I've recorded a Cello Orchestra, now what ?

[Lefrançais]

Hello guys,

I really need your help.

I had a cello session today at home. In my living Room.
In fact, there was only one cello but I've arranged a 4 voices score.
Cello plays bass, cello, alto and violin parts....

I'd like to hear like a small string orchestra, not chamber, just small orchestra.

I've used 2 mics (Peluso 2247Le and T-Bone 1100SC), GTQ-2 pre, and recorded 4 times each voice.


My questions are:

1) For each take, how do I pan the mic1/mic2 to avoid phase ? or do I have to manually delay mic1/mic2 tracks ?

2) Do I have to pan each voices overdubs ?
Example:
Do "Cb take 1", "Cb take 3", "Cb take 3" have to be panned exactly the same ? (I get phasing that way ...)

3) What amount of take for each voice do I have to use ?
example:

-Cb: 2 overdubs
-Vc: 3 overdubs
-Va: 4 overdubs
-Vl: 4 overdubs

4) How do I pan Cb,Vc,Va,Vl groups ?

Thank you very much for your help.

[willi1203]

Originally Posted by Lefrançais

like a small string orchestra, not chamber, just small orchestra.

+ doubler ?

[Lefrançais]

Originally Posted by willi1203

+ doubler ?

No, what's "doubler" ?

[jnorman]

pan the bass part just rt of center, cello part just left of center, violin midleft, and viola mid-right. you can pan individual tracks of each part slightly around each voice placement, but you may just have to accept some phasing, just as you can get some natural phasing from a live performance. if it sounds unnatural, you may want to take the best individual track of a voice, and double it a couple of times (copy the track onto a new track and delay by about 20-30 ms). other than that, you just have to experiment until you get a sound you like...

[Lefrançais]

Thanks for your answer. I'll try that.

I did a stereo recording,
Do I have to pan Mic1 64L and Mic2 63R of each take ? then pan the voice group ?

[jnorman]

you may only need to use one mic, rather than the stereopair for each take, since you are layering each voice. the stereo tracks could be an additional source of unwanted phasing. if you want to use all tracks in stereo, just adjust the panning of the stereo pair (you can link them for easier tweaking), such that the instrument appears in the proper place in the spacial image.

[aracu]

I agree that recording many of the cello tracks, one at a time, may work better
recording each one in mono, for a more coherent and controllable end result. Doubling the tracks with delay will not sound as "natural" as recording
a separate cello performance for each track. I suggest wearing tracking headphones with a quiet metronome beat (to be removed from the mix) recorded to one of the tracks, and when the tracks start building up, not necessarily listening to all of them while recording a new track.

[krs]

Recording in mono and panning around can very easily yield a very in your face (and fake) stereo field. Can be very effective if your not looking for a classical sound. (You could attempt reamping in a nice room to create some better stereo gel).

Another way that I don't think has been mentioned is to set out a main pair and then position chairs around it and have player move chairs between takes. This works best when you have a nice room and a quiet noise floor.

[Lefrançais]

Originally Posted by jnorman

... if you want to use all tracks in stereo, just adjust the panning of the stereo pair (you can link them for easier tweaking), such that the instrument appears in the proper place in the spacial image.

Originally Posted by aracu

I agree that recording many of the cello tracks, one at a time, may work better
recording each one in mono, for a more coherent and controllable end result.

Thx. I'm going to try both mono and stereo and will post the result to get your opinion.

Originally Posted by krs

Recording in mono and panning around can very easily yield a very in your face (and fake) stereo field

By "Panning around" you mean filling the space for ex like: V1 64L, V2 54L, V3 46L, V4 38L, VA1 20L etc etc... ?


I think I'm going to redo the 2 upper voices with an alto because the whole thing doesn't sound so natural. I also had to use autotune because performance is quite out of tune....hard to say when performer do it for free !

By the way do you use autotune on strings sometimes ?

[jnorman]

i tracked a cello solo for a recent RoseWynde CD which required a fair amount of autotune correction. it is not something i like to do, but pretty much had to do to make the track useable.

[aracu]

To avoid intonation and rythmic problems, possibly record a piano version with metronome to listen to w/ tracking headphones while recording one cello at a time.

[7rojo7]

if he's overdubbing there will be no phasing, phasing would occur between two or more microphones recorded in the same take, which would be recording the same source. overdubbing in stereo or mono, there will be no phasing. pan them however it sounds best, when overdubbing there's no reason, ie having to match spots to a stereo pair. have a blast, if you want bigger, double or triple your parts. Chamber orchestra 3 first 3 second 2 viola 2 celli and a bass, I was technical director for the Ravel suite for 6 cellos performed and conducted by Mstislav Rostropovitch, unforgettable, cello is a fantastic instrument I love the sound of lot's of them together

[krs]

Originally Posted by 7rojo7

if he's overdubbing there will be no phasing, phasing would occur between two or more microphones recorded in the same take, which would be recording the same source. overdubbing in stereo or mono, there will be no phasing

A good player can definitely phase with themselves in a close miked situation. You can trying moving everything around, changing instruments, mic position, changing vibrato etc etc but at the end of the day it's all compromise and it sounds like it.

(Still) the best way to do it is to hire a nice hall, some great players, put up an array of mics and get the real thing.

thumbsup

[JoeDeF]

Originally Posted by krs

A good player can definitely phase with themselves in a close miked situation.
thumbsup

Hi krs,

Just a few thoughts on terminology. Phase cancellation is almost always present in the the analog world of sound, in one form or another. There are several very different forms, however.

When two good players play live together, and do their best to play in tune, the beating that they hear (live, through the air, not through cans) is phase cancellation. As they minutely (and often unconsciously) adjust their intonation in an attempt to eliminate the beating, their instruments for some period of time may settle into a particular phase relationship as perceived by one listener or one microphone at one point in space.

This situation is directly analogous to the recording situation outlined by Lefrançais (throwing out his stereo pair, and considering one microphone only). In other words, the phase cancellation that is perceived between tracks recorded with one mic at different times (i.e. - different takes) is fundamentally the same as the phase cancellation that happens when two players play at the same time and are recorded by one mic.

Although in each case, phase cancellation at any moment may be taking place, in practice this type of phase cancellation is really a subset of the tuning and intonation area of music. Furthermore, it is rare for most physical instruments and/or professional musicians to be stable enough to preserve a particular phase relationship for very long (it may be possible for most of the duration of a note, but not for a whole phrase or a whole track).

The kind of phase cancellation that happens when two stationary microphones record one stationary instrument is fundamentally different. Here, there will be two quite similar waveforms (not identical, due to sound radiation patterns emanating from the instrument in a non-uniform manner, reflections arriving at different times/angles, variations in mic pickup patterns, frequency response, and the like) picked up by the two microphones. These waveforms will necessarily be locked in a fixed time relationship with one another (due to different distances between the microphones and the instrument, and different distances between all reflected sounds that they pick up).

When these signals are mixed to mono, they will produce an interference pattern that is static. If the instrument being recorded was capable of "playing" a sine wave that swept across the range of hearing, we would find that the fixed phase relationship would cause certain frequencies to be louder than the average amplitude (phase summing), and other frequencies would be softer (phase cancellation), when mixed to mono. This would be true even in an anechoic chamber; it a separate phenomenon from room resonances. If we keep the instrument and the mics in the same place, and ask the player to repeat the sine sweep, the same peaks and valleys would result every time.

This is the kind of phase cancellation that we (usually) seek to avoid in recording, because of the peak/notch EQ effects it produces, and it is quite different than the first kind outlined above. It is the absence of this second kind of phase cancellation which leads 7rojo7 to state

"if he's overdubbing there will be no phasing."

On practical level, I agree with him.

So, I say to Lefrançais:

As long as you only using the signal recorded by one of the mics for each take, you don't need to worry about phase cancellation no matter where you pan them.

In fact, you can even use both mics from one take as long as you pan them hard left and hard right, and you won't have problems with phase cancellation. In this case, there will certainly be phase cancellation that appears in the room upon playback, but this phase cancellation will vary with the distances between the listener and each of the two speakers, and would even be somewhat present if you played the same mono signal through both speakers! (unless your listening room was a perfect anechoic chamber, you were seated exactly equidistant from your speakers, your speakers matched exactly, your body was perfectly symmetrical, etc....)

The only caveat I will throw out there if you decide to use both mics panned hard left and right for the same take is: if you think that your finished product may be played back in mono at some point in the future, then the second type of phase cancellation outlined above could come back to bite you in the mono mix.

Joe

[7rojo7]

only if the mics are placed poorly. anyway you're mixing different takes, even if you move the mics and the position of the performer, this is not 'phasing' no matter what it sounds like. as an effect it would sound like chorusing, but phasing is temporal, acoustically or electronically. theoretically any multiple mic array displays this phenomenon, so do our ears, you notice it in boomy y hallways just walking through them.

[krs]

what's the sound of one player's vibrato almost lining up with itself?