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Coincident miking for Chris

Posted by Botanico92007 on July 6, 2012 at 15:15:49:
The early stereo EMI recordings are probably the best way to hear coincident miking in its purest form. In the notes for a First Hand Records reissue of early EMI stereo recording, Christopher Parker recording engineer from 1951-1987 writes the following:

"EMI favoured two cosine mics crossed at 90 degrees as the best way of reproducing accurately the apparent direction of a sound source when listening on two loudspeakers, thus enhancing the illusion of reality, the aim of recording, I suppose. But the M49 in cardioid tends to be more omni-directional at low frequencies than at high frequencies, so when the two are combined out-of-phase, to create the figure-of-eight, some bass is lost. Early in 1956, or perhaps before, equalizers were introduced to remedy this, and also to reduce a slight peak at two to three kHz. With these equalizers, and the "spreader" (to adjust the width of the image) we had several useful options. This may account for some of the variation in sound quality and in the character of the stereo image in the recordings of this time."

The best explanation of the various microphone techniques is by Robert E. Greene, linked below.

EMI issued many of these early recordings on 2-track Stereosonic tapes from 1955 to c. 1961. Chris, if you would like a list of these titles I can email it to you. I have heard many of them. Two of the most famous are Beecham's recording of Scheherazade and Peer Gynt. Other conductors include Cantelli, Klemperer, Karajan, Malko, Matacic, Mackerras, and other. A lot of the recordings have been issued on CD. The list will help to pick them out.

I can't guarantee the purity of all the miking, as there were other engineers involved, but you will get a good sense of what coincident miking sounds like from listening and from Parker's description. Of course, EMI changed the miking to include outriggers and spot miking, so later recordings reflect this.