If anything here is confusing, inspiring or absolutely incorrect your comments would be much appreciated.  This is a work in progress and your help improving the information is requested.  Thanks!

< Panned Mono

When two (and sometimes more) mics are used in an Array to record sources in a real acoustic space, there is an opportunity to present audio that sounds more tangible, more Realistic, than Panned Mono.  Rather than placing sounds with Pan controls, or creating spaciousness by adding treatments, everything gets recorded at once: direct sounds are somewhat different in each mic and so are Early Reflections and Reverb.  And in some ways, it is the simplest way to record.  The musicians perform, the space reflects, an audience may even respond, and everything gets picked up in stereo by mics in that specific venue.

In other ways, this is a very complex way to record.  First of all, two mics do not sound exactly like ears on a head, even if they are on your head.  So at some level this is an approximation of reality, not a pure recording of reality.  It will sound different on speakers than on headphones.  If you only use a stereo array, you lose the ability to control each source as a separate track because everything is sounding in the same place at the same time.  The ratios of direct sound to Early Reflections to Reverb are determined more by the acoustics of the space and mic placement than any manipulation after the recording is complete.  This kind of recording forces you to get it as good and as real as you can when you record it, then accept it.

A pair of mics recording everything at once in a real space – this is the extreme opposite of Panned Mono.  And just because your setup is intended to record True Stereo, doesn’t mean it will automatically sound Realistic.  But we consider this style of setup True Stereo -- the use of a Stereo Mic Array for the purpose of trying to approximate a Realistic presentation -- even if it does not well achieve the goal.

We shall see (much later) that Panned Mono gets used in conjunction with Mic Arrays for Realistic presentations.  Likewise, True Stereo techniques get added to mixes that are ultimately Fantasy presentations.  So while these techniques are each associated with contrasting goals, they are useful if applied for the other goal.  And everything in between.

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