What does all this madness cost?
Today, in the current climate of cost cutting, we believe that a return to single point microphone techniques would improve both sound quality and profitability as it is obviously much cheaper to put up one or two stereo pairs than 30 odd single microphones and all the other equipment that comes with them.
Look at some of the engineering costs: microphones (which cost £1000 or more each), large mixers to cope with the multitude of microphones and for the mix down of multi-track tapes (up to £250,000), 2 track digital recorders (up to £5000 each), multi-track digital recorders (£20,000 each), in addition to all the sundries. The sheer amount of equipment is so great, that it needs to travel in a lorry, often with rigger/drivers and location engineers in attendance to set it all up. This costs a large amount of money.