Decca tree



The Decca Tree is a spaced microphone array most commonly used for orchestral recording.

It was originally developed as a sort of stereo A-B recording method adding a center fill. It is the most commonly used spaced-pair technique. The technique was developed in the early 1950s and first commercially used in 1954 by Arthur Haddy, Roy Wallace, Kenneth Wilkinson, Stan Goodall, and their team at Decca Records, to provide a strong stereo image.

Setup
A Decca Tree is sometimes setup using a triangular metal support in the shape of a "T". The "T" support originally measured about 2 meters wide by 1 meter deep, though measurements often vary. More often there are three microphone stands, depending on the size of the venue and amount of spaciousness required.

Microphones
The technique traditionally uses three omnidirectional microphones, traditionally of the Neumann M-50 small-diaphragm pressure transducer tube condenser type, to record in stereo. Variations have been performed using a coincident pair, in X-Y, Mid/Side (M/S), or Blumlein positioning, in place of the center microphone. The Schoeps M 201 and Neumann KM 56 were also used by the Decca team.

Alternatively, Schoeps M222 tube bodies employing MK2H capsules and KA40 spheres may achieve sonic characteristics that are very close to the sound produced by the vintage Neumann M50 tube microphones with the benefit of a lower self-noise floor from the newer tube circuitry design.

Ron Streicher, author of "The Decca Tree — It's not just for stereo any more" has also described methods for employing a Decca Tree for surround recording. He utilizes a SoundField MK-V for the center, a pair of Schoeps MK21 sub-cardioid condensers for the left and right, and a pair of Schoeps MK41 hypercardioid condensers for the left and right surrounds. The MK-V affords a number of possibilities to the Decca Tree, as it is a 4-element transducer that can be decoded into 5.1 and 7.1 sound fields on its own, using the SoundField SP451.