Recording Multichannel Audio With a Single Mic

Soundfield is offering the convenience of recording surround sound and stereo audio in the field with a single microphone. The company’s new digital DSF-2 Broadcast Microphone System is designed to provide both surround and stereo capture, even at large outside arenas.
In addition to being an all-digital design, Soundfield said that the DSF-2’s advantage over other methods is that the multichannel audio it generates from a “single point” source is completely phase coherent. This enables the sound engineer to collapse the surround to stereo or mono for TV and radio feeds without loss of information, frequency imbalance or any of the other phase problems associated with spaced microphones or multi capsule “dummy head” arrangements.

The companion 1 RU controller is equipped with digital 750 ohm AES 3-id outputs on BNC connectors that are capable of transmitting a signal more than 1,000 feet over coaxial cable.

The DSF-2 outputs stereo left/right (digital and analog), stereo M/S (digital only) and four channels of SoundField B-Format (called W, X, Y and Z; digital only), which is the surround sound information. A single lightweight cable is used to connect the microphone to the DSF-2 controller, which as well as carrying the individual capsule signals also supplies power to the microphone.

The DSF-2 mic is designed to function as either a variable pattern single (mono) microphone; a variable pattern, variable width, coincident stereo microphone array; or it can generate full surround from the four B-Format outputs which will then be decoded into 5.1 by the SP451 Surround Processor or Surround Zone software.

For more information, visit www.soundfield.com.