Oh okay thanks, yes, I googled it just after, I asked, sorry.

Well it seems when I look it up and read about it, the stereo mic is acting as a mid/side recording then?

When it comes to recording room tone with a stereo mic, you are saying that if I do that, and then edit in the dialogue taken from a mic with a different pick up pattern, that the room tone is going to match, even though the pick up pattern on both recordings is different?

Ryan - you've missed the entire point of the room tone thing. Because your personal lav mics are close to their mouth, they won't record the sound of ambient noises in the space - the gain will be set for close up sensitivity so the aircon noise, the passing cars etc will be below the noise floor on a radio system, for the majority of the time. Brian's mention of a stereo mic - and note, a FIXED one gives you an alternative to silence - that's all. If you DON'T use M/S then there's always the danger of poor mono compatibility, or the dreaded hole in the middle. With M/S, you always have frontal pickup, and then the width if you want it - tweaked in the edit to taste.

There is nothing to match - the wavs will pick up voice when they speak and then nothing when they are silent. That sounds odd, so the continuous room track has the vox on the top. Clearly, you've never spent any time mixing sound. It's subtle and tricky to balance. It needs proper studio monitors and decent acoustics to let the voice tracks sit properly.

I think you've heard the words for these things but never tried to do balancing at all.

You CANNOT record room tone with your boom - because it changes as the boom moves and that is destructive. As you wave a shotgun around, you can hear everything change - that's not suitable for concealment or creating false space - it needs to be consistent. Hence why I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Of course, so much you hear in the movies was never real in the first place.

The job is to give the editor stuff they can use (or not) Something is always better than nothing. Creating five minutes of room nothingness from the random 30 seconds accidentally recorded is always a challenge.

Perhaps Ryan would be better spending his money on a good film sound recording course intended for would be professional sound people, rather than spending it on making a feature film. If not that, at least on some of the books on the subject.

Ryan - you've missed the entire point of the room tone thing. Because your personal lav mics are close to their mouth, they won't record the sound of ambient noises in the space - the gain will be set for close up sensitivity so the aircon noise, the passing cars etc will be below the noise floor on a radio system, for the majority of the time. Brian's mention of a stereo mic - and note, a FIXED one gives you an alternative to silence - that's all. If you DON'T use M/S then there's always the danger of poor mono compatibility, or the dreaded hole in the middle. With M/S, you always have frontal pickup, and then the width if you want it - tweaked in the edit to taste.

There is nothing to match - the wavs will pick up voice when they speak and then nothing when they are silent. That sounds odd, so the continuous room track has the vox on the top. Clearly, you've never spent any time mixing sound. It's subtle and tricky to balance. It needs proper studio monitors and decent acoustics to let the voice tracks sit properly.

I think you've heard the words for these things but never tried to do balancing at all.

You CANNOT record room tone with your boom - because it changes as the boom moves and that is destructive. As you wave a shotgun around, you can hear everything change - that's not suitable for concealment or creating false space - it needs to be consistent. Hence why I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Of course, so much you hear in the movies was never real in the first place.

The job is to give the editor stuff they can use (or not) Something is always better than nothing. Creating five minutes of room nothingness from the random 30 seconds accidentally recorded is always a challenge.

Oh okay thanks. That makes sense with the direction of the boom mic. When you say the dreaded hole in the middle, what do you mean by 'hole'? When you say mono compatibility, what do you mean in that case?

I think this was covered in one of your other threads,

Oh okay, well I think I would understand a lot better if it wasn't for some of terminology. I do not understand what terms like 'dreaded hole' means. But I would understand the concepts I think if worded or explained in a more specific way :).

Ryan, there are a number of good books about audio, and specifically audio as related to video production. I think you (and some of us, too) would be much better off if you would buy one and read it thoroughly. Instead of coming here and asking absolutely beginner level questions, and trying to comprehend the answers, you would know a lot of the basics and could then come here with intermediate level questions and have some understanding of the answers. For example you would know what M-S stereo is ... a very basic concept that you could find in any decent book about audio recording. You would know about "hole in the middle." There's an old saying that applies to you: "You don't know what you don't know." This stuff is not rocket science ... it is very basic audio knowledge; I can modestly say that I knew this stuff by junior high school, because I was curious and went to the library. So if you really want to learn about audio, do a little bit of the work yourself: get a good book and read it. (Or, if you just want to debate and disagree with people, keep on doing what you've been doing.)

I strongly recommend books written by Jay Rose. IIRC he has covered location sound recording, post production, and maybe some other aspects as well. I know I have seen his books available on eBay. (Jay has his own website, jayrose.com ... check it out!) I'll bet other people in this forum, who are trying (probably with a fair amount of frustration) to help you understand this stuff, will second my suggestion.

Based on your usual reaction to advice here, I'd say the greatest probability is that you will point out why reading these books would be a bad idea. Next lower probability is that you will completely ignore the topic of books in your response, and change the subject. Lowest probability: I will be absolutely amazed if you agree that reading these books would be a good idea; and even more amazed if you actually do it (as opposed to saying you're going to do this, but then in reality doing nothing).

Oh okay thanks. I have a book an audio editing, and I should get one on audio recording as well.

By hole in the middle, this is just a guess, but does that mean in a 2.0 stereo mix, where there is a speaker to the left, and one to the right, but the middle section is missing a speaker. Is that what that means? That's just a guess.

Why not look it up? Are you trying to prove you're not capable of doing anything for yourself?

Sure, I looked it up, and here is the definition I got

"hole-in-the-middle effect: An undesirable effect due to an extreme angle used with a coincident pair where the stereo image is all left and right, with very little sound in the center. Or, a similar phenomenon created by a surround system where the loudspeakers are too far apart to deliver balanced sound adequately to all seats in a theater."

That kind of sounds like what I thought it meant.

But this seems to be about post mixing. What does a stereo mic have to do with the hole in the middle, since the mic is 2 channel stereo, and therefore, has no middle channel? What does a 2 channel mic have to do with the hole in the middle when it comes to post mixing?

No, that answer isn't about post mixing. It's about microphone placement and loudspeaker placement. In terms of recording, the answer is in the first sentence of your quote.

Oh okay, but in that quote, I thought they were talking about when the movie is finished and is being played through speakers. Isn't that at a post stage, compared to mic placement, since the movie is already finished by then?

the mic is 2 channel stereo, and therefore, has no middle channel? What does a 2 channel mic have to do with the hole in the middle

What is an M/S mic? What does the "M" stand for?

Are you trying to be intentionally obtuse? Or are you really completely and thoroughly confused about the entire audio process?

Please answer this question specifically. It has to be one or the other.

I'm confused about a few things that I wanted to ask about. That's all. Not trying to be obtuse intentionally.

What is an M/S mic? What does the "M" stand for?

It stands for mid.

OK, so before we go any further with the details.

Here is one of Jay Rose's books, available used on eBay, for less than $5.00. Search eBay for this:
Producing Great Sound for Digital Video by Jay Rose

Will you give us your word that you will go to eBay right now, and order that book right now (there are several copies available)? Will you make that commitment? It's a simple yes or no answer.

It stands for mid.

I'll respond to that as soon as I see your answer about buying the book

Oh okay, sure I will do that.

OK, Ryan, that's great! Thank you!

Go ahead and order it, don't put it off. I will be around here for a while. Come back after you've ordered the book, and I'll explain about the mics.

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?

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

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.

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.

Greg nothing you said was wrong.