Mic advice (Piano trio/String quartet, mediocre acoustics)

[dutchcellist]

Hi,
I am trying to help a music festival set up a portable recording rig. Almost all of the performances consist exclusively of classical piano trios and string quartets. I am mainly looking for advice regarding the mics.

There are two problems involved: the three venues that are being used for concerts have different but pretty mediocre acoustics and in one case there is an issue with audience noise. The other problem is that the people handling the rig will mostly be people with very little to no experience with recording equipment more beyond an MD player.

My question is what mics and what mic setup would you suggest in such a situation. The setup needs to be suitable at classical chamber music only and needs to be forgiving towards the accoustics and towards the opperator. Of course clarity and transparency is important, but I realize that a DPA 4006 pair in AB would probably not be the best setup in this case, even if it would have been within the price range (this is the setup I usually use at school). The price range is $500-1500 for the mics, depending on the outcome of the board meeting later this month.

It seems that cardioids would be the safest choice in this situation. The ones I have looked at so far are the Beyer MC930, the AKG 391 and the Rode NT5. Would any of these be suitable or would a LDC or an pair of omni's be more suitable after all? And how would you place them?

To make the recording process as easy as possible I am suggesting a Marantz CDR310 or CDR420 (again depending on the financial possibilities). I know that they don't have the cleanest preamps so I am hoping Busman is willing to modify them. I would rather not mess with a separate preamp as every extra link in the chain increases the chances of someone messing up.

Any suggestions regarding the mics would be greatly appreciated.

My apologies if this has been discussed before, but I could not find much regarding the recording of live classical chamber music.

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions you might have.

-Jonathan

 

[dgatwood]

You really want to be in fairly close when miking a small, intimate ensemble even in a good room. There's nothing you can do about the room acoustics, but at least by miking it fairly close, you limit how much of that shows up in the output, and with a small group, that's doubly important.

Ideally? Shure VP88 hung from the ceiling about eight feet above the ground and maybe five or six feet in front of the frontmost performer, angled downwards towards the center of the semicircle of performers. Record in M-S mode and do the decoding afterwards so you don't have to worry about how wide to set the pickup.

Failing that, substitute a pair of cardioid mics in an X/Y stereo configuration at about the same spot. Set the angle pretty wide, but make sure that none of the mics are pointing precisely at any performer. Try to make everyone equally off axis.

If you can't hang mics from the ceiling, try putting one on a really short stand---say two feet off the floor at the same distance from front to back. If the room is taller than ten feet, raise it an additional foot for every two or three feet of height to avoid getting too much bass emphasis. If you can, try getting them to to a sound check and moving the mic closer and farther away, saying in words the approximate distance, then go back and listen and put it where it sounded best.