Decca tree w/ M50s

[ajfarber]

Hi Gang! I'm doing an orchestral date at Legacy in NYC tomorrow. My engineer, Lawrence Manchester, owns 3 Neuman M50s that he will use in the tree. I think they are the only M50s in NYC at this time. I'm sure there are piles of them in LA, but the studio world in NY is on the verge of collapse thanks to the outsourcing of film and record dates to Prague and London.

Anyway, I worked with Manchester on 2 other films and he's always brought his M50s. While I think they make the orchestra sound great, I have had good results with Schoepps (w/omni capsules) and other more modern mics.

Have any of you slutz worked with vintage tube M50s?

[mpdonahue]

Originally Posted by ajfarber

Hi Gang! I'm doing an orchestral date at Legacy in NYC tomorrow. My engineer, Lawrence Manchester, owns 3 Neuman M50s that he will use in the tree. I think they are the only M50s in NYC at this time. I'm sure there are piles of them in LA, but the studio world in NY is on the verge of collapse thanks to the outsourcing of film and record dates to Prague and London.

Anyway, I worked with Manchester on 2 other films and he's always brought his M50s. While I think they make the orchestra sound great, I have had good results with Schoepps (w/omni capsules) and other more modern mics.

Have any of you slutz worked with vintage tube M50s?

Andy,
M50's have a very distinctive sound and are really wonderful for orchestra. However, I have shied away in recent years not for sonic reasons, but for reliability issues. There is nothing worse than getting a spitty M50 in the middle of your orchestra session. At union scale a 30 piece orchestra costs north of $10k for a session, so wasting time chasing down problems is very expensive indeed.
I just finished a record at the Manhattan Center with 3 sessions and a 20-30 piece orchestra. While I put out our M50's, I also printed a secondary set of mains made up of MKH800's just for safety. No problems but you can't be too safe. Given that track count is really not an issue anymore, a second set of mains is cheap insurance.
Also, remember to let the M50's warm up for at least an hour and you should always have a spare on hand.
As always, YMMV.
All the best,
-mark

[ajfarber]

I just got back from Legacy. The m50s were glorious! Lawrence Manchester, our engineer, also added a pair of Coles 3048s to the tree in an x/y set. The combination of the 3 m50s and the ribbons was unreal. That's not acurate, it WAS real. It sounded like you were in the room! I tried to take some photos but my camera battery died, sorry.

[mljung]

Originally Posted by ajfarber

I just got back from Legacy. The m50s were glorious! Lawrence Manchester, our engineer, also added a pair of Coles 3048s to the tree in an x/y set. The combination of the 3 m50s and the ribbons was unreal. That's not acurate, it WAS real. It sounded like you were in the room! I tried to take some photos but my camera battery died, sorry.

Coles in X/Y would be a Blumlein array - or was there space between them?

Anyhow would be interesting if a little piece of it could be uploaded!

[ajfarber]

Originally Posted by mljung

Coles in X/Y would be a Blumlein array - or was there space between them?

Anyhow would be interesting if a little piece of it could be uploaded!

There was space, that's why I wanted photos. Not Blumlein, but sort of ORTIF I guess.

I will post an mp3 in a week or so after the mix. It will be a 5.1 mix, but I'll try to boil it down to just stereo.

I don't have the files, the engineer does. I was the orchestrator/conductor on this one, so I'll be a bit out of the loop during the mixing stage.

[fifthcircle]

Sounds like a Faulkner Pair. Two figure 8 mics spaced on a stereo bar. Technically, should be a parallel pair of mics spaced about 7" if memory serves me right.

--Ben

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

Sounds like a Faulkner Pair. Two figure 8 mics spaced on a stereo bar. Technically, should be a parallel pair of mics spaced about 7" if memory serves me right.

Tony told me how he came to this arrangement. He was recording in a church with a wonderful reverb down the length of the church, but a horrible "slap" across it.

Running a parallel pair of figure-8s kept the long echo but eliminated the "slap".

[3rd&4thT]

Originally Posted by John Willett

Tony told me how he came to this arrangement. He was recording in a church with a wonderful reverb down the length of the church, but a horrible "slap" across it.

Running a parallel pair of figure-8s kept the long echo but eliminated the "slap".

Pre-Faulkner, a variation of this setup was used by Thomas Mowrey in the mid-late 1960's, in his recordings of the Dallas Symphony under Donald Johanos now on Vox CDs.

In this case, two bi-directional mics were used at a fair distance in a hopelessly dry auditorium. I have no information on the spacing, but I seem to recall they were ribbons.

Donald Johanos went on to the Honolulu Symphony. Thomas Mowrey went on to Deutsche Grammophon.

Here's a clip.

3rd&4thT

[tmowrey@ergonome]

3rd&4thT is correct that the Dallas Symphony Rachmaninoff recording which I produced in the mid-60s was made with figure-8 microphones. They were ribbon instruments, designed by Charles Fisher of Cambridge, Mass., owned by my engineer, David Hancock (now deceased).

There were two pairs, one for the whole orchestra, suspended about 15 feet above stage level, approximately ten feet back into the (dead dry) auditorium from the conductor, Don Johanos (now deceased). The other pair was suspended about 15 feet above the woodwinds. The mics were exactly six feet apart in both pairings. The orchestra pair were angled outwards at about 45 degrees, and the woodwind pair were in parallel orientation.

For a second series of recordings with the same group (Ives and Copland), Dave Hancock and I added a third pair of these mics, which were placed out in the auditorium, quite widely spaced, in a (futile) attempt to add a bit of bloom to the sound.

Dave's electronics were absolutely minimal -- all vacuum tubes, no transistors -- and the tape was running at 30ips to minimize noise (Dolby hadn't yet arrived in America).

I did indeed go on to Deutsche Grammophon, and later came to London to work at Decca with such masters as Kenneth Wilkinson, Colin Moorfoot, Stan Goodall, Jimmy Lock, John Dunkerley, Simon Eadon and others. Those were the days!

I am still very alive, living in New York.

Tom

[matyas]

What a fascinating post! We get such interesting people on this forum! Now, I'll just need to go look those recordings up. Ribbons, to tube mic amps, to 30 ips tape - splendid!

Originally Posted by tmowrey@ergonome

3rd&4thT is correct that the Dallas Symphony Rachmaninoff recording which I produced in the mid-60s was made with figure-8 microphones. They were ribbon instruments, designed by Charles Fisher of Cambridge, Mass., owned by my engineer, David Hancock (now deceased).

There were two pairs, one for the whole orchestra, suspended about 15 feet above stage level, approximately ten feet back into the (dead dry) auditorium from the conductor, Don Johanos (now deceased). The other pair was suspended about 15 feet above the woodwinds. The mics were exactly six feet apart in both pairings. The orchestra pair were angled outwards at about 45 degrees, and the woodwind pair were in parallel orientation.

For a second series of recordings with the same group (Ives and Copland), Dave Hancock and I added a third pair of these mics, which were placed out in the auditorium, quite widely spaced, in a (futile) attempt to add a bit of bloom to the sound.

Dave's electronics were absolutely minimal -- all vacuum tubes, no transistors -- and the tape was running at 30ips to minimize noise (Dolby hadn't yet arrived in America).

I did indeed go on to Deutsche Grammophon, and later came to London to work at Decca with such masters as Kenneth Wilkinson, Colin Moorfoot, Stan Goodall, Jimmy Lock, John Dunkerley, Simon Eadon and others. Those were the days!

I am still very alive, living in New York.

Tom

[sonare]

Originally Posted by tmowrey@ergonome

I am still very alive, living in New York.

Gearslutz is a great place to learn about technique-- but the opportunity to hear from a classical producer with such a track record is rare. Given the essential nature of the producer, we would all appreciate hearing more from you about the desirable qualities and abilities of the "classical producer."

Rich

[aracu]

Interesting recording... the use of near coincident and / or spaced fig 8s deserves a lot more experimentation!

[3rd&4thT]

Welcome, Tom! You'll find a willing audience here for whatever you choose to share with us.

Actually, I'd love to hear about the Bernstein "Carmen" for DG. Grapevine had it that the surround mix (never published) was superb.

And did you do DG's recordings in Boston? There was a breathtaking Copland "Outdoor Overture" with Fiedler coupled with Shostakovich's "Festive Overture" that I've never seen reissued on CD. Were those yours as well?

Best,
3rd&4thT

[Legacy]

What a wonderful post - thank you.

It's great to see David Hancock's name - an extraordinary engineer. I wish I had the chance to spend some time with him before he passed away. I've learned some things listening to his recordings - including how much further my own needed to go

Tom, I hope you'll give us some more insights into your work. We're hungry for it.

Best Wishes,
Silas

Originally Posted by tmowrey@ergonome

3rd&4thT is correct that the Dallas Symphony Rachmaninoff recording which I produced in the mid-60s was made with figure-8 microphones. They were ribbon instruments, designed by Charles Fisher of Cambridge, Mass., owned by my engineer, David Hancock (now deceased).

There were two pairs, one for the whole orchestra, suspended about 15 feet above stage level, approximately ten feet back into the (dead dry) auditorium from the conductor, Don Johanos (now deceased). The other pair was suspended about 15 feet above the woodwinds. The mics were exactly six feet apart in both pairings. The orchestra pair were angled outwards at about 45 degrees, and the woodwind pair were in parallel orientation.

For a second series of recordings with the same group (Ives and Copland), Dave Hancock and I added a third pair of these mics, which were placed out in the auditorium, quite widely spaced, in a (futile) attempt to add a bit of bloom to the sound.

Dave's electronics were absolutely minimal -- all vacuum tubes, no transistors -- and the tape was running at 30ips to minimize noise (Dolby hadn't yet arrived in America).

I did indeed go on to Deutsche Grammophon, and later came to London to work at Decca with such masters as Kenneth Wilkinson, Colin Moorfoot, Stan Goodall, Jimmy Lock, John Dunkerley, Simon Eadon and others. Those were the days!

I am still very alive, living in New York.

Tom