This book presents an extensive and timely survey of more than 30 surround and 20 stereo-microphone techniques. Further, it offers, for the first time, an explanation of why the RCA "Living Stereo" series of legacy recordings from the 1950s and 60s is still appreciated by music lovers worldwide, despite their use of an apparently incorrect recording technique from the perspective of psychoacoustics. Discussing this aspect in detail, the book draws on the author's study of concert hall acoustics and psychoacoustics.
The book also analyzes the "fingerprint" features of a selected number of surround and - more importantly - stereo microphone techniques in depth by measuring their signal cross-correlation over frequency and also using an artificial human head. In addition, the book presents a rating of microphone techniques based on the assessment of various acoustic attributes, and merges the results of several subjective listening tests, including those conducted by other researchers. Building on this knowledge, it provides fresh insights into important microphone system features, from stereo to 3D audio. Moreover, it describes new microphone techniques, such as AB-PC, ORTF-T and BPT, and the recently defined BQIrep (Binaural Quality Index of reproduced music).
Lastly, the book concludes with a short history of microphone techniques and case studies of live and studio recordings.
Edwin Pfanzagl-Cardone is head-of-sound at the acoustics department of the "Salzburg Festival" of classical music in Austria. After completing his degree in Electronics Engineering and Information Technology at TGM, he graduated from the "University of Music and Performing Arts" in Vienna in 1991, and received a Tonmeister (Sound Master) degree. In 2000, he completed his M.A. in Audio Production at the University of Westminster, London. In 2011, he received his PhD in Musical Acoustics and Psychoacoustics from KUG - University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz, Austria. Since the early 1990s, he has been working as a sound engineer for music recording and live sound reinforcement, and for film and TV, mainly in Europe, but also in Japan and the United States. As an arranger and composer, he has released recordings with BMG and SONY in the field of pop music, and has provided content for international library-music labels, and for radio and TV commercials. Author of AES and VDT-convention preprints, Dr. Pfanzagl-Cardone has published more than 60 articles in magazines for sound engineers, such as Pro Sound News Europe, Studio Sound, Media Biz, and Prospect. Since March 2010, he has been teaching Sound Reinforcement Technology at the Faculty of Design, Media and Arts at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg. As a composer he has released four international CDs. In addition to several hundred archival recordings for the Salzburg Festival, his discography as a sound engineer consists of about thirty CDs and three LPs with music labels such as Deutsche Grammophon and Orfeo. He is the inventor of three microphone techniques: the AB-Polycardioid Centerfill (AB-PC), the ORTF-Triple (ORTF-T) and the Blumlein-Pfanzagl-Triple (BPT), and holds a patent in surround microphone technology.
