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Originally Posted by krs Hi David, thanks for the detailed post.
Very interested in the subject of recording chamber music. Are there any situations that would lead you to try Blumlein before the above-mentioned approaches?
(Some more detailed words on string quartets would be nice to!  )
Cheers Kirk |
Success with Blumlein (and with Jecklin/Schneider disc) depends on the hall. I know one hall where Blumlein sounds lovely, and another where it won't work at all. I have to say I don't try Blumlein very often just because of what's in my mic locker. The only things I've got that do figure eight are AKG 414's and Rode NT-2A's. I find the 414's to be tolerable to good on strings (these are 414EB-P48), and not too wonderful on piano. I bought four NT-2A's for ambience pickup as a Hamasaki square, but I wouldn't really call them first-call instruments. Right now, a Royer SF-24 is on my wish list.
Similarly, applying baffled omnis can be a hit or miss thing. The pickup angle is pretty much fixed, which constrains your distance from the ensemble if you want to fill up the sound stage. But that distance could be good or bad in terms of direct/reverberant balance. If the baffled rig ends up too dry, you can always add a rear-facing pair for ambience, or use a box reverb in post. But occasionally the hall is so live that you have to get very close to the ensemble and weird imaging things start happening, like the violist jumping from right to left. When that occurs, it's time to ditch the baffle for some other technique.
String quartets? It depends a lot on what you've got for talent. A top notch group will be able to react to hearing the playback and balance themselves internally. Less skilled players may require you to take extraordinary measures. But I never go into such a gig assuming that I'll want spots because it tends to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. I try to remember that they are the musicians and I am the engineer. I want them to make the moment-to-moment musical decisions, and I want to place the musicians and the mics so that their instincts turn out to be right. Where you put the players (forward vs. back on stage, cellist on the right or in the middle, etc.) can be as important as where you place the mics.
If you can get the ensemble sounding good in the hall first, then placing mics gets a whole lot easier. But if the hall sound is different in every seat, then you're going to have to work harder at mic placement. One thing to remember is that you don't just move a stereo pair forward and back: you can move it left or right, and you can move it up and down too! Why would you move left or right? One reason is that the violin sound is very directional and if it's too sizzly, you need to get out of the line of fire. Also, the violist is usually at a disadvantage in terms of projection, but sometimes he/she can reaim the instrument to face outward a bit more during solo lines, and an off-center placement can catch that sound better.
What usually happens when you raise or lower the array is that the cello sound changes a lot, and the violin sound changes too. If you're lucky, you can find a stand height where both sound good at the same time. If you have to fix something in post, I usually find it easier to EQ the violin sound than the cello sound. But I much prefer to get both right in the hall. That could mean changing to a different pair of mics than you thought you might use, changing polar patterns, angles, and capsule spacing so you can put the array somewhere else, etc. Ideally, you can get access to the hall for a quartet rehearsal on the previous day. That lets you try lots of stuff without burning precious session time.
Once you get everything right, it's really important that you use spiking tape to mark the position of each chair leg and the music stand positions too. Otherwise, you'll have a different sound after the first rest break.
David L. Rick
Seventh String Recording