Do lavs work at all outside in a city, or not really?

[Paul R Johnson]

For university level study the yamaha sound reinforcement handbook is essential reading because it deals with engineering. The clever stuff, not the person who pushes a few faders. The maths is great and tough.

For microphone techniques go to the DPA university pages on their website. Very, very detailed on mic positions.

Here's a basic thing to consider.
If you record stereo using two microphones to get stereo images, what actually are you doing? Two channels that will create a sound field. The differences between them when people or sound sources are spaced in a room has two features. Differences in level. Distant sources are quieter. Plus, difference in time. Distant sources arrive at the mic later than close ones. This is how our ears work. Two ears, time and level differences and the brain does the rest. If you use X/Y techniques, the two mics are very close so time differed are small, so level is the driving stereo mechanism. Point them at 90 degrees left and right, so 45 either side of centre and it works because of the overlapping cardioid patterns, centre pick up is a bit lower than ideal, but ok. Some techniques open up the mics a bit more but then the straight ahead capture dives into a hole. Handy though if you have a wide room with nothing important in the middle. Hopeless if somebody in the middle starts to speak. You can separate the mics completely and then you get level and big time differences, so again, it can work for certain things. M/S give solid centre and good stereo capability but you can't hear it until you ge back to base, or are lucky enough to have a portable recorder that has a special M/S matrix to recover discrete left and right channels. M/S in normal headphones sound totally like something has gone wrong.

This is not special stuff, it's basic stuff for audio people. The kind of people who can listen, walk to the mics and move one by ten degrees and know it's sorted. Can you see how little you actually know, but seem to think is sufficient.

It never occurred to me a sound person working on movies would not have the very basic knowledge. I'm surprised you don't know any of this. Must be scary to realise all the things missing from your education. Now would be a great time in your life to do some serious study. Not a five minute skim, I mean real research and learning. Forty years ago I completed some exams in radio and electronics because I thought I wanted to work with radio. I'm currently trying to understand the theory of slot radiators for radio transmission. I've seen them in broadcast use and in the lockdown I decided I really wanted to understand them and the maths is really tricky for me as much lays in my brain unused for years, and needs refreshing. You're young so get off your bum and go and learn something that you can use for your career.

I want to be a X so tell me how to do it, is your common theme, and when it gets tough, you jump ship and want to be something else. Every time you get a problem, you give up. You then get the problem again and again. Can you see how frustrating this is?

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I’m conflicted, on the one hand I think you’re being a little hard on Ryan. Even if he got the book those concepts might be too difficult for him to understand. But on the other hand it’s frustrating dealing with someone who wants answers feed to him and shows so little initiative. I’m sure it’s part of the disorder he has.

While I think it’s useful to know about the different stereo recording techniques, I think a simple x/y would be fine for his application. My Zoom H5 has a built in xy mics. Btw it also has middle side matrix, I always wondered what that was all about but now I know so this discussion wasn’t a complete waste. lol

[Greg Miller]

Paul, I'll bet you dollars to donuts (or scones or crumpets or whatever ...) that he'll never follow through with this. If he were going to buy a book, he could have done it last night. It's a shame, too, because Jay Rose's books are very good beginner stuff ... lots of practical, and not too much theory to get bogged down. They would be really helpful to him. And there are a bunch of used ones on eBay for as little as $5.00 US. I had my hopes up last night, but apparently, true to form, he was just jerking me around. Ryan seems to have a mental block against taking any advice, but isn't honest enough to say so ... he just goes off and hides for a while, then comes back with a new question.

[Greg Miller]

I’m conflicted, on the one hand I think you’re being a little hard on Ryan. Even if he got the book those concepts might be too difficult for him to understand.

Well, it would cost only $5.00 to find out. And if Ryan did find the book too confusing, he could then ask about the parts that had him puzzled. And he would have taken a small step by buying the book and trying to do something for himself.

Pete, do you think there's any hope that Ryan will ever make any progress, if he doesn't at least confront and acknowledge what he's doing? I feel that by giving him an alternative that would actually be helpful to him I'm giving him a very specific opportunity to try to change, at least one little bit at a time. Should we just ignore the problem, pretend these dialogs are normal, and continue answering his repetitious questions and objections until we're ready to tear out our hair? I, for one, have little enough hair to begin with.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Greg nothing you said was wrong.