Which mic for a Cello

Eguel

New member
Hi,

I'm looking for a mic to record cello. It would be mainly solo cello, on classical music or video game music cover, in a not-so-good but not-so-bad sounding room. I'm overwhelmed by information at this point, whithout being able to say whether the information I get is up to date or not : for example the last post I found here about recording a cello date from 4 years ago.

So, I search for some wisdom in my search : which features should I look for in a mic to record that ?

I hope I've not missed obvious info I should have had ...
 
Hi there, and welcome to HR!

The majority of information will be relevant to other acoustic instruments too, so you may broaden your search to acoustic guitar recording, as it's much more popular.

With regard to placement, the fight you're always going to have is with the sound of the room.
A more natural and 'realistic' recording is going to be from having the microphones farther back, capturing the full sound of the instrument as you would normally hear it,
but the recording with least background noise and room ambience is going to be from having the microphones much closer to the instrument.

Unless you have a great sounding room, that's a big tradeoff and probably something you'll want to experiment with.
Small diaphragm condenser microphones are probably the weapon of choice for most. Whether mono or stereo is up to you.
Personally I'd avoid omni-directional microphones unless the intention is to capture the room ambience/atmosphere.

Taking a few steps back, though, what equipment do you have at present?
A microphone is one thing but are you going for a computer based set up, or some portable recorder?
Do you have an audio interface or a means of listening critically?

Any gear or information that may be relevant will help with giving advice or recommendations. :)

Your location is good to know too, for shopping/price info.
 
In addition to what Steenamaroo says, you must also consider the instrument. There is a huge choice of tones from instruments as they go up the price/quality scale. Some student cellos are horribly bright and scratchy, so a condenser might be a terrible choice for these, while some classic instruments are wonderfully woody and mellow in the extreme, and on these a condenser can be a great help. Even worse, when you start close miming is that the first rule of mic placement is .... there is NO first rule of mic placement because each instrument behaves so differently. Cheap plywood ones have kind of 'zones' where the wood is at it's most potent and 'big'. Move away from these and they get thin and nasty very quickly. Real wood seems to spread the nice sound producing areas out and they're far more forgiving. If you have to cellists, make them both sound nice and then look at the eq - they will both be very different. You'll also find the player/instrument combination has a big impact too. If the instrument is bright and a bit harsh, then amazingly SM57s are really good. They are not good for more mellow ones, and a large diaphragm condenser is more flattering. A BIG problem is finding the right place for them. You can't get too close because of the bow, and I like a short stand, about 6" above bridge height, about 400mm away from the bridge, looking slightly down. This works on older, decent cellos. Bright cheap ones need you to experiment - I've never found a foolproof solution. They're quite hard to record because they have a really wide range - from very low, up to very high. You'll also find better players make a hell of a lot of noise when they play. Odd screeching noises and quite percussive fingering sometimes. It's a bit of a challenge.
 
Well, the good news is that cellos haven't changed much in a few hundred years, nor has microphone technology in a few decades, so I wouldn't discount valid information of almost any age if it's on the internet. Of course, something with an actual recording to back it up is always better.

What everyone else said. Bring a small condenser, a large condenser and a good-ish dynamic (low end a little more important than top) :).

The reason you've seen confusing information is because of the fact that every cello, every room, every player is different. You simply can't say what is *best* until you've tried a few different ones, and once you've got that figured out, you can throw a lot of it away for the next player/cello/room and start over.

But, really, for what you're doing, I'd almost suggest the SM57, or any good quality dynamic in the $100-200 range, checking specs to make sure it doesn't roll off lows too soon (that cello C will rule out some). I'd start my recording at least a yard (meter) away and move in to find a sweet spot, and probably slightly off center. You still might find that close in works, but if the room is Ok, some space can prevent string/bow/finger noise, feet shuffling and general huffing and puffing from being too present. And make sure the player has a solid, dead silent chair!
 
I've never recorded a cello, but I think my first experiment would be with a Sennheiser MD-421 up close to capture that low-mid growl. If I had a ribbon mic I'd want to try that too, but backed away from the instrument a bit. After that I'd try a large diaphragm condenser at various distances. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd love to try recording a cello :D
 
First of all, thanks for all your answers ! :)

Taking a few steps back, though, what equipment do you have at present?
A microphone is one thing but are you going for a computer based set up, or some portable recorder?
Do you have an audio interface or a means of listening critically?

Any gear or information that may be relevant will help with giving advice or recommendations. :)

Your location is good to know too, for shopping/price info.

In order :
- I do not have any audio recording equipement at present.
- Computer based I would say. I do not need the setting to be "portable".
- I don't have an audio interface.
- My cello is a luthier cello, by a Korean luthier, under the specifications of my french luthier from whom I bought it 12 years ago, so it should probably be an OK Cello.
- I live near Paris, France.

So, what I understand so far is that I should be searching for a (small ? / large ?) condenser mic, that can go at least from 60 to 600 Hz. I also need an audio interface, I suppose. Is the choice of the audio interface dependant of the choice of the mic ?
 
So, after taking some time balancing prices and characteristics, I'm currently thinking about buying :
- A Rode NT5 mic (the other small diaphragm condenser mic I stumbled upon were having some big hole in the low frequencies).
- An AUDIENT ID14 audio interface (which was proposed to me by a seller I had on the phone).

Does someone have some experience with either of these ? If some of my choices are bad, I would prefer to discover it before buying x)
 
I haven't used either of those, but have had a good experience with the one RØDE mic I own, and that NT5 has a pretty flat frequency response (on paper, at least), which will make your recording/mixing job much easier. The Audient is relatively "high-end" on a price/feature check, but the reviews and specs look fine and it also has 2 inputs + ADAT so adding a second mic or expanding for even 8 more is possible. In short, they look like solid choices, so go for it and start recording!
 
First of all, thanks for all your answers ! :)

- Computer based I would say. I do not need the setting to be "portable".
- I don't have an audio interface.

No problem. Glad to help. :)

So, what I understand so far is that I should be searching for a (small ? / large ?) condenser mic, that can go at least from 60 to 600 Hz. I also need an audio interface, I suppose.

Yes, you will need an audio interface, and recording software to go with it.
Some will come with a light edition of a suite, others will not. If in doubt, try Reaper for free. It's very capable.

Your AI should 100% replace any built-in audio device on the computer so remember, headphones and speakers all connect to the AI too.

Is the choice of the audio interface dependant of the choice of the mic ?
Yes and No.

If you intend to use condenser microphones then your AI should have built in preamps and should also deliver phantom power.
If you think you might expand to using several microphones to record multiple performers at once, then now is a good time to invest in an AI with more channels but,
if you do not, then a two-channel interface with two mic preamps is a safe bet.

That'll let you record your cello with a stereo pair, or a near+far microphone, if you wish.

You haven't mentioned the room so I say again, please don't take it to be a less important variable.
I bet if we ran a poll here to get the order in which members would spend money on their setup, now that they know,
I bet the results would be Room>Monitors>Instruments>The rest.

That's not to say that microphone choices aren't important; They are, but you have to sound good first!
Recording in a bad room is like painting in bad light.

In the average furnished home room I'd probably go in on a pair of SDCs then suppliment with gobos if needed,
but I'd be micing reasonably close - maybe no more than 12-18".
Someone else might choose a dynamic microphone and close-mic.

Hope that's useful.

PS: Nt5s are fine mics. There are better and worse, but I doubt you'll find many complaints about them.
 
A Rode Nt1000 sounds pretty good on cello for the price, and I have used them a lot for this.

However if the room is a bit dodgy or you think you may want a live mic in the future, I would recommend a DPA 4099C LINK

Alan
 
I have never recorded a cello either, love to tho! (The Elgar is one of my all time favourites. There was a good progg' about Jacky D on the BBC recently)

Ribbons are often the choice of professionals but they are of course very expensive. The M5 has had some good rep but could you run to a stereo pair? The cello is a big instrument and you say your room is 'ok' and a Co-Incident recording might sound better than mono?

For good advice trawl the online articles in Sound on Sound. Ex BBC chaps, recorded more classical strings than you've had hot snails!

Dave.
 
The luthier built cello is a clue that you know what you like in an instrument - so before buying anything, ask around your friends and borrow a few microphones and see which sounds best to you. I suspect our recommendations mean little without you hearing your instrument. Or buy mail order from people who accept returns and treat the postage as a hire fee?

Only you can decide now.

If you haven't bought an interface yet - how about your monitoring? Is that up to standard too?
 
I've recorded solo Cello a number of times and have tried a couple different techniques. I've used some SDCs set up not unlike I might record acoustic guitar, one pointed near the bridge and the other pointed near the neck. A pair of Rode NT5s did not work at all, a pair of AT 4041s worked much better. Also tried a pair of LDCs in a Mid-Side pattern, that had an interesting sound because it picked up some of the room, If I was going for something different I would use this process again. But, I've found that a simple LDC (I usually use an old CAD E200) pointed at the bridge seems to give the most consistent sound that fits well in a mix. I usually play around with the distance from the mic to the bridge to try and get some of the room ambiance.
 

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