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Post by gustavoeiriz on May 4, 2017 15:48:49 GMT
Hi everyone, this is a post related to this video by Ethan Winer (Recorded Realism) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpTTDe0Aho0&lc=z12mwx2idufgh3w4v04cirbggzfnihaxep40k.1493910103954852The matter is about distant or close miking, concerning string sections, but it is also for acoustic groups recording. Since today there is a fashion of amplifying groups too loud (and also recording due to loudness war), is almost impossible to place the microphone a little bit distant to instruments (for feedback matters) to let the harmonic content of many players playing together blend and achieve a group sound (for example a string section sound).. instead of it you hear 5 or 6 channels of violin closed miking mixing in the console (you can hear differents tunings and maybe some phasing problem... etc). I play the music of my country Argentina, which is tango music, and is generally played in small chamber orchestras (6 violines, 4 bandoneons, Piano, 1 cello, 2 violas, 1 double bass) for example: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDE2DMVURycBut the thread is also useful for everyones who plays classical music, or record orchestras or small chamber groups. Or even rock groups with string sections sometimes like in ballads in the old fashioned ways. I would love to know opinions about how to get a musical miking. Regards Gustavo.
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Post by arnyk on May 4, 2017 19:55:47 GMT
Hi everyone, this is a post related to this video by Ethan Winer (Recorded Realism) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpTTDe0Aho0&lc=z12mwx2idufgh3w4v04cirbggzfnihaxep40k.1493910103954852The matter is about distant or close miking, concerning string sections, but it is also for acoustic groups recording. Since today there is a fashion of amplifying groups too loud (and also recording due to loudness war), is almost impossible to place the microphone a little bit distant to instruments (for feedback matters) to let the harmonic content of many players playing together blend and achieve a group sound (for example a string section sound).. instead of it you hear 5 or 6 channels of violin closed miking mixing in the console (you can hear differents tunings and maybe some phasing problem... etc). I play the music of my country Argentina, which is tango music, and is generally played in small chamber orchestras (6 violines, 4 bandoneons, Piano, 1 cello, 2 violas, 1 double bass) for example: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDE2DMVURycBut the thread is also useful for everyones who plays classical music, or record orchestras or small chamber groups. Or even rock groups with string sections sometimes like in ballads in the old fashioned ways. I would love to know opinions about how to get a musical miking. Regards Gustavo. I spent about 12 years doing live sound and recording a very small orchestra that had a very small string section. To make things extra fun, they played just inside the active sound field of the sound reinforcment system. There's no problem making close-miced acoustic instruments blend provided you use a 90 degree coincident crossed directional (cardiod or hypercardiod) mic pair to record the whole ensemble from the front center of the group, and then mix and layer in the individual close mic feeds on top of that, panned to resemble their natural locations. You can vary the level balance between the coincident pair and the close-miced feeds to bring in as much room sound as you desire, as there will probably be plenty of room sound in outputs of the coincident pair. I also used cardiod or hypercardiod mics for the individual mics, typically on mini-boom stands or regular stands with flexible gooseneck extensions on them, those goosenecks being the 3' versions sometimes used with podium mics.
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Post by Ethan Winer on May 12, 2017 16:00:02 GMT
Arny has done a lot more orchestra mic'ing than me, but I've gotten the best results with mics that are closer rather than farther away. It's useful to have additional microphones farther away in separate tracks that you can blend in as needed, though a good reverb plug-in can do a fine job too.
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Post by arnyk on May 13, 2017 12:49:49 GMT
Arny has done a lot more orchestra mic'ing than me, but I've gotten the best results with mics that are closer rather than farther away. It's useful to have additional microphones farther away in separate tracks that you can blend in as needed, though a good reverb plug-in can do a fine job too. Given your preferences related to room acoustics Ethan, I can see where the characteristic sound of close-micing would be something that you would prefer. To me it makes the sound of voices in particular both hot and dead. Musical instrument sounds seem to handle it better. As I mentioned my professional recording experience is almost all live recording. When possible I mic the performance twice, once with one or just a few coincident pairs, and again with close-up mics. In mix down I mix and match the close and far mics to get a sound that is similar to the live performance, which I mixed for live sound from the same mics, but a vastly different mix. The multitrack master(on the order of 24 tracks)allows me to do the second mix for distribution at my leisure. One relatively cheap easy way to get so many tracks is a collection M-Audio Delta 1010LTs. There's a well-known studio in the area variously known as Superdisc, The Disc, and The Recording Institute of Detroit that I visit occasionally. Their standard recording work flow is close mic'd recording, often in tiny studios like drum or vocal booths, with no mics at all off of direct boxes, and then they add carefully tuned digital reverb from a classic Lexicon (if memory serves) reverb synth. They have a big legacy console that they use as a housing for its mic preamps and actually do all their recording and mixing with Pro Tools. I suspect that a lot of the old studios that are still in business have quietly switched over to doing this. What some might find interesting is that they once had an extensive mic cabinet with all the old classics that cost a lot new and have become almost priceless, but they themselves have pretty well switched over to using modern mid-priced versions with similar pickup patterns in the $100-250 price range.
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Post by Ethan Winer on May 14, 2017 15:39:30 GMT
When I said "closer rather than farther" I was thinking more of the "spot mics" we often see in professional orchestra recordings, as opposed to the typical array above the conductor. Though even the array is relatively close if the venue is large. I agree about modern affordable mics. I'm always amazed that microphone worship still continues unabated.
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Post by arnyk on May 15, 2017 10:37:13 GMT
When I said "closer rather than farther" I was thinking more of the "spot mics" we often see in professional orchestra recordings, as opposed to the typical array above the conductor. Though even the array is relatively close if the venue is large. I agree about modern affordable mics. I'm always amazed that microphone worship still continues unabated. Which is more surprising? DAC worship, amp worship, or Mic worship. ;-)
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Post by Ethan Winer on May 16, 2017 16:04:31 GMT
Microphone worship kills me. The current issue of Sound On Sound magazine has reviews of several VERY expensive mics. What's wrong with these people? By "people" I mean the people who buy them. I can understand the thinking of the people who sell expensive stuff! But you're right - all the worship is silly.
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