Thursday 25 November 2010

Continuing Research

Not as much progress as I'd have liked due to impending deadlines from other modules and a massive amount of time currently being spent in the studio.

However I have managed to obtain a few more resources through the library which will help with my research into the microphone techniques and how humans localise sound. A Journal article from the AES which is available online and a copy of Spatial Hearing by Blauert.

The good news is that I have completed my placement module today which mean that next semester I will have only a single module and my dissertation to work on, So I will have plenty of time to do the experiments, research, final recording and analysis.

Saturday 6 November 2010

Research- Microphone Basics

This week, continuing from looking at how humans localise sound, I have been introducing the basics of microphones looking at the moving coil vs capacitor microphones, polar patterns, sensitivity etc and how the right microphone selection is needed for creating a Stereo array.

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Research- How Humans localise sound

Have been researching into the history of stereo a lot more thoroughly since handing in my project proposal. Been reading some very interesting books including Stereo Microphone Techniques & Spatial Audio which will come in handy. I also listened to a BBC Archive Hour program on Blumlein, the man who effectively invented stereo recording in the 1930s and it was fascinating, the man was literally a genius.

Today has involved me writing up my notes into the first section of the research looking at how humans localise sound. Basically it is the combined result of the different levels at each ear and the time delay between sound reaching each ear, obviously a little bit more complicated than that but it gives you the gist of it.

Had a meeting with my supervisor today as well which went well, just making sure that the direction of my research is correct and ensuring that I reference things correctly and often.

Welcome to my dissertation blog...

On the advice of my project tutor to keep a log of the progress I'm making on my project I have decided to keep a blog, this blog. I don't expect this to be of much interest to the rest of the world but you never know- If at the end anyone would like to see my dissertation I'll see about posting it perhaps.

Anyway, my dissertation is titled- 'An investigation into Stereo Microphone Techniques and their Applications' which is pretty self explanatory. During my placement at Modern World Studios different stereo techniques were often used especially for recording drums and strings. One day we setup 9 different stereo techniques at the same time to see how they each recorded the stereo field- this was really interesting but I didn't get enough time to follow it up with any real investigation, hence my dissertation and final year project.