Joe, What is the result that you want to achieve? If I am understanding you correctly, what likely is happening is that you and the person you interview each is heard on one speaker or the other. The result is if you are close to the speaker through which the person is speaking, the sound is all right, but if you are listening to speakers in a pattern that places you some distance from each speaker, the interview causes the individuals to sound as though they are sitting too far apart. Am I understanding the problem?
If so, the first thing to consider is whether you need stereo for this interview at all. If you do, then what you are already doing with panning, which probably means you are partly combining channels to bring both participants more into the middle of the sound stage, is one way to reduce the problem. You might also be sure that your microphone is set to have the narrowest stereo sound stage which will bring channels together some. You might also consider reducing the distance between you and the person you are interviewing, or even using two microphones, one for each of you. Always be carful not to get microphones so close that you have troubles with popping P's. If a room is acoustically live, the echos of the person speaking can be picked up by the microphone used by the other person, even when it is the other half of a stereo microphone. By each of you being closer to the microphone, you reduce the level that is required and the echo or ambiance of the room plays a smaller role. Finally, some recorders have a "conference" mode which is intended to pick up all voices in a room. While this can be useful when recording a meeting, it will increase the level of background sound and echos in a room. Try using a mode other than "conference". If you have a choice, do not use automatic level controls as they can do the same thing as "conference" mode, depending upon their design. Experiment with the seating arrangement. Instead of sitting across a table from each other, try sitting at right angles such as just around the corner of the table from each other with the microphone between you. If you are able to get the results you want using Sound Forge, and if you don't mind spending the extra time, then just stick with that and don't worry about the above. Recombining channels to narrow the stereo sound stage is certainly a way to deal with this. In an interview, maximum stereo separation is not always a good thing. Best regards, Steve Jacobson On Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:05:39 +0100, joe bollard wrote: >hello joe, thanks for the reply, i record using a plextalk recorder, place >the microphone in a stand on the table, my guest sits on one side of the mike >and i on the other, when playhing it back yes, my speakers are quite wide apart, if i listen through headphones it is not so bad, but the finished piece has to go out on radio, so i want to have it just right, but i'm never happy with the end result, i'm a little finicky about audio, so i'd like to get it up to a high standard, thanks for taking the trouble joe to answer my question, take care, regards from ireland, joe. >To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: >pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org
