When recording immersive performances, height microphones are placed strategically to capture the image realistically. Of commercial immersive recording arrays capturing large ensembles, most arrays have height microphones placed non-coincident from the horizontal layer. For solo recordings of large sound sources like the piano or drumset, the spatial image may be treated similar to that of capturing a large ensemble -- as a wall of sound. To allow for more control in the post-processing stage, height microphones that can be steered during mixing are proposed and evaluated as a technique for immersive recordings of large sound sources. Through subjective listening tests, three differently-steered height microphone layers were compared to one another as well as a reference non-coincident height microphone layer on perceived realism, source width, source size, height, and tone color of a solo piano and solo drumset. The findings of this investigation conclude that differently-steered height microphones did not significantly impact the perceived realism of these two instruments. Additionally, different directions were preferred for each instrument.
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