My Grand Experiment (Strings)

[gdgross1978]

Hey Everyone



I'm a typical poor/ish musician who is jonesing for a string section sound on a shoestring budget. I find myself unable to get a convincing section sound out of my sample libraries (I'm currently using the kirk hunter orchestral samples.) I’ve also tried multitracking string players in the past, with equally unconvincing, but different results: The sample sound fake, and the multitracking sounds cold and chorus-y.



I’ve written parts for violin 1, 2, Viola and cello (might have a bass player friend come in too, we’ll see.) for a tune I’m working on. Here’s my new idea: I’d like to try multitracking again with a different spin: recording the same player with as small variations on each take, from physically different places in the studio. For example, for the first violins, I’m thinking about literally setting up a stereo pair of mics, four chairs, and having one player take four passes through the part, one from each chair. If they happen to have a second instrument and/or bow, all the better, I can have them play the other instrument for some of the takes as well.



My thought is that, like a double tracked vocal vs a choir, the physical room reflections, subtle distance from the mics, and other small acoustic variations might yield better results. I can’t duplicate the different “voices” as well though, as I don’t’ have the option of getting many players, otherwise I’d just hire them all and have myself a section. ;-)



So, the questions:



Stereo mic pair or single mic? My gut says stereo pair, but I’d like to keep the number or tracks manageable too… My room does tend to the dry side.



Second, and more generally, does this idea have legs? Do you think I am trying to make gold out of lead here or is this something worth trying?



I may try mixing in the samples too, but again, in the past, I haven’t been able to match the tones of the samples and the real instruments very well. (If anyone has thoughts on that too I’m all ears!)



Thanks!

Geoff

 

[miroslav]

Sure....having the player repeat the string parts several time will most certainly sound like an ensemble once all the tracks are played together.

I would just put up a stereo pair...and then having the player move from chair to chair will certainly add to the slight differences.

Of course....nothing will sound exactly like a string ensemble playing in unison.

I don't use strings a lot in my recordings, but do like to toss in some string "ear candy" even in more Rock/Pop flavored songs. I always end up going through all my sample/synth libraries several time trying to find the right sounds...and in the end I always have to tweak the crap out of the samples to make it as convincing as possible.
Luckily, for me the strings are just that...ear candy...so I can usually mask it enough with the primary track to get the strings believable.
If I had to do a more involved "string" piece....forget it. You need real players for that to sound believable.

 

[Armistice]

Certainly worth trying... depending upon how long the piece is and how big a string section it's supposed to be, try more than four...

Not the same thing, but I have, on one of my songs, a group of people handclapping during the latter part of a song - except it wasn't a group of people, it was me tracking 16 single handclap tracks and combining... and there's another member here who needed a group of people stomping their boots for one of his songs, so he did something similar...

More complex with strings, of course, but same concept.

Post it when you've done it.. be interested in hearing it.

 

[witzendoz]

I have double tracked string sections, Violin x 2, Viola & Cello, to get a more orchestral sound. I miced each instrument with 1 mic and recorded them to a track each (actually when I had only a 16 track tape machine I mixed it to 1 track each time) the result was fantastic.

If tracking 1 instrument or player several times I would only use 1 mic on it.

Cheers
Alan.