Recording Traditional Irish Music/acoustic instruments

[k bucks]

Hello there,

I am a professional musician who dabbles in recording. Currently, I am attempting to record myself and some other Irish trad players in order to assemble some sort of demo (if it sounds bad) or album (if it sounds good). All the instruments are acoustic, ulliean pipes, fiddles, harps, etc. and we're going for a pure, relatively clean sound. Although, I don't think it has to be pristine, since my favorite traditional recordings from the 70's have a bit of grit, not quite field recordings, but impromtu. I've got cool edit pro, a TSR-8, alesis studio 24, some oktavas and shures, and some pretty crappy preamps/effects.

My half-assed plan was to simply mic everything up, get my hands on a decent preamp (perhaps treat myself to one of those 4 channel Syteks yokes), go straight to tape, then mix to the computer.

I guess I am asking if compression and/or other types of processing are necessary when recording raw acoustic instruments, especially a small group.
It would be nice to keeps things very simple, the emphasis being on the performances and arrangements, although I understand a bad recording can negate those virtues. Advice of any kind would be greatly appreciated. thanks a bunch.

 

[mshilarious]

I guess I am asking if compression and/or other types of processing are necessary when recording raw acoustic instruments, especially a small group.
It would be nice to keeps things very simple, the emphasis being on the performances and arrangements, although I understand a bad recording can negate those virtues. Advice of any kind would be greatly appreciated. thanks a bunch.

A few different ways to do this:

Set up a stereo pair of mics (there's a few different techniques for this) and let everybody rip. This has the best organic sound, and if you can get a great cut, sounds awesome. You'll need a good sounding room too. If the players have their parts down, I think this will be the technique you'll prefer. Ask for mic recommendations; I'm currently shopping for a pair of ribbon mics to do a M-S setup for this exact purpose, but there are other choices too. Consider adding a spot mic for bodhran.

Next approach is to track one-at-a-time. The sound is different, so are the techniques. Search for other threads on acoustic guitar, violin. I treat bodhran like a kick drum, although it's interesting to mic the front if there's a lot of intricate stickwork--I like the scraping of the skin.

I have a set of pipes but I've never recorded them. Knowing that they are very loud, I'd learn towards a good dynamic mic. Harp I like a stereo pair of SDCs.

Question would be what instrument drives the music--is this a fiddle group, harp, or does everybody take a turn? That will affect how you produce it.

 

[k bucks]

thanks for the ideas,

There's no rush, so i'll probably try all those methods....i'm bound to have more questions for you at some point.

 

[boingoman]

A few different ways to do this:

Set up a stereo pair of mics (there's a few different techniques for this) and let everybody rip. This has the best organic sound, and if you can get a great cut, sounds awesome. You'll need a good sounding room too. If the players have their parts down, I think this will be the technique you'll prefer. Ask for mic recommendations; I'm currently shopping for a pair of ribbon mics to do a M-S setup for this exact purpose, but there are other choices too. Consider adding a spot mic for bodhran.


Question would be what instrument drives the music--is this a fiddle group, harp, or does everybody take a turn? That will affect how you produce it.

This is a classic bluegrass recording technique, also used with an omni mic (in a good sounding room). everyone stands around the mic & if you take a solo, take a step forward. Takes some time to get used to it, but it sounds great.

 

[petimar]

I record Bluegrass using the Sytek and John Hardy pre. If you record one instrument at a time, use a ribbon mic for the fiddle. The Syteks are good for this as they are high gain and clean.

For mandolins, use a clean mic (my fav is the Shure KSM44). For dreadnaught style acoustic guitar, try clean small diaphram mics (my fav on a Martin D18 is a Neuman KM84).

Best of luck. Let us know your results.

 

[fabkebab1]

We did some studio recordings of irish/scottish music with an experienced acoustic sound engineer-

Our line-up was:

Bohdran
Guitar
Mandolin
Fiddle
Whistle or Flute
Singing (solo or group)



He ran things as follows :


We recorded all the basic tracks with the main music instruments simultaneously
(Guitar
Mandolin
Fiddle
Whistle or Flute)
playing along for the live sound. Each one of us was mic'ed seperately, which might not be possible for your stuff if you have a smaller studio setup, but we were all in the same room so we could play "live" as we felt comfortable.

The bohdran was recorded on a seperate mic afterwards, with the poor guy sitting there all on his own , as its sounded was so loud it was bleeding onto all the other mics when we tried to record simultaneously. I imagine you would have to do something similar with the irish pipes- especially as i suspect they would be your "foremost" instrument (mind you our whistle didnt bleed to badly)

Last bit was adding the singing - either a big group of us singing into a single microphone, or a solo singer (of sorts... it was me)

At this point we did the arranging and mixing.

I am sorry if this doesnt really answer your question about effects/compression - I am pretty sure that the sound guy recorded clean and then fiddled with it afterwards.

You can hear examples of how all this came out in the second link in my sig

Based on this experience, I tried to record the band on a home-recording studio, and mixed it all myself. We didnt have the drummer so we just did the whole thing live (no singing either)

This tune can be heard on the same site "Strip the willow Ceilidh set" (its an orcadian variant)


good luck with it