One Microphone Recordings

[Torben_Rick (Torben - A Dane living in Hamburg - Roon Lifer)]

One Microphone Recordings are made with just one microphone.

They require precise balancing of the sound by the placement of the musicians by the album producer and recording engineer.

In 1987 Cowboy Junkies went into a church to record an album into a single microphone in a single day.

Since then the SQ in One Microphone Recordings has improved.

Now you find recordings like:

and

Great recordings and music It would be nice if there where more recordings like that.

They seems not be on Qobuz

Torben

[mikeb]

Interesting, I will check this out. Reminds me of early shellac recordings: one mic, mono in one take. There’s definitely an art to it.

[Mark_Boulter]

Here is an example: Lester’s Blues (lestersblues.be)

Georgia Jubilee - One Mic Session

Great album

[GregD (Greg Dowling)]

This Sound on Sound documentary about recording 50s style - including with a single microphone - is fun

Recording In A 1950s Style Recording Studio

[Torben_Rick (Torben - A Dane living in Hamburg - Roon Lifer)]

@GregD + @Mark_Boulter - Thanks for the links.

These are recordings in the “old” style. But that is not the case with above (Paul Berner & Michael Moore). These are “moderne” (nowadays) sound but recorded with just one microphone.

Have a nice WE

Torben

[AndyR (Andy)]

… but not what many people would think of as ‘one microphone’, as it’s a Calrec Soundfield mic which is (I think) a tetrahedral array of four capsules and needs a bit of fun post processing to make a stereo master.

[GregD (Greg Dowling)]

It is a tetrahedral array ambisonic mic.

The lovely stereo AEA ribbon in the video isn’t strictly a single mic either.

I think the poster is getting at an approach to capturing the sound in the room the way old school classical engineers would - with a single mic array - and no spot mics and minimal mixing.

[Christall (Chris)]

You can find detailed information about recording technology on Bandcamp.

[GregD (Greg Dowling)]

So that one was recorded with a Josephson C700S - which has 3 microphone capsules (two directional, one omni) in the single housing.

So far these are all co-incident mic techniques (first order ambisonic, blumlein pair, c700s)

Many purist classical recordings use ‘near co-incident’ techniques (mostly ORTF) or spaced omnis / arrays (eg Decca tree), because the timing differences help with stereo imaging.