Recording classical music

The best place to get a good orchestra balance and include the room is directly behind the conductor.
I have a special mic bar I made for exactly this purpose that includes a pair of spaced omnis at 67cm apart, an ortf pair near the centre and an MS pair at the centre. I usually aim the ortf pair at the front row, since the quieter instruments (oboe, cor, clarinet, flute) are there.
 
Chili said:
If the brass is overpowering the choir, the conductor needs to address that. It's basically your job to capture what the conductor hears. He sets the level and balance and performance.
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This - the conductor is your live sound guy with his hands on the faders, so to speak. If something's overpowering something else in the recording, it will be for the listener too, most probably.

Good luck - excellent opportunity.
 
That is what always impressed me with orchestral music, the mix is live through the conductor and the sheet music. As I get more into mixing, I appreciate these talents even more.
 
The sure fire way to wreck an ambient recording is to attempt to blend multiple mics. The spacing creates delays that produce weird comb filtering effects and although you can record m/s at the same time as X/Y or A/B or the other clever technique to separate tracks, pretty well you will end up settling on just one pair. It's a very personal choice and getting it wrong is easy. If the room sounds lovely, then I will perhaps go Blumlein, but if the room is smaller sounding then I like coincident pairs - lots don't but I prefer the results when listened to on loudspeakers.

As for the right place for the particular orchestra, if the space is unknown, then I will put on a pair of closed headphones - DT100 or 150s in my case, and I set up my chosen mic pair on a tall stand, and while the orchestra are playing, I move it forwards and backwards and make changes in the height. Usually the 'right' place is over the conductors head, maybe 8-10ft above the ground. I tweak the up/down angle to cover the edges. The conductor adjusts the balance of the sections for his position, so being close to his position is best. What I'm looking for is individual instruments that are weak. Often the smaller orchestras are lacking in numbers for ones section but may have too many in others. If the piece has lots of solo instruments, that seem to fall into a black hole, this is the only time I will consider spot mics - but getting them to sit in the mix is very hard. It is level, pan, and time delay, and when you get it right, it sort of drops out as a separate instrument and just blurs in with the rest, but with it's own fader - which can be moved through a small range without producing any shift in the stereo field.

I find an X/Y scope plug in very handy - it really shows what is going on, and you can see the classic too mono/too stereo problems quite clearly. Stereo with two mics is harder than a multitrack session because just a few inches one way or the other make big differences, and many people forget up and down too. I always think adjusting position is far more important than faffing around with the clever techniques. Use these once your basic ears have got the simple techniques right. Many people add extra mics for room sound, and I've never found this actually works because of the horrible delays and sound field blurring it causes.

For me, the essential feature is two decent mics, a high stand, and a room where you can set up a couple of loudspeakers - PLUS - a system where you can talk back to the conductor. Video is useful, but not essential.

Start with X/Y or ORTF if you must, and learn how the adjustments sound. Ambient recording can be quite good fun, once you understand and are comfy with the basics. Stay away from spot mics until you really, really need them - because they are damn tricky to blend.

A few of my colleagues do half way house between multitrack close mic and a simple stereo system. They spread out the orchestra, and record each section in stereo - I never do it, but their recordings seem ok - but the stereo field, in my view is very poor.
 
Rob, that's a really great post and I just might copy and print.

I want to experiment with XY and M/S recording simultaneously. I always thought it would come down to deciding between the two methods and now you confirm it. But it would be nice to hear the difference.

What about M/S behind/over conductor then spaced pairs out at the wings of the orchestra? Would there still be phasing issues or would the distance between mics mitigate the problem?
 
Hi Rob,

I would never blend the differnt mic pairs, only use them for comparison to pick a suitable one for the performance and acoustic space. Usually the spaced omnis give a really natural result, however if a much wider stereo image is being called for then there is also the option to try the ortf pair or the MS instead. It is effectively capturing the performance using 3 different mic sets at once and picking the most suitable.

- Geoff
 
I think that's the most sensible approach now we can record multiple channels at the same time - Back in the 70s I was a lowly tape op for a short time, which meant cables, stands, mics and cleaning - and a few producers were still uncomfortable with stereo and favoured major separation and no real attempt at reality - so recording a big band would have a nice gap in the middle with the drums and bass player in it, with saxes and the clarinets to one side, brass to the other - and it was very STEREO to listen to but turn the balance to one side and the other half the band vanished, just leaving room reverb - weird by today's standards. The BBC would usually stick up a couple of coles ribbons and use them at 90 degrees for their early attempts at 'real' stereo.

I used to quite like M/S, and it's certainly handy in a room that is unknown - but as I mentioned, blending in extra mics, even just one is quite tricky. Adding room sound - something many people start off trying to do, always confuses the stereo field - and makes the sound less distinct - a backwards step. Too little room can be tweaked with a little reverb, but too much is very hard to deal with.

I'm not convinced that in the early days of ambient recording the differences between similar techniques is actually detectable - the mic placement issue making a HUGE difference compared to the very subtle differences going from X/Y to ORTF creates. Both of these can sound excellent, but only when they are in the right place. I've spent ages in churches stringing up 3mm catenary wire to hang mic clusters from, and whenever I've worked for other sound supervisors or designers, their placement is often similar, but never quite the same as mine - and I suspect theirs may well have been better. I've seen people waving long poles around, then trying to find a way to get the mics there! There's a nice big stand available called a Cathedral stand, for this very purpose - but it's an ugly beast! No good for cameras!
 
ashcat_lt said:
Yeah, I don't completely understand why you think it would sound better in a studio all close miked. If the room is decent, then the sound in the room is exactly what it's supposed to sound like! You can't make it better. All you need to do is capture it without fucking it up. Listen to and appreciate what's happening in the room first, then make sure that what comes off the tape is close to that. If you can't listen to it without thinking how much better it could sound, if you can't appreciate it for what it is, then you just might be the wrong person for the job.
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Agreed :thumbs up:

Closed mic'd in a studio is the *worst* way to record classical music. The best way is to record it in the acoustic space where it would normally be performed and mic'd to get the best balance between the orchestra and the room.

Actually, I would do this as a simple stereo recording with an MS or ORTF pair (maybe with omni outriggers) behind the conductor.

I would then only add spot mics if absolutely necessary (or put out for safety in the hope that they would not need to be used).

And - listening to the room is the normal way with classical music - you place the mics to get the best balance between the orchestra and the room.

The conductor balances the sound, what you do is to record the performance that he has balanced.
 
John Willett said:
Agreed :thumbs up:
Closed mic'd in a studio is the *worst* way to record classical music. The best way is to record it in the acoustic space where it would normally be performed and mic'd to get the best balance between the orchestra and the room.
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Although it should be noted that a lot of classical recordings used as film soundtracks are close-miked using a DPA on each instrument in studios or halls. It's a specialised type of classical recording that is used to support the film, so the director needs more control over the sound than a regular concert for listening pleasure.

John Willett said:
Actually, I would do this as a simple stereo recording with an MS or ORTF pair (maybe with omni outriggers) behind the conductor.
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Don't underestimate the power of a pair of spaced omnis.
Tony Faulkner talks about this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uCcFIyJJ-w

- Geoff
 
hydroflare said:
Although it should be noted that a lot of classical recordings used as film soundtracks are close-miked using a DPA on each instrument in studios or halls. It's a specialised type of classical recording that is used to support the film, so the director needs more control over the sound than a regular concert for listening pleasure.
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This is a film soundtrack recording, rather than a classical music recording, even if the music is classical music.

The point of the film score is to support the picture and not listened to in its own right.


hydroflare said:
Don't underestimate the power of a pair of spaced omnis.
Tony Faulkner talks about this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uCcFIyJJ-w
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I never underestimate spaced omnis and often use them myself. ;)

I know Tony Faulkner well and he once asked me to step in for him on a recording session when he had been double-booked.
 
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