Zohar, Tim: audio gear

Date: March 9, 2010 7:14:14 PM PST
...Tim Sutton said:

Hi all,

Sorry for my silence the past while, Frankenstein's occupied Navid and me quite a lot the past two weeks.

We're actually using the wireless kit now until Friday.. and the small microphones included are decent. Could be better, but ok for tests. Borrowing two single packs is an option — it's lighter (no heavy rack case), but you'll have more batteries to go through with the receivers, because the 6-pack uses three twin receivers that are AC-powered. Either way the mics and transmitters are identical.

One option is to mount them onto one's shoulders to pick up the near-binaural image, and if the headphone (or HMD) to be used is isolated enough it should be possible to prevent feedback. (microphones near headphones can be scary!)

TML doesn't actually have any particularly small microphones, just small- and large-diaphragm studio mics. But if you're needing an audio interface to use with this wireless setup, our 828mkII came back from repair, and thus we have a new-ish Motu 828mk3 that will be a floating unit and available as of next week.

There isn't really an equipment list anywhere unfortunately. I was talking to Laura E. about helping with some audio reorganizing later this month, maybe that would be a good time to take inventory.

Also, maybe Zohar and Mazi have some ideas about how to make one's own sound (footsteps, walking?) move away from oneself, but Navid has a spatialization patch that he (or I to some extent) could show, which mates the ambisonic panning control object to either ambisonic panning or the IRCAM Spat, which evidently has nice binaural processing, with the benefit of simulated room effects in the Spat — attenuation, room reflections and various spectral changes according to distance/position.

Tim

On 2010-03-09, at 2:29 PM, zohar wrote:

Hi Harry,

Mazi and I plan to meet next week and start to prototype some audio delay structure. 
I was wondering what kind of gear is available at the TML for us to work with and where can it be found. 
I looked at the Hexagram audio section and they have a multi (6 mics) unit , that might be good to experiment with as wireless input. let me know if you have any thoughts of what we can use.

Zohar

HEX-WIRE-003 WIRELESS MICROPHONE KIT - MULTI (6)
http://hexagram.concordia.ca/bookreq/equipreq.php?itemid=175&catid=107 

HEX-WIRE-001 WIRELESS MICROPHONE KIT - SINGLE
http://hexagram.concordia.ca/bookreq/equipreq.php?catid=106&blogid=3

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2 responses
I wonder if we could just work, for the table scenario, with binaural mics
sitting on the table in front of each person.

Or, use noise cancelling headphones with small binaurals draped over the
neck and shoulders.
— David
Hm.. I have some in-ear noise-attenuating headphones, as opposed to active noise-cancelling ones. Active ones could be worth a try if anyone already has some.

However, quality is definitely impacted going active, and the phase-sensitive nature of the input (binaural mics + potential spatial processing) might do some weird things when it's simultaneously trying to cancel out what is probably providing substantial spatial cues. The in-ear ones I don't use much for pleasure, because they do cut oneself off a bit alarmingly from surrounding ambience, but in this case that's basically helpful. The bass response feels unnatural because it's actually physically coupled inside the ear.

Wearing the mics on the shoulders would provide a more real image, plus you have the change in audio coupled with movement of the body.

— Timothy Sutton