Another quickie...

[hbphotoav]

So... there I am in Albuquerque a couple of weeks ago, photographing a convention of music teachers. As I was shooting frames before the evening's concert of some little-known Chopin (it's the 200th anniversary of his birth this year, you know...) the pianist asked the association rep if there would be a recording. She said "Nope." I said... "Well, I've got this little Edirol digital recorder thingie in my backpack..."

We had about two minutes at that point before they needed to vacate the hall for doors, so they played a noisier bit to let me establish something of a level with decent headroom, and I moved around a bit until I found a spot that seemed to work for the blend (the UltraSones were along for the trip as well) and off they went.

The recorder, an Edirol R09HD, at 44.1, 24bit, using the onboard mics, was on the floor, on a bit of soft leather (my keyboard/screen protector from the MacBook Pro) folded into quarters to decouple the little Edirol plastic stand a bit. It was about seven feet (2.2m) out from, and on axis with, the stick. Cello was about 2m to the (stage) right, mezzo to the left a commensurate distance. Of course, during the performance she moved in almost to the stick, but that's life.

Pianist: Kevin Kenner; cellist: William De Rosa; mezzo-soprano: Marta Wryk

As I was a bit busy with photos all evening, I didn't write down the name of the piece.

Here's a photo of the "salon" setup:

[hbphotoav]

OK. I'm an idiot.

Here's the photo and clip:

[Celloman]

Scherzo from the Chopin cello sonata...

Mike

[hbphotoav]

Originally Posted by Celloman

Scherzo from the Chopin cello sonata...

Mike

Thanks, kindly.

[boojum]

Sad to see it was sparsely attended. Nah, I better not get into a rant about that.

[hbphotoav]

Originally Posted by boojum

Sad to see it was sparsely attended. Nah, I better not get into a rant about that.

Actually, there were probably 250 people in attendance... because most were piano teachers, most sat house left from center, to see his hands. It was thoroughly enjoyable... who knew Chopin wrote songs as well as piano and ensemble pieces, large and small.

[Gigazaga]

Originally Posted by hbphotoav

The recorder, an Edirol R09HD, at 44.1, 24bit, using the onboard mics, was on the floor, on a bit of soft leather (my keyboard/screen protector from the MacBook Pro) folded into quarters to decouple the little Edirol plastic stand a bit. It was about seven feet (2.2m) out from, and on axis with, the stick. Cello was about 2m to the (stage) right, mezzo to the left a commensurate distance. Of course, during the performance she moved in almost to the stick, but that's

It is pretty amazing what our modern recorders can do. I used to struggle with this sort of recording just to find pre-amps and mics with low enough self-noise. Then trying to deal with the tape hiss in the recording.

It was good thinking to give this a try.