film score - string and horn

[vineband]

i am recording a indie film score with 2 voilins, viola, cello, upright bass, and french horn. I have succesfully recorded just a string quartet, but i am very worried about capturing the low end of the upright bass simultaneously with dominant mid/high tones. To complicate matters i have only 2 recording inputs. My best mic is a RodeNT4 which is a stereo condensor that has a fixed XY configuration, but if i use my less cool Oktava MK012's I can have more freedom to capture sounds i want. The musicians are all paid so i will only have about 45 mins during rehearsal to improvise, so i would love to get some opinions and tips on this issue.

the director is not opposed to overdubbing the bass, but i would love to capture the ensemble sound. anyone ever recorded classical bass solo?

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

It's probably worth searching through the big pinned thread at the top of the mic forum. I'd bet that Harvey Gerst has discussed micing an upright bass in there.

 

[mshilarious]

There is no fundamental reason that either mic setup would fail to capture bass frequencies. Higher frequencies do not occlude bass frequencies; however, the room itself can have an adverse impact on reproduction of bass.

If you are looking for an earth-shattering LFE channel in the film, it might be worthwhile to put a spot mic on the bass for that purpose. But that would require more inputs than you have. It's not impossible to overdub the bass frequencies later, but it's a lot of trouble when you should be able to capture the bass in the ensemble performance with a stereo pair.