Q&A with Morten Lindberg – what’s important when recording immersive?

(Watch Episode 03 of DPA Journeys with Morten Lindberg for even deeper insight into creating immersive experiences.)

What is your opinion on channel-based vs. object-based immersive recording?

Presently, there is a lot of discussion going on in immersive audio, specifically whether to work channel based with bed + objects or purely object. When your target is home entertainment in a consumer market, then bed and objects render the same sonic experience. However, when rendering to a theatrical environment then objects and beds behave very differently due to how a cinema is calibrated and audio processed.

Whether you work with objects or beds or a mixture of the two, it's more a method of workflow. It is more of a difference in approach when going into the recording session – whether you have the holistic, three-dimensional space where the music is happening, or you do a layered recording in studio where all the sound sources are point sources, and then the listening space is created by panning.

That's immersive audio.

I've created a three-dimensional microphone array, the 2L-cube, which is pretty much a capture for the channel-based playback environment. It's a 7.1.4 microphone array. The same configuration as you see in a playback system, just shrunk down in dimensions. This represents the listener of the recording session, with all the microphones in the array being omnis. Everything that happens in the room is present in every microphone, but still providing cues of time, sound pressure and spectral development through all axes.

What creates a sense of envelopment is the development of that correlated sound through the placement of the microphones in the array. This also translates the playback environment into a large sweet spot. I still have a sweet point where everything is ideal when it comes to the listening environment, but the area you can move around within the speaker layout is huge.

How important is the room that you’re recording in?

It is extremely important. For my recording sessions, there isn't one room that is perfect. There is a wide range of different acoustics that I choose between depending on what kind of music is being created. Of course, personally, I have great love for huge spaces like The Nidaros Cathedral – this old, medieval church that is 110 m long and 40 m to the ceiling.

Surprisingly enough, this is where I can make the most intimate recordings, because there is such a large distance to the close reflecting surfaces. I can create an intimate zone in this type of room, which is very textured, then it just continues out into the big wide space.

What are some of the biggest challenges in capturing sound in these types of environments?

Our surroundings in the Scandinavian countries are pretty quiet. We are used to quiet background noise. I try to implement that care in our recordings, so I try to find venues that are silent. But many of these old cathedrals have been updated with modern equipment like lighting systems, CPUs, computers and such. So, the first thing I do in these venues is to shut down the power via the circuit breaker. Then I just take back what I need for the equipment. I even bring my own lighting system, which is totally quiet.

What do you gain from using omnis for the recording? 

On the microphone side I use almost exclusively true omnidirectional microphones. They have a special personality, and I do believe that it has to do with the linearity in the ultra-low frequencies.

The omnis manage to capture the full body in the same way as you stand just in front of an instrument, and you not only hear an instrument in a room, but you also actually feel the instrument. The feeling part of the sound – an omni can capture that. That's very, very difficult to get with a cardioid.

But I still want some kind of directionality in my microphone toolbox.

I use slightly larger diaphragm microphones. The 4041s have quite an on-axis presence, which makes it possible for me to use the directionality to tailor the timbre of the sound. So, if I want a very, very direct textured sound from the strings, I point the 4041s directly towards them.

If I want a lusher string sound, I raise the 4041s and go a little outward so they will be softer. In many ways, the directionality of the on-axis presence is my EQ when I do the capture.

Why is low distortion so critical to your setup?

In my type of recordings, I need to capture exactly what is going on. I might use the placement of the microphones, the positioning of the on-axis response to emphasize something – a quality I hear or something I want to avoid. But basically, I want to have as clean a capture as possible, because distortion per se in this context would be a distraction from the experience of an acoustic instrument.

Why do you stick with the same type of microphone instead of experimenting with many?

There have been a lot of questions over the years. Will you try these microphones? Why don’t you try ribbons? So many questions. At first I felt that I was not very adventurous when I said no. But I had this strong opinion that it is more important for me to really, really know and understand the microphones I chose to use. To really know them so well that, if I hear something that I want to change a bit, then I know that I can tilt them five degrees this way, and I will get what I want. That intimacy with my microphones, as the most important tools in my trade, is more important to me than having a large arsenal.

How about the downmix for other formats? What are your tools?

When delivering other formats like stereo, the L/R is basically it. I might wish to add a little bit of the L/R surround channels – with a high-pass filter on, to get a bit of the texture from the rears.

What advice do you give to up-and-coming sound engineers when they are ready to take their first job in the industry?

Read the rulebook, learn it and leave it behind. Use your ears.