I worry about these kinds of video because if the viewers don’t completely understand the points they are making they start to formulate rules, and often, they’re just guidelines you follow/reject depending on what you are trying to do. French horns are a good example. I can imagine somebody now assuming you should mic from the rear because in the video you hear brightness and clarity from the rear. What they miss is that the thing was invented and developed to be heard from the front, and that bright sound would be always reflected, which also spreads it. In an orchestra they are separated from the rest of the horns because they are used in the music for washes and texture.
you can record an orchestra perfectly well with a pair of SM57s if that’s all you have. What people don’t understand is that orchestras are like a synth patch. Loads of separate parameters that sort of blend into the finished thing. Orchestral musicians are a music factory. Each individually talented and in demand. They also are a team. For some jobs, there will be more or less, but usually they know each other. Union membership in orchestras is much higher than with typical pop musicians. One of my job roles involved stopping the producers costing money. The engineers will suggest maybe adding outriggers to a Decca Tree. The producer lives the idea of the more spacious sound, I on the other hand, start doing the overrun sums. musicians work in 3 hour blocks, so spending 30 minutes rigging the extra mics and the length of the piece might mean they are only up to bar 96 when the magic three hours clocks up, so we’re into overtime, and overtime for an orchestra is NOT calculated by minutes, it’s hours! An extra session for ten minutes playing? It’s the music BUSINESS.
recording orchestras and to be fair, any acoustic instrument always means recording the room. Adding the room is a given, it would be great if the room added niceness, but sometimes it adds nastiness. Bad rooms means artificial reverb and closer mics. Move away from a mic and it changes.
in that video the whole point was to record instruments in a live space with mics in odd positions. It’s education not reality. Note they used A/B which enhances time related differences, maybe to the point the weaker students couldn’t avoid hearing it. Look at the mic positions they chose. They were designed to reveal differences, NOT get the most appropriate sound. The videos are educational, which is not the same as commercial. A/B vs X/Y in a wonderful acoustic space creates very obvious differences so for education that’s what you need. No point being subtle when you are educating, because less trained ears cannot hear it.
a great video but you need to think about what you see and hear. Listen again on headphones, not speakers and you will hear some quite strange things. The very good violin played by a very good player. Listen again and listen for the fingering. The wonderful, sound is largely the room. The fingering is blurred with some of those mic placements. Sounds great on first listen, but watch again with your eyes closed and try to hear the articulation of the phrases. More difficult. I’m not saying bad of course, but ask yourself what exactly are you hearing.