Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Katie Kildow, Pieper Rig Faves

My three favorite tests:

A compilation of all 3 tests put together


Test 4 Station 4:


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Test 4 Station 4 has really clear dings and I am able to easily distinguish between the right and left ear. The nails get louder at the 11 and 1 mark because they are directly behind the microphones. The decay on the sound remains longer around 8-9 and 3-4 because the barn is shaped as a rectangle, and the mic rig is set pretty close to the center of the warehouse. The test lacks a lot of the depth around 2 o'clock, due to the person with the nails or the shape of the space.


Test 9 Station 9:

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Like the previous test, you can clearly distinguish between the left and right sides. Also similar to the previous test, Test 9 Station 9 has a longer decay at 8, however it has a very muted decay at 4. Again, this is likely due to the space we were in. As Matt has mentioned, there was a corner of the warehouse occupied by fake walls and a Jaguar. With 12 o'clock being directly behind the "walls" of the rig, the sound isn't carried very well into the microphones. This gives you an idea of how these rigs are positioned in the warehouse. These rigs are also raised off the ground, appoximately as high as the person holding the nails behind it. This could lead to a muted sound, because of the way the sound has to travel to get to the microphones.

Test 6 Station 4:

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I am able to better distinguish the left and right ear the best out of all three of the tests. Again, like the previous tests, I find the decay to linger more in 8-11 than 12-3, and again at 4. This test is in the same position as Test 4 Station 4, but since the mic rig is different, the decay at 12 is a really big change. I've put them side by side for comparison. I think when listening to this, it makes the blocky seem like a better mic rig for noises that happen behind the microphone.

1 comment:

Rob D. said...

With the Parallel Boundary Rig (T4-4),I agree that the 8 and 9 o'clock strikes are softer and to some extent at 4 o-clock too. This seems consistent with rig location which is closer to the 2 o-clock position (away from 8 and 9).

When you write,"The nails get louder at the 11 and 1 marks because they are directly behind the microphones,.. " do you mean because the sound sources are directly in front of the mics? This makes sense. There may also be a greater addition of reflected sound from the _boundary_ from those two directions looking at the probable angles involved. With sound the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of refection. The direct sound from the 11 o-clock strike, is joined with the sound from 11 that is _reflected_ from the wooded boundary in front of the left capsule. If this explains it, the sound from the 11 o-clock and 1 o-clock positions should NOT be louder in your third rig. For this rig, Josh angled the boundaries away from 12 o-clock center thus lessening the boundary reflections from 11 o-clock thru 1 o-clock. Take a listen. Is this true? Are strikes 11-1 in Test 6 Station 4 less loud than those in Test 4 Station 4? You've got a great set of tests to judge this with because the two rigs are in the exact same spot.


People like the effect of echoes. The Triple Boundary Dish, by blocking out the direct sound from the 8,9,10,2 3 and 4 o-clock positions, capture ONLY indirect sound of strikes from these positions-- thus the echo. I think I can hear the presence of the the asymmetries of the barn better with the other two rigs you studied,

Josh's Boundary mic does seem to portray the first strikes on the left as softer than the strikes on the right. Again, this is consistent with the location of his rig about 10 feet closer to the 2 o clock position. One would hope that a stereo mic rig could resolve a difference of 40 feet at o-clock and 20 feet at 2 o'clock, At 11 o-clock, the rig is only about 4 feet closer to 2 than 11, so this gives us a pretty good idea of how accurate the spatial imaging clues of Josh's "anti-wedge" rig is. Rob D.