Recording & Capture
The previous parts were about the output side — how systems reproduce space and how the room shapes it. This part turns the chain around: before a sound field can be reproduced, it must be captured. Microphone choice and placement decide how much spatial information survives to playback.
The unifying idea: capture and reproduction are duals. A microphone array encodes a source direction as inter-channel level and time differences — the same two cues the ear uses (see Psychoacoustics) — which the playback techniques in Spatialization Techniques then decode back into a perceived image.
Chapters
- Principles of Spatial Capture — polar patterns, intensity vs time cues, coincidence, recording angle, and mono compatibility.
- Stereo Microphone Techniques — XY, Blumlein, Mid/Side, ORTF and spaced AB.
- Surround Recording — Decca tree, OCT/INA, Hamasaki square, main + spot mics.
- Immersive & 3D Recording — adding height layers and 3D arrays.
- Ambisonic & Scene-Based Recording — tetrahedral and higher-order microphones, A-to-B format.