Micing a violin(ist)

[Jim Andrada]

Thanka for trying to remember. I would think that it would sound less "pickupy" on top.

[Richard Gooderick]

I should probably add that the recording I was making wasn't live to-camera. I used it as part of the soundtrack.
The remarks that have been made about micing off the instrument to give more presence make sense.
However DPA state the Yo Yo Ma uses the 4061 on his Cello so if it works for him .....
Will be very interested to learn how you get on Jim. Not an easy decision to make!

[Jim Andrada]

I was playing around with mic placement today while Yukie was practicing and doodling with a couple of pieces she's thinking of as encores. I'll get a first run through with the violin tomorrow.

A couple of mic placements sounded really BAD - muddy, boomy, etc.

But I think this one sounded reasonably good - opinions/comments welcome.

This was a Schoeps Omni MK 2/Figure 8 M/S about 7 feet from the piano (Bechstein model A grand with lid closed) recorded into SD 302 -> SD 702 @ 96kb 24 bit

http://www.j-e-andrada.com/End.mp3

[Allan Black]

Jim did you run it with the lid open? Didn't sound M/S to me which is not to say it didn't sound good. The hall was vacant I take it.

I can hear the violin sitting further forward in front of that sound. Is that how you intend it?
Cheers.

[Jim Andrada]

Yes, the violin will be a bit in front. And the room was empty except for Yukie and ME (and at 300 pounds plus I think I qualify as an expert sound dampener if nothing else).
I would have tried to open the lid if there hadn't been so much stuff on top of the piano!

I think there are spots where the room resonance shows up a bit, but overall it wasn't as much of an issue as I thought it might be.

[Jim Andrada]

I finally got around to putting the files from the February concert online

All things considered I don't think it came out all that badly.

I wound up not putting a mic on the violinist as he just wasn't comfortable with it. I did however have one inside the piano, but in the end I just went with the main pair.

We played around with the piano lid quite a bit duing rehearsal - even on short stick the piano was a bit too much, so we improvised a support and had the lid open about 4 inches.

There were about 35 - 40 folks in attendance which pretty well filled the available space.

http://public.me.com/jimandrada

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Jim Andrada

I finally got around to putting the files from the February concert online.

MobileMe

Interesting, and thanks for putting that up. That's really quite good. Would that I could do so well.

It sounds a little tight and crunchy to me, but this is what I normally hear with classical music MP3s. Much more the MP3 codec than your source.

For my taste there's too much separation between the two instruments. It almost sounds as if they were recorded separately and mixed together. Doesn't make sense to me, but that's what I'm hearing. Is it real or is it just me? If it's real, is this a choice on your part? Is it due to mic setup (and what setup did you use)? IDK. But I'd like to hear what you have to say on it. I'd love to learn more.

About 2:20 into the first Mozart clip something happened. I can't figure out from the sound what that was. Was that something the violinist did maybe?

[Jim Andrada]

HI Bruce

Thanks for taking a listen

Re "tight and crunchy" - I think it is more the mp3 than the recording as it has sounded much better on a CD when played through good speakers.

Re 2:20 into the Mozart - I'll have another listen. There were a lot of problems early into the piece - so much coughing and sneezing that I thought we were having an outbreak of Swine Flu:<). May be an artifact remaining - thanks for the good ears. Maybe next time we'll start with The Star Spangled Banner or something to let the audience settle in.

Re separation of violin and piano - yes, that was a conscious decision - whether it was musically a good decision or not or was a bit overdone would be a great subject for discussion. Our initial concept was that these pieces represented a dialogue between two instruments (particularly in the 3rd movement of the Beethoven where the piano and violin are intentionally just a hair apart from each other with the same basic pattern - so much so that before the piece the violinist told the audience that it might sound like they were off but to relax it was how Beethoven had intended it!) and also thanks (?) to room acoustics, it was really easy for the violin to get lost with the piano "behind" it. Balancing the piano with the violin - probably took more time than anything else and still not 100% sure we got it right. As the title of this thread suggests, my initial thought was to add a separate violin mic to let me make minor tweaks to balance, but the violinist didn't want to use it.

Re tech stuff, main pair was a Schoeps M/S config with figure 8 and omni (direct sound field version) into a Sound Devices 302 into an SD 702. There was a DPA mic on the underside of the piano lid as well. The DPA mic and the AES output of the 702 were run into a Mackie Onyx Firewire interface and then into Cubase 5 on a MacBook Pro.

Mics were positioned about 8 feet up and a couple of feet beyond the small end of the piano and aimed pretty much at the right end of the keyboard trying to split the difference between violin and piano for separation.

The "hall" was actually our living room which is a rather strange shape (another reason for the off center mic placement - the sound seemed better with this placement independent of balance/separation concerns). Room has 12 foot ceilings and was big enough to accommodate 35 seated folks plus me and a couple of other standees - maybe 40 in total plus two grand pianos and a violinist and pianist and page turner. It was sort of like coach seating on a budget airline but everyone was happy particularly as we served snacks etc after the concert. My wife's overall concept is that chamber music should be in an environment where the audience and the performers are up close and personal and not in a typical hall setup where all you see are white shirts a mile away.

I'll post a photo of the room also as it shows the whole setup as of the evening before the big show..

Thanks again for the comments - it's the reason I post these things so I can also learn from the comments.

[Ron Cooper]

As a chamber musician myself & my wife a violin teacher, I was interested in listening to your efforts. However, when I tried to download & play your files it indicated that it needed a password ?? - Can you please enlighten me.

When I record this type of performance I use a simple cardioid crossed pair on a stand in front of the group, and with just a little experimentation re distance & angle etc., I usually get a pretty good result with little fuss.

Where possible I use a pair of AKG 451's and at a bit less than 90 deg. Stereo effect is noticable but not overly wide with excellent phase.

When I travel overseas, I take a miniature crossed pair I made, consisting of modified electret capsules all mounted inside a little foam windsock. - Not very rugged, but extremely portable and very effective compared with on-camera mics.

RonC.

[Jim Andrada]

Hi Ron

Wow - shouldn't need a password as it's supposed to be a non-protected public folder

As I said, first time to use the Apple site for this kind of thing

I'm an amateur musician myself (tuba in a British type Brass Band) and my wife was a performing classical pianist long ago in Japan (where we met) She ran a small rehearsal space cum hall and used to organize chamber performances with great regularity - we also had a very large apartment in Tokyo where we put on small chamber music performances, and now she's doing it again! I'd really like you to take a listen and comment and if I can't figure out the internet issue I'd be happy to send you a CD.

I do all the recording for our band and use the M/S setup usually placed almost over the conductor's head and so far have been happy with it although an X-Y pair would also work just fine as you point out. My thinking re the M/S setup was that I could have a single figure 8 and then a variety of other single cartridges that I could use depending on the conditions.

[Colin McDonald]

Re the funny noise at 2'20" - at first I thought it was from the violin strings because there are a couple of other funny noises (a kind of not-enough-rosin-on the-bow-noise at about 0'26" -0'28") but I can't see a violinist of that calibre having such basic bowing problems. Might it be caused by movement from the players or audience causing an item of clothing or even a cable to move making a kind of scraping noise? Hard to tell exactly without having seen the performance. There's a different sort of noise at about 0'31" and another scraping noise about 1'50" which covers appears to cover up a note from the violin at the cadence.

I've isolated the ones at 2'20" and 1'50" as QuickTime mov files

[Jim Andrada]

Colin - thanks

I've checked them and you're absolutely right - how I could have missed them in all the times I've listened to this is beyond me. Something about too much familiarity, maybe? Also remembering what it really sounded like!

I think the first one was audience rustle and the second - maybe me being a bit heavy handed in cleaning out a sneeze.I'll crank up Izotope again and have a look. The mics were mounted on an overhead bar and the cables were all routed down the side of the room along the baseboard and then gaffer taped in place so I'm pretty sure it wasn't cable related.

[Jim Andrada]

Hello again Ron

So far I've tried two different computers and four different browsers and none of them asked for a password.

I'm off to check it out on another system

Make that FIVE browsers.

[Jim Andrada]

I think I found the problem with the Mozart - I originally uploaded a different file than I intended. As you can imagine I had lots of takes of the same piece.

[Ron Cooper]

Hi Jim, sorry a bit slow to respond, - have had connection problems. I listened OK to the files that Colin provided & had no trouble listening to them. The noises just sound like audience noises as you said. I don't think they are anything to do with the equipment.

RonC.