@Air said:

Hi,

Yeah Paolo got it right! The mics are all time aligned if the Delay is turned off or set to 0. It is a runtime offset like you would have it in a real recording. You can play around with it. 

As also said before the presets are just starting points. If you wanna have a time aligned sound turn them off. If want to move the tree or the room mics away from your close mics or mids use the delay (3ms = 1 meter). If you want the room playing a 16th note or what ever after your close mics, go for it.  

Hope that helps

Best

Bernd

  

Many thanks, Bernd, for clarifying.

I have two further questions:

• In which situation would one delay the main mics? You gave an example, but I never heard of this approach. I didn't know that this is a common thing in recording.
• All of the strings presets have the room mix or the decca tree panned by about 40 to the left or right. Never heard of panning the tree... What's the point here? Because of lacking outriggers? Because of the mics you chose for the tree? I mean if I want a "real" recording situation I don't have different pannings, I have one tree setup for the entire orchestra (unless they are recorded separately like the samples).

Hi,

The main mics would be delayed by itself in a real recording as the distance to the players is larger then from the close or mid mics. So the signal is reaching the room mics later.

Which preset and library are you talking about than I can have a look. In the power the pan itself should be left - right but maybe the balance was a little changed so you could hear more from the violins.

Best

Bernd

@Another User said:

Which preset and library are you talking about than I can have a look. In the power the pan itself should be left - right but maybe the balance was a little changed so you could hear more from the violins.

For example: Elite Strings. Every preset has the balance changed. So you answered the question already. Was just wondering why. So, in a "normal" recording situation the balance should be in the center.

HI,

For time alignment it can be mad in both directions depending of what is important. If you want  be really precise in the sound it is better to have close and mids before the rooms. 

For samples everything is time aligned to zero so you do not have any delay when playing with the keyboard. So to go back to real recordings you have to move the tree back again.

If you like to move the close and mids back, try it.

Best

Bernd 

@Air said:

For samples everything is time aligned to zero so you do not have any delay when playing with the keyboard. So to go back to real recordings you have to move the tree back again.

I'm not really fond of that keyboard delay thing. At least this explains why the sampled legato is really short (even compared to the silent stage). Wouldn't it be "better" if there was some delay instead of zero? In my opinion, there has to be some tiny bit while playing with the keyboard. The silent stage samples have some delay. But that's another topic. 😄 But to be honest: That's false advertising. If VSL claims to be time-aligned, than it should be "correct" and not zero. This is mentioned nowhere.

Sorry for asking again: I'm not quite sure if I understood correctly. Time-alignment with Synchron means: Everything is at zero and NOT to the "correct" position?

If everything is at zero and the tree is put back again to match reality, why is the mid and the main center microphone not delayed? 

My thinking with the new information would be:
– Close: 0ms
– Mid: e.g. 3ms ?
– Tree Center: 21ms ?
– Tree Stereo: More than 21ms?
– Heighs and Surrounds: Even more ?

In my opinion it would be nice if there was a mixer preset which would really resemble reality. Maybe it's too much asked, but, as I said earlier, there is a huge difference in sound with the delays we now have in the presets. I spent a lot of time comparing to other libraries. Why not make a mixer preset with the "correct" delays? I think this would also be a huge thing for other users (who also complain about the sound). And as I also said before: this reduces the phasing issue with the vibrato crossfade in the strings.

@Pixelpoet1985 said:

That's false advertising. If VSL claims to be time-aligned, than it should be "correct" and not zero. This is mentioned nowhere.

In my humble opinion, it is always a good idea to learn about something before accusing someone of giving false information.

Time-aligned means that all the channels start to play in sync. This wouldn't be possible without time-alignment, for the hard reality that sound takes more time to reach distant positions. Having to do it live, one would do this by adding delay to the closer microphones, so that they are all heard at the same time. In recording, you print this delay in the recorded track.

If you want the same situation as in the original recording, just add delay to the mics, increasing it in order of distance. This is hardly what is intended to be ideal in actual use, for the bare reason that we humans hear from a single position. Our brain can add focus on 'spots', and it is on this illusion that a sound engineer plays when mixing mics, delays, reverbs.

Paolo

@Air said:

If you like to move the close and mids back, try it.

Exploring the mixer is a lot of fun! What I discovered, by delaying the closer mics, is that the attack gets smoothed out in a way that can't be done with the Attack MIDI parameter. Mixing can be a powerful sound design tool!

Paolo

Pixelpoet1985: You are mixing up a few things. The legato timing has nothing to do with time alignment or microphone alignment.

Making presets with the correct delays of the recordings is an option we can think about but that would not be time alignment. Time alignment means "all micrphones start at the same time". This happen when you turn off the delays or set them to 0 as I mentioned before. So please this no false advertising!

The more different delays you have set to the mics the more phasing you will get. That is way I made presets in which the close and mid mics are aligned to get a compact close sound. After around 15 to 20 ms the ear can hear 2 signals which are quite the same as delay and not so much of phasing. Thats why it is set to 21ms and it is very close to the real distant of the recordings.

Is the vibrato phasing also happening when you have opened just 1 mic?

Best

Bernd

BERND,

As the original poster. I wanted to thank you for all the info. Through this thread I've really started to get a firm grasp on how to use the delay function, and already implemented some major improvements in my mix template. 

An important follow up question that I do have is regarding the Decca Tree channels/microphones. Were these channels time aligned individually or as a pair? In other words, do I need to delay/offset the Main-LR and Main-C differently to restore the equilateral triangle required for the Decca Tree? I'd think that the spatial relationship between L/C/R channels is important to maintain. 

I'm planning on creating my own presets (to the best of my ability) that match something close to the original recording configuration, it doesn't seem like it would be difficult to do since I understand the general layout of the Synchron Hall. For those that are interested: perhaps we could work together to dial this in. 

Regards,
Jason Todd Shannon 

Hi Jason,

You are welcome! 

The LCR is a recorded. So L-R are around 3 ms later than the C depending on where the section was placed in the room!

Best

Bernd

First: I never accused someone. If it sounded harsh, I'm sorry. It's very easy with written words to interpret something. It was not my intention!

@Another User said:

If you want the same situation as in the original recording, just add delay to the mics, increasing it in order of distance. This is hardly what is intended to be ideal in actual use, for the bare reason that we humans hear from a single position. Our brain can add focus on 'spots', and it is on this illusion that a sound engineer plays when mixing mics, delays, reverbs.

Yes, but the problem is: I don't know the numbers. 21m or 42ms seems very vague. Every instrument and each mic would need a number on its own, isn't it?

@Another User said:

Is the vibrato phasing also happening when you have opened just 1 mic?

The curious thing is that it happens after some time of playing and not instantly – no matter which preset (senza, regular, molto). I don't know at the moment, but if I recall correctly it also happens with just the room mix. I haven't tested all possible scenarios (I only have the standard microphones), but figured out that some delay eliminates the phasing.

@Another User said:

I don't know the numbers. 21m or 42ms seems very vague.

On the contrary, that's very precise! Just convert the time to distance, and you get how much the delay moves the instrument to the back of the stage (or the mics toward the listener). As an added information, Bernd wrote above that 21ms (=7m) is also a safe amount, since it doesn't risk to become phasing.

Paolo

@PaoloT said:

On the contrary, that's very precise! Just convert the time to distance, and you get how much the delay moves the instrument to the back of the stage (or the mics toward the listener). As an added information, Bernd wrote above that 21ms (=7m) is also a safe amount, since it doesn't risk to become phasing.

Yes, but using this value for everything would mean that each instrument was recorded at the same position / distance. 7m for the strings? Come on. 

I mean if the original delay of the main mic was e.g. 7ms for the strings and it was negatively delayed by 7ms to match the close mics of the strings. Why do you add 21ms which is way more delay? I don't understand that. This is what I mean with "vague".

I'm asking for the exact numbers and only VSL can give us this information. I don't know at what position the close and mid microphones (and all the other relations) are. Maybe it would have been better if there was no delay built in and all the different delays were made in the Synchron player.

Just posting this follow-up because I thought it might help others...

There are stage plots of the Synchron recording session published on the website, which show where the sections and microphones are placed. Knowing that the Synchron stage is 30m wide and 17-19m deep, it is pretty easy to derive the original distances and spacing between the microphones and the sections. 

It looks to me that the 21ms delay in the string presets (as an example) are right on, as Bernd has already suggested, because the distance between the MAIN L/R and the string sections are between 5-7 meters (so a good delay variable to use as a starting point would be 15-21 milliseconds). 

Additionally, I did some tests in my DAW, and confirmed everything that was suggested in this thread. The microphones are clearly time aligned, meaning that when you disable the delay, or use 0 as a variable, the transient attack of the samples are all aligned to the same starting point. The one minor exception to this is that the relation between the MAIN L/R and the CENTER of the Decca tree were time aligned as a group, for the purposes of maintaining the spatial relationship of L/C/R. 

QUOTE: "And I think it is a very wrong decision by VSL to avoid delay while playing on the keyboard."

I was of a similar mind until I understood what was going on. Now I have to respectfully disagree with this. Time alignment is the right approach because I want minimal latency as a starting point, and it is easy enough to add the delays back in to achieve whatever room layout you'd prefer, including a preset that approximates the original recording layout/timing. I wouldn't want to be in the opposite situation where I was trying to compensate for baked in delays and I was trying to remove them. 

And lastly, a note on phasing, because this is something that I've struggled with in the past. To avoid phasing, you have to play with the channel delays and the phase button in the mixer just like you would in a real recording session. These are real audio signals of real microphones and phasing is an avoidable physics problem. This is an absolute requirement unless you are only using a single microphone. Additionally, you have to be careful of how you are routing signals in your DAW. For example, if you are routing a dry signal then using a send for a reverb with a less than 100% wet mix, this can cause phase issues. Make sure to use 100% wet reverbs on FX sends and be careful of any FX that might be splitting and recombining signals. Finally, make sure your MIDI setup isn't double triggering notes. I use a ROLI Seaboard and it double triggers MIDI if it isn't configured for the VSL Synchron player correctly. These things can also cause phase issues! 

 Regards,
Jason Todd Shannon

@Another User said:

And lastly, a note on phasing, because this is something that I've struggled with in the past. To avoid phasing, you have to play with the channel delays and the phase button in the mixer just like you would in a real recording session. These are real audio signals of real microphones and phasing is an avoidable physics problem. This is an absolute requirement unless you are only using a single microphone. Additionally, you have to be careful of how you are routing signals in your DAW. For example, if you are routing a dry signal then using a send for a reverb with a 50/50 wet/dry mix, this can cause phase issues. Make sure to use 100% wet reverbs on FX sends and be careful of any FX that might be splitting and recombining signals. Finally, make sure your MIDI setup isn't double triggering notes. I use a ROLI Seaboard and it double triggers MIDI if it isn't configured for the VSL Synchron player correctly. These things can also cause phase issues! 

Thanks for the input! Very appreciated! But I don't use any processing. The phasing just happens. And it's also not my job figuring this out. In no other library I have there is such a severe phasing issue. I think it's because of the delays.

Hello all
Here are my 2 cents on the subject of microphone signal delay:

My job is "Recording Live Concerts". For this I usually base my recordings on a main mic (ORTF, Decca, EBS etc.). When the formations get bigger, I have to use mic spots especially to bring the rear instruments into the mix a bit to give them back some presence (but also soloists). If you didn't do that, then all the percussion instruments, for example, would sound rather washed out and reflections from walls, ceilings, etc. would then be so dominant, which wouldn't do the overall sound any good at all. In order for the "presence-return" to work well, it is important that the distance "main microphones - spot microphones" is balanced in time (0ms). The trick is to balance the volume of the spot microphones (close) in such a way that the distant instruments sound more present, but are still perceived at their natural distance - in other words, they don't really move closer.

• Example 1 of such a recording with spot microphones.
• Example 2 (really big orchestra also with organ).

To cut a long story short: In a good and transparent recording, the times between the microphones are more likely to be balanced (in time) than not. If there are time differences between the microphones, the main danger of acoustic cancellations is great.
What am I trying to say? Experimentation is always good. If it sounds better, unconventional things are great of course. But with all experimentation, you should always try a variation where all delays are set to 0ms. Then you have the situation that all signals generate the least amount of such (mentioned above) cancellations. It simulates the situation as if all microphones were 0m away from each other in time. So adding delay times by you as the user means restoring the "real recording world", but at the same time " re-worsening" the situation, which the recording engineer tried to correct by all means.

A lot of success

Beat

@Beat Kaufmann said:

Here are my 2 cents on the subject of microphone signal delay:

Beat, thank you very much for being, as usual, clear and informative!

Paolo

Beat, thanks for your input, as I don't have any recording experience. Very appreciated!

Actually, I don't know if I'm still ok with what I wrote. :) I would prefer a time-aligned version, I think, but not the Synchron one. I think there is a sonic difference between an alignment where the main microphones were set to 0 ms instead of delaying the close ones to the main mics. I find the sound very "instant" and "flat" (in lack of a better term), and I can hear this especially in the legatos. There is something missing which I can't fully name and describe. 

With my posts I tried to give ideas to think about. I don't know if this is the solution at all, but I (and many other users) simply don't get warm to the sound. I mean, this has to tell us something? Why does the Synchron libraries does sound so different to other libraries?

Especially the legatos. It is because of the microphones being used or the time-alignment? I don't think that these are the famous VSL legatos. Unfortunately VSL doesn't talk much about these things. Do we still have dedicated legato landing notes or just crossfades like in the older leg-sus patches? For me it sounds more like the latter one, and this would really be a pity. I don't want an overly expressive legato, I wan't the same legato we have in the VI libraries. But again: I didn't want to bring the legato topic back, but for me this is still a huge turn-off from the Synchron series (everything else is top-notch as always with VSL).

@Pixelpoet1985 said:

Beat, thanks for your input, as I don't have any recording experience. Very appreciated!

Actually, I don't know if I'm still ok with what I wrote. 😊 I would prefer a time-aligned version, I think, but not the Synchron one. I think there is a sonic difference between an alignment where the main microphones were set to 0 ms instead of delaying the close ones to the main mics. I find the sound very "instant" and "flat" (in lack of a better term), and I can hear this especially in the legatos. There is something missing which I can't fully name and describe...

Hello Pixelpoet1985
I'm going to assume that VSL solved the timing synchronization of all microphones well, so we users don't have to take on the task of doing it ourselves between microphones. By the way, I use the tool "https://www.soundradix.com/products/auto-align/" for this matter in my recordings

But as I read from your post, you somehow don't quite like the sound of the sync libraries. Although you attach this circumstance to the Legatos, I sense from your text that this applies more or less generally. At the same time, it seems that this was not yet the case with the VI libraries...

The thing with the sound went me also so. Just because I myself record orchestras, I hoped that the synchron recordings now correspond to how I record strings, for example: A super natural sound, now new with spatial synchron stage component - and everything as we are used to from VSL: in the best quality.
So I ordered in advance the Synchrons Strings ... and was mighty disappointed. I put them aside and used them no more. I didn't like all the presets. Especially the presets that make the orchestra sound distant were the most unnatural sounding to me.
I had the same bad feeling with the synchronized libraries, some of which I bought but never used...
------------------------------
Then one day came the message from VSL - that we can now use the libraries in "default mode". So unprocessed - the sound shuld be as the instruments were recorded. That was the turning point for me. Suddenly I had the sound available that I actually wanted... The libraries suddenly sounded fresh, natural, I could have the second violins play on the right, layering string libraries resulted in more fresh combinations, etc. free from any setting by VSL. Since then, I am an enthusiastic "unprocessed user" who is thrilled with the new synchronous line. Meanwhile I also do all the mixing (positions on stage of the instruments) in the individual Synchron players and put only one Reverb with a little Tail in the output channel. And because sound is a matter of taste - I found my personal sound with the presets "unprocessed". Listen to some "unprocessed" demos... or also here with the Prime Edition.

In short: Maybe you will find your solution also by using the "unprocessed version" or also called "default". I think with different milliseconds between the microphones you gain little. With all my demos, I just make music. I'm never bothered by legatos that don't sound exactly the same as in reality, because everything together sounds quite real (e.g. a little night music) and fresh... In any case, an independent person would not point out the legatos as a serious problem.

In this sense, perhaps a new approach to also regain more joy in the great VSL samples.
Beat