has been around for about 25 years in various guises
and is arguably one of the most versatile microphones
in the world. The first Soundfield
microphone was developed by the National Research
Development Corporation and Calrec Audio based on the
work of mathematician Michael Gerzon and formed the
heart of an incredibly accurate surround sound system
known as Ambisonics.
The
basics of ambisonics is that the Soundfield microphone
contains 4 separate capsules arranged in such a way
that the engineer can record the whole sound environment
around the microphone, above, below and behind as
well as infront. Not only can the mic be set to any
of the conventional pick up patterns but it has the
advantage that the direct/ambient sound balance and
stereo width can be adjusted from the control unit
without having to physically move the microphone.
But there is much more to it than that! With ambisonics
the entire sound environment can be recreated
back in the studio.
As
recording gear has developed over the years so the
recording format has changed from analogue tape to
digital tape and now direct to disc recording. Digital
editing on a software platform has made huge advances
and at the heart of our mobile recording equipment
we have two Pentium 4 2.8 GiG laptops configured solely
for audio recording with Steinberg Nuendo software
giving us the finest recording standard available
up to 96K at 32bit . Often just recording in stereo
to two tracks on the computer gives a fantastic result.
However
larger projects involving orchestras may require the
use of more microphones and we have
built up a huge list of quality condenser mics over
the years with models by AKG, Neuman, Sure, Sennheiser,
Rode and recent additions by ADK, Audio
Technica and recently Hebden Sound.
Back
in the studio everything is monitored on a pair of Rogers
LS3/5A speakers developed as nearfield monitors
by the BBC.
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