Film Projects – Dr Badphil

Recording and filming a folk choir: a comparison of NOS, spaced omni and DMS mic set ups

June 8, 2026

Introduction

Last week I had the pleasure of making a few recordings with simple videography of the Embers choir – a Norwich-based community choir led by Deva O’Neill, who sing a wide range of European folk songs. I stumbled across a few phone videos of them on-line, and thought the choir sounded great, so got in touch and offered to help produce a few videos with – hopefully – better sound: the sort of thing they could use on social media, and, of course, that are always nice to have as a record for posterity. Fortunately they were game for it. Normally the choir practices in the Martineau Hall, but, for the purposes of recording, I suggested that they book the wonderful Octagon Chapel, which is next door in Colegate. It is a fine Nonconformist chapel built in 1754-6 by the Norwich-based architect and builder, Thomas Ivory, and, happily, has excellent acoustics. The recording was to be a simple affair: setting up at the beginning of their weekly practice, recording and filming three songs once they had warmed up and got into their stride, and when the gear was ready. Nothing elaborate, and not for a commercial album release etc. The choir were so welcoming and friendly, had thoughtfully turned up in muted colours (and not a stripe – the bane of videography – in sight: I hadn’t even remembered to request this!) yet conscientious and focused. It was a delightful evening.

Modified Manfrotto 154b stereo bar with the omni AB and NOS pairs (aka an OCCO rig) flanking the DMS rig in the centre.

The mic rigs

With minimal set up time, I wanted options from which I could select in post, so thought I would try pairs of omnis and cardioids, along with one of my twin-based DMS rigs. For consistency I decided to go with mics from one manufacturer, so, as still immersed in much testing of their mics, went for the Nevaton option. With a new addition to my various Manfrotto 154b stereo bars of a 1m-long carbon-fibre tube (which, as with the stock and modified aluminium ones, I filled with rockwool to remove any resonances), I went for omnis (MC59/O) spaced at 1m (slightly toed out), with a NOS pair of cardioids (MC59S/C) between (i.e. 300mm spacing and angled 90 degrees relative to each other), with a DMS pair of an MC59 Twin and MC59/8 in the centre. Essentially an OCCO set up with DMS thrown in. The mics were all mounted in Radius Windshield shockmounts – the omni and cardioid pairs on the little field-edition mounts with 55D-shore hoops (in the prototype evil red that I love!), and the DMS pair in stiffer black 72D-shore hoops. The bar was mounted on a Manfrotto 1004BAC stand, suitably sandbagged, and the seven cables ran to a Sound Devices 788T (I had a passive splitter too, and a second recorder for redundancy). Well, that’s about it: all very simple, and when the choir kicked off they did one take for each of the three pieces they wanted to record. They were content with each of the first takes, though for safety I should perhaps have suggested a second take of each, but it is hard when people are happy, they are not being paid, you are a new face, and the stakes are modest! Anyway, we got away with it (mostly: the sharp-eared will notice a few things of course!).

The recordings

Having a few options means that – aside from covering myself when recording – this is a chance to make a few comparisons, not just with the mic pairs individually, but also in combination (OCCO pairs are often used with one pair dominant and the other pair added at a lower level). Moreover, it gives a chance to compare NOS and omni pairs to DMS decoded to stereo in different ways including those surprising options in Harpex-X for near-coincident and spaced pairs (yes, the mind boggles how this can work!): just how different does DMS decoded to NOS or AB 100cm sound to the real things? So there is much to chew over after the primary work is done, with the three short videos and recordings sent off to the choir.

In fact there are so many permutations, I’m not sure where to start. First off, perhaps best to give the NOS and omni AB 100cm pair:

Then mixing these together, as if often the case with OCCO rigs, here is the NOS + omni AB 100cm with the latter down 9dB, and the reverse:

For the DMS here is a decode to a Blumlein pair, which works well (and, of course, is a logical decoding in Harpex-X):

And, finally and less convincingly (given the difficulty of creating a virtual near-coincident or spaced pair from a coincident array), here are the DMS pair decoded to both NOS and omni AB 100cm in Harpex-X:

These files can be downloaded, mixed, compared (with levels changed as needed) etc., but, for a comparison across a song here is a video that sees the mic pairs and combinations swap on the fly:

Conclusions

There are some obvious ones: DMS decoding in Harpex-X to virtual near-coincident and spaced pairs doesn’t sound much like the real NOS and omni AB 100cm pairs and is decidedly worse in both cases. Perhaps others have found success with it, but I’ve been a bit sceptical of such options in Harpex-X and, it seems, with good reason: it is not something I have used before and I won’t be doing so again! The DMS decode to a Blumlein pair (i.e. crossed fig 8s angled at 45 degrees to the front), however, is much better, which is not surprising given that Blumlein and DMS are coincident and mathematically equivalent set ups (although, of course, DMS allows much more flexibility in post): and, of course, the use here of a twin mic for the forward and rear-facing mid mics makes for greater coincidentality than with two separate cardioids. I can’t say that I am very keen on the omni AB 100cm pair, which sounds rather swampy, but that isn’t surprising: if using an omni AB pair on its own I would not go as wide as this. The NOS and omni AB pair combinations (i.e. with one pair down by 9dB and vice versa) sound rather better and, also, the NOS pair alone sounds fine. For the finished videos, however, I went for the DMS decode to Blumlein: as readers of this blog will have realized by now, I do like MS (and related techniques such as DMS) and Blumlein, but, quite reasonably, you may prefer a different option! Anyway, I hope one or two find this useful food for thought and an encouragement to undertake your own tests.

Oh, and for completeness, here are the three videos as finished:

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Film Projects

Music video with Marc Valentine – ‘Tyrannical Wrecks’

March 3, 2024

British singer-songwriter Marc Valentine – erstwhile frontman of cult British power-pop outfit Last Great Dreamers – asked me to make a video for one of his singles, ‘Tyrannical Wrecks’, from his upcoming album ‘Basement Sparks’, to be released on 22nd March by Steve Van Zandt’s Wicked Cool Records. Marc had managed to wangle the run of Voewood for a day: Voewood, for those not familiar with it, being the wonderful, bombastic Arts & Crafts country house near Holt, in Norfolk, designed by Edward Schroder Prior.

Marc had sketched out an ambitious shoot, involving a country-house party, a minstrel-like band suffering to play to – and be ignored by – the guests, a host who demonstrates his avarice by selling the world to a passing alien, and a put-upon butler driven to spiking the drinks, all leading to a wilder gig in the basement and so on. A quick chat over a pint at my local, and many emails later, we rolled up for shooting on a nippy – and thankfully overcast – day in January, to meet the band (as well as Marc on vocals and guitar, Richard Davies on guitar, Rik Pratt on drums, and Richard Poynton on bass) and some of the principal members of the cast. The latter included a butler with strong shades of Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, albeit with less hair, and a host that seemed to have a hint of a former president of the USA, though Voewood, thankfully, has little of Mar-a-Lago about it.

Keeping it simple: one handheld camera, and a single lantern to supplement practical and natural lighting, while the butler spikes the guests’ fizz.
© Billie Gomez

After a quick drone shot of the band’s van arriving, shooting went handheld, with a Lumix G9ii and Meike T2.2 16mm cine lens, filming all the shots of the band on their own, then the host in bed, bathing etc. And with with the extras arriving en masse we moved on to filming busier scenes. With a total cast of around 25, this was far more than I have had to direct before, but they were switched on and willing: a delight. We only used a fraction of the house – this was to be no Country Life feature – but, even so, we needed to be nimble to stop the unpaid cast and crew flagging and just to get everything done in about five hours. This meant using natural (and practical) lighting wherever possible, and only bringing in a lantern or two when necessary. Quick shots of guest arrivals were followed by the main drinks party in the drawing room: this was a sedate affair with a bored band in the background. Rob Moore was my main crew throughout (his daughter Esme acting as 1st AC to keep us on track), and for this part moved on to second camera: a Lumix G9 and Meike T2.2 35mm cine lens. After lunch (real) and after being spiked by the butler (fictional) things got a little livelier, with the band – now electric (or at least miming so) – playing in the basement bar through to the denouement (so needing syncing to the pre-recorded track). We had a few technical issues: that alien outfit that someone had bought off Amazon for £25 was probably overpriced (you try filming an alien with a two-dimensional face, and grey socks and shoes sticking out the bottom of his too-short dress!); and Marc panicked when momentarily he lost his shades (yes, indoors on a grey winter day, but you’ve got to live the rock’n’roll life!). But that was all part of what was a fun shoot.

The band with most of the cast and crew: what a fantastic bunch!
© Billie Gomez

You can play the song on Spotify and here’s the finished video:

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A little bit of Blumlein

October 10, 2023

I’ve long been a fan of simple set ups for music recording, often using a mid-side pair only. That’s partly due to the fact that I like the idea of a stereo capture (rather than close-miced instruments and vocals panned across the left-right field), but also reflects the nature of what I do: location recording, with no studio and the natural tendency there – since the 1970s – to use multi-mic and multi-track recording, overdubbing and tinkering for as long as you wish. This is not to deny that there’s a hugely creative side to the typical studio recording approach, and it allows you to record instruments in ways just not possible without it. Of course, a simpler approach has remained the case with much recording of acoustic and classical music, although, even there, the number of spot mics can be vast these days. But recording of bands – with drum kits, electric guitars etc. – has been largely the province of the multi-mic and multi-track approach in recent decades, with only the occasional exception.

One such exception I have enjoyed has been John Cuniberti’s OneMic series of recordings. John is a hugely experienced engineer, with years of the studio multi-tracked approach under his belt, so it has been fascinating to see and hear his journey into a simpler approach: in his case using a stereo pair of ribbon mics, arranged as a Blumlein pair, in the form of the single stereo AEA R88. John has an excellent YouTube channel with examples of his recordings and videos, as well as behind-the-scenes videos, which are invaluable for others attempting something similar.

With a pair of the latest pre-production Rycote BD-10 fig 8 mics in hand, I was keen to try something in this vein: that is, to capture a whole band at the same time just with a Blumlein pair. Besides, what’s the point of a fig 8 mic without a good Blumlein work out? With a fraction of the skills and resources of a Cuniberti, expectations were much lower, but that’s not a reason not to have a go!

For anyone not familiar with the approach – which, like so much in stereo, goes back to the work of the brilliant engineer Alan Blumlein in the 1930s – a Blumlein pair comprises a pair of fig 8 mics usually arranged directly one above the other, so that the two mic capsules are angled at 90 degrees to each other: in that sense, like an XY pair. This gives you a stereo field in front of the mics and, with the rear lobes of the mics, to the rear: the stereo field to the rear, of course, is flipped. There’s plenty of signal at the sides of the pair, but it’s not the place for a direct sound source: at right-angles to the pair a source would be, say, on the left from the perspective of the front lobes, and on the right from the perspective of the rear lobes. Quite evidently, a recipe for a phasey mess. So, a Blumlein pair isn’t the answer to micing a group ranged in a circle around the mics, but does let you spread them in an arc of 70 degrees in front of the mic and a similar arc to the rear. Setting relative levels of different instruments and vocals is, needless to say, a question of adjusting loudness of the sources and/or distance from the Blumlein pair.

So much for the theory: the task is to translate that into action. With Lucy Grubb and her band willingly volunteering for the exercise, choice of venue was largely dictated by the need for good monitoring: with ‘mixing’ created in the setup, it was essential that the band and I could listen back and adjust the set up as necessary. The bassist, Kev Burton, happily let us use his studio – The Forge – where the band has previously recorded their multi-track releases: the wonderful Midas desk (originally made for Frank Zappa) was reduced to monitoring duties (from a passive split and feeding Logic), while the primary feed from the Blumlein pair was to my Sound Devices MixPre-3 recorder. Kev’s experience with his studio and the expert ears of the band were crucial to getting the balance right.

Monitoring in the control room, through the Midas desk, Logic and some Tannoy Little Gold monitors.

It was a tight squeeze in the small studio, with the hardest thing controlling the level of the drums, even with brushes and a special kick-drum beater: there was only so far we could move the drums away from the mics, so the drummer, Paul Weston, detuned his snare to great effect, and we put a gobo in front of the kit. The electric bass amp was placed on a chair in front of that (to get the bass central and nicely balanced with the kick drum), with Richard Poynton, on electric guitar and singing backing vocals, nearer the mic, and a little to one side. Closer to the mic, but centrally on the other side, was lead singer (and song-writer) Lucy Grubb, playing acoustic guitar (with a little amplification behind her). Left and right of her amp, were amps for Richard’s guitar and for the keyboard of Piers Hunt: all three were on chairs/beer crates to get them off the floor. Placement of the keyboard and the bass players themselves didn’t matter: it was all about the position (and volume) of their amps.

Getting distances and angles from the mic pair for lead and backing vocals was essential: Richard’s guitar amp (a Fender Champ) was at the same angle to the mics as his guitar, but on the other side of the mics, behind Lucy.

There was precious little room for any lights or cameras, but, nonetheless, a rough and ready film of the recording seemed worthwhile, so here – with a video of one of the three songs we recorded – is what I managed. The sound has seen no processing other than addition of a little reverb: there is no compression, EQ etc.

So the verdict? Well that’s one for others perhaps. But from my perspective and, more importantly, that of the band, what we got was a very faithful sound of the band in the room. Everyone was engaged in the idea of balancing or ‘mixing’ at source and I suspect we’ll be back having another go before long. Oh, and the BD-10s faired rather well as a Blumlein pair, I thought!

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Audio Projects Film Projects

Gems in the Rough

March 12, 2023

Lucy Grubb wanted to have a video made of her acoustic performance of a new track ‘Magpie’, to enter the GemsOnVHS annual contest – #GemsInTheRough2023. The requirements are an original song and a video specifically made for the contest. If you are not familiar with it, Anthony Simpkins’s GemsOnVHS was begun about 12 years ago and comprises a mass of field recordings (or, rather, videos) of what might be broadly described as folk musicians. The musicians (almost all relatively young) are mostly from the US, but not exclusively so, and they are mostly lesser-known artistes without recording contracts or large followings. There are exceptions, of course, such as the recordings/videos of Willie Watson made two or three years ago – long after he had come to fame with the Old Crow Medicine Show and, then, his solo career. Some other well-known musicians have been caught by GemsOnVHS at an early stage in their careers, with the videos doubtless helping them along the path: the most obvious example is Sierra Ferrell. It isn’t quite a case of a latter day Alan Lomax, but it is a great way of finding some more obscure, but talented musicians, not least as few will ever have the commercial success that means they will make it to the UK. And the intimate field recordings resonate with my own interest in such an approach.

The requirements of the annual contest don’t mean that there is a need to follow the GemsOnVHS production style: indeed, many competition entries are made using no more than a smart phone. Given the weather (very wintry here last weekend, when Lucy blew back to rural Norfolk for a couple of days) an inside location was pretty essential, so I suggested the workshop of woodcarver Luke Chapman: Luke’s a good friend and another talented musician, and I have been recording him over the last few years, more latterly in his workshop. It has a reasonable acoustic and seemed suited to Lucy’s music and the ethos of GemsOnVHS. While Anthony Simpkin has always favoured near-invisible miking (relying on lav mics), I’ve not been so convinced about this one element of the GemsOnVHS productions: it seems a little contrived and rather contrary to the honest field-recording approach, and suggests undue emphasis on the visuals. Anyway, I much prefer visible mics (above all for audio quality) when filming field recordings of music: and it is good to see, or rather hear, that many others do as well – perhaps most notably the folks at Playing for Change.

Of course, not all microphone techniques are equally visible or as suited to field recordings. So to keep the set-up simple and comparatively unintrusive, for this recording I went for a variation on double mid-side recording. Using three SDC mics, the Rycote BD-10 fig 8 mic was set conventionally with the null pointed at Lucy, just above the top of her guitar, so that its lobes faced left and right; immediately below this a supercardioid (Rycote SC-08) pointed upwards to capture the vocals, and immediately above the fig 8 a cardioid (Rycote CA-08) pointed downwards to the guitar – aimed around the 12th fret. There is a Sound on Sound article by Hugh Robjohns from a few years ago that discusses and illustrates the approach. The two different MS pairs can be decoded separately and combined as wished. Doing this as a one-man band, camera work was necessarily simple, which suited the nature of the contest. I used three cameras, two on tripods and one hand held (sans gimbal) to give a bit of energy to the video: a Lumix G9 with a Meike T2.2 35mm cinema lens; one Lumix GX80 with a Meike T2.2 16mm cinema lens; and another Lumix GX80 with a Panasonic f1.8 25mm lens. I took lights, but left them in the car: it seemed over the top, and, while a combination of daylight and fluorescent strip lights might not seem ideal, the combined diffuse lighting works OK and keeps it real.

We did three takes of Lucy’s song and went for the third: there was no audio editing at all (processing was limited to adding a high-pass filter, setting levels, choosing stereo width whilst decoding the MS pairs, and adding a little reverb), and the video editing was simple too (a little bit of colour matching and then grading). Anyway, here’s Lucy’s entry:

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Audio Projects Film Projects

Tony Hall – man and melodeon

October 22, 2022

Tony Hall’s melodeon playing has long been much revered in the world of folk music, and can be heard on Maddy Prior and June Tabor’s ‘Silly Sisters’ album, on Nic Jones’s ‘Penguin Eggs’ album, and on his own recordings: ‘Field Vole Music’ (1977), ‘Mr Universe’ (1995), and ‘One Man Hand’ (2008). Despite his many live performances over the years (not least with the weekly performances of The Vonn Krapp Family Band for around 50 years), there are few videos of Tony playing. Given his unique style and, also, his relaxed and humorous stage presence, this is a real pity. A few years ago I set out to rectify this, but Covid intervened and, to be honest, Tony got slightly cold feet about such self-promotion! But patience rewards those who wait, and with the help of a mutual friend (thank you Matt!), a few weeks ago Tony agreed to the recording and filming of a live performance.

Tony’s set followed a harvest supper at his local church so I had no wish to intrude too much on the occasion. A low profile was essential, and there would be little to no time for adjusting gear on the night. With such events, preparation is, of course, very much the order of the day, so in the weeks beforehand I had a sound check with a stand-in melodeon player (thank you Rob!) and a lighting test (the church lighting looked hopeless) one evening.

On the audio side, recording melodeon (and accordion) is challenging since so much sound comes out of the sides and, of course, the left (bass) hand moves in and out. I’ve tried various techniques over the years, and the sound test before this session confirmed my conclusion that the best way is to record with mics positioned either side of the instrument. It’s also how Tony has mics set up whenever he uses a PA, so it was good to have a set up that was comfortable for him too. I’d have preferred omni mics, not least as the acoustic was good, but with an audience liable to sing along or cough, and, even, the potential for a bit of clatter from someone having their third helping of pudding (I wouldn’t blame them as they were marvellous!) I went for cardioid mics, and angled them a bit so the rear nulls had some effect. Mics either side gives a much fuller sound than a stereo pair in front of the melodeon, but, of course, if hard-panned left and right the mics make the instrument sound 30ft wide: after playing around and testing on speakers and headphones in post, I settled on panning 40% left and right. I used a pair of Rode NT55s. For vocals, I wanted as much separation from the melodeon as possible, so that I could vary levels after the event, and would have preferred a large diaphragm condenser (LDC) fig 8 so I could use its null to good effect, but, conscious that this would mean the rear lobe would pick up the audience too much and that it would be far from discreet, went for an SDC hypercardioid – the AKG CK93.

Filming gear needed to be equally discreet. The bad lighting was solved by a single softbox lantern (the SmallRig 65cm version) with a SmallRig 3616, which is a COB LED light that is bi-colour (so I could set colour temperature to match the church lights at 2700K). Lanterns are so much gentler on the performer than a rectangular softbox, and the single light didn’t intrude unduly: as benign as a standard lamp. Cameras were a Lumix G9 and two Lumix GX80s, two cameras roughly at 45 degrees, and one, low down, centrally, to catch Tony’s fingers on the melodeon buttons (so aficionados can see how he does it). All three cameras locked off on tripods, and two unmanned: far from ideal, but nicely low key. With a bit of varied cropping from the 4k capture for the 1080p output, that gave some variety in the shots in the final video. And low-key video suited the occasion anyway.

So the end result? Well judge for yourself, but it certainly captured something of the event, is a step up from the few mobile phone videos of Tony online, and was a reasonable stab given the understandable constraints. And the bonus? Tony is keen to go on and make a proper album in the same church this autumn/winter, without an audience. He doesn’t enjoy the stress of studio recording, or the excessive editing of multiple takes to create the performance that never was, but he’s up for a relaxed recording in his local church, which is great news: Tony still has many a song/tune he would like to record for posterity. Obviously there will be scope for much improving the sound of the audio from the harvest supper gig, so more anon.

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