Lil' Gig Report - Viol Consort at St. Michaels

[RobAnderson]

I had a three-day session starting Sunday, and I actually remembered my camera for once.

Good thing too, 'cause this church is stunning. The glass, and apparently the whole interior design, is by Tiffany.

Here are some views. First looking back, 2nd looking forward, and third an amazing Tiffany mosaic in a side chapel.

[hbphotoav]

Beautiful...! But, like, how'd it sound?

[RobAnderson]

Sounded great actually - except for the traffic on Amsterdam Avenue. Fortunately as late as we were recording, the traffic died down a bit. But for this kind of music, the acoustics were just as stunning as the visual element.

Here we added some mic's to the decor.

Initially, I went with:

Mains: KM130 46cm AB - Millennia
Consort: CMC621 NOS - Hardy M-2
Treb1: CMC64 - Millennia
Treb2: CMC64 - Millennia
Tenor: U87 - Millennia
Bass1: C414 - Millennia
Bass2: C414 - Millennia
Vox1: KMS105 - Hardy M-2
Vox2: KMS105 - Hardy M-2
Organ DI: WW Direct2-JT - Sytek
Organ mic: KM140 - Millennia

I changed the setup a bit after the first night as I felt that I could improve on the sound of the lower viols using small cap mic's in a bit closer. I also added TLM103's as room mic's.

So the final was

Tenor: KM140
Bass1: KM140
Bass2: KMS105 (grille removed)

[RobAnderson]

Here is a view of the musicians, and two of the control room; one featuring intern Kenneth Candelas. He was a great help and an asset to the session on all fronts, and a real trooper considering he had to be in class each morning by 10.

This was the "maiden voyage" of my new AD16x. I had the old one with me "just in case" but never needed to switch it on. I am so far very happy with the result. We recorded simultaneously to an HD24XR and to Pro Tools 9 via an RME UFX interface.

For the most part Pro Tools behaved itself, except the second night where there were so many errors and artifacts in the audio as to make it useless. At this moment I have absolutely no explanation for it - all of the settings and wiring were identical all three nights.

Fortunately there was no issue whatsoever with the HD24 audio, so nothing was lost and there was no need to waste any time doing retakes because of technical glitches.

That's why I run a backup even at sessions.

[rmx16]

Rob
How do you like the Audio Engine 2's ? That's what they are,correct?

Peace

[RobAnderson]

Hi rmx16 - thanks for chiming in.

You are correct - those are AudioEngine2's

On the down side:
At close range, they are a bit boomy in the bass and as a result can be slightly fatiguing to listen to, and they have very narrow HF dispersion - the tweeters are very directional. I would not want to do a critical mix on them as near-field monitors.

That being said, I like them very much for this kind of thing.

They are small, extremely portable, they sound pretty good (especially considering their size!) and are easy to listen to at a greater distance - the sound comes together better when you are back from them a bit, they can get loud enough to do impressive-sounding playback for the ensemble, and for sessions like this they can provide a welcome respite from headphone listening from time to time.

[Remoteness]

Sweet!

[Don S]

I've been in that space, but can't remember the name or location...A little help for a feeble mind?

[RobAnderson]

Hi Don

It is St. Michael's Church at 225 West 99th Street.

There are so many of these little jewels scattered about NYC - old churches that are gems both architecturally and acoustically.

IMHO, the only thing that prevents many of them from becoming early music recording Mecca's is NYC's incessant traffic.

Maybe we can invent a church-sized sound-proof bubble.

[RobAnderson]

Got a really nice PM from someone who asked some good questions so I'll answer them here:

I am curious about a few things. Why did you switch from the U87 on the tenor? Was the mic not giving you what the SDC would? Just what??

And in the mix. You had your main pair and a consort pair and it looks like nine spots. Tell me if I am wrong but I am thinking you bring up the spots until they can just be heard and then back them out a bit. Is this your approach?

I switched out the LDC's for 2 reasons:
1 - they were too bulky to get in where I needed to be without getting in the way of the bow and
2 - the bleed sounded better on the SDC's - the off-axis coloration on the LDC's was mucking things up a bit when I brought the mic's into the mix.

I had the 2 main pairs for options really. When monitoring on headphones in a venue like that, it's easy to get drunk on the reverb, so I put up the directional pair so I wouldn't be sorry in the morning.

I'll probably go with the omni mains and then mix in as much of the spots as I need for the real clarity that I want - the music is very contrapuntal so I want to be able to hear the individual lines clearly. I don't mind hearing the spots, I just don't want to "notice" them.

Thanks for the great questions!

[claying]

Nice place!

I saw you used APE on the KM130. Any experimenting on with vs. without APE, and parallel vs. angled direction there?

[RobAnderson]

Hi Claying

Unfortunately there was not much time to experiment, but I can count on one hand the number of times I have not used the SBK30 spheres. I also had a slight down-angle so that the mic's were focused on the upstage musicians.

The spheres are great - they don't change the sound of the mic's per se, but they make them slightly more directional in the upper frequencies, and they seem to smooth the off-axis response as well. The sphere's give the mic's a longer "reach" and to me it somehow feels a bit as though I am able to "focus" some of the brightness of the mic's where I want.

The KM130's are an often misunderstood microphone, but when used properly they can sound amazing.

[claying]

Yea, some recordings of KM130 posted on other threads are really impressive.

Your monitor speakers attract me too, for its size. I have been using headphones only on site because of logistic limitation, but audioengine a2 seems to be the solution.

I auditioned audioengine a2 vs. genelec 6010 today. They are of similar size, but genelec is about 3 times the price. Obviously both has a boost over the bass end to compensate their physical shortcomings but the a2 has a much clearer response. 6010 is flat over mids and highs but its bass is unacceptably muddy.

[RobAnderson]

There's a Tascam offering in the same size and price range as the A2 (in fact, I think they are slightly cheaper), but I have not heard it.

I'd be really interested in auditioning them against the AudioEngine's.

[claying]

Originally Posted by RobAnderson

There's a Tascam offering in the same size and price range as the A2 (in fact, I think they are slightly cheaper), but I have not heard it.

I'd be really interested in auditioning them against the AudioEngine's.

any model no.? don't see any on their web site.

[boojum]

^^^^^^^^^^^^


check this link: tascam speakers - Google Search

[claying]

Originally Posted by RobAnderson

The KM130's are an often misunderstood microphone, but when used properly they can sound amazing.

any elaboration by the way?

and seems neumann does not offer a matched pair of this?

[chai t]

Dayuum! Love the setup. Where/when can we hear the results?

[RobAnderson]

Originally Posted by claying

any elaboration by the way?

and seems neumann does not offer a matched pair of this?

I don't think Neumann offers "matched" pairs of anything. They do offer stereo sets of the KM183's (which are not matched, but sequential serial numbers, from my understanding), but not the 130's.

There are not that many people who understand how to use a diffuse-field omni. I think some just look at the response curve and write it off instantly because they think it will be too bright (and if used in the near-field, this may well end up being the case).

Sometimes it's not the right tool for the job, but can yield really great results when used in the proper application.

[RobAnderson]

Originally Posted by chai t

Dayuum! Love the setup. Where/when can we hear the results?

Ha!

I have to do all the editing first, but when they do release the CD, I'll report back.

[pkautzsch]

Originally Posted by claying

any elaboration by the way?

and seems neumann does not offer a matched pair of this?

KM130 is amongst the "standard" main pair mics for classical, as is Schoeps MK2 in all flavours, DPA 4006, Neumann 183 (same cap as 130, just not modular), Sennheiser MKH 20 or 8020, ...
Neumann don't need to match any pair, as manufacturing tolerances are very small. Basically all KMs are "matched" when they leave the factory.

[RobAnderson]

Well, I promised I'd report back so...

The CD is out. The mp3 previews on CD baby are pretty bad as far as encoding artifacts go, but you'll get a taste at least:
The Teares Of The Muses | Ein Lämmlein: 17th-Century German Passion Music | CD Baby

EDIT: 3/20/2012
Here's a better sounding version on iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ein...ry/id472816048