Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > David Kastrup <dak@xxxxxxx> writes: > >> Fons Adriaensen <fons@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: >> >>> On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 12:25:09PM +0000, Rodolfo Medina wrote: >>> >>>> Thanks to Jeanette and Fons for their help. Now please one more question: >>>> I've got two such 3.5mm jack stereo microphones: >>>> >>>> https://www.amazon.it/... etc >>> >>> The link describes this as a MONO omnidirectional mic. > > I said it was stereo because, when I record with it, the rsulting .wav file is > 2-channel. Then I concluded it was stereo. Have you looked at the 2 channels to check whether there are actually two significantly different significantly non-zero channels? It is not usual that the sound card detects how many sources are open or actually connected, and it would be entirely unusual that the recording software would act on such information rather than recording at least 2 channels by default. > What I want is, say, 4 different mono channels. For example, if it's > a string quartet, each instrument should have its own microphone and > the resulting track should be mono. If it is a piano record, I want > two microphones, one for mid-trebles and one for mid-bass, 2 mono > channels. If it's voice and piano, I want 3 mono channels and so on. > Do you think it'll be all right with the Behringer UMC404HD and that > microphone of mine plus adapter? That microphone is nice for its > lightness too. There is a high probability of muddy trebles, a significant noise floor and an overemphasis on the 1k–4k frequency range: the main application of cheap microphones like that is improving voice chat. Since they have less size limitations than a microphone built into a laptop and are not in contact with the case that also holds hard disks (though those are often SSDs these days) and cooling fans as well as various voltage converters including for LCD backlight, they have a reasonable chance to offer significant improvement there. But it's a decidedly lower bar to cross than picking up piano sound. For piano, a good bet for close pickup are small-diaphragm but silent condensor mics with omnidirectional characteristic. You don't want to use too many mics because of comb filtering problems. For basically any ensemble placement, you want comparatively directional microphones, cardioid or hypercardioid (the latter tends to make it a bit easier to mask other players in an ensemble arrangement at the cost of being more finicky in placement). I am going to go out on a limb here and state that I've seen surprising value from Behringer B5 microphones (comes with omni and cardioid capsules) for use with virtual rehearsals of an accordion ensemble. Certainly to the degree where I could not justify getting the Oktava small diaphragm condenser mics for everyone that I use myself. Accordion is comparatively tricky in sound quality and easily sounds too harsh and disharmonious in recordings (also tends to self-destruct under lossy audio compression at surprisingly high bit rates). Of course, close-captioning an accordion does not really require a low noise floor, but the Behringer B5 should rarely be a dealbreaker in that regard either, at least when considering the typical small diaphragm condenser use case (you'd use large diaphragm for room/distance recordings anyway). >>> If you really want to go into multichannel audio better buy something >>> of somewhat higher quality. >> >> In particular, using omnidirectional microphones for 4-channel audio is >> not likely to lead to a lot of differentiation unless you work with some >> clever arrangement of baffles. > > What do you mean please by differentiation? One channel sounds different from another. Of course, if you are placing your microphones per-instrument (rather than as a recording group), that's not going to be an issue. -- David Kastrup _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
