Not so much a question of how to mic the instrument as it is a question of how to route the cable from the violin mic so it doesn't interfere with the violinist. And of course between pieces he'll lower the violin so what I'm thinking would be to just let the cable hang down and loop up to the belt clip XLR adapter. We're not concerned about trying to hide the mic or cable.

My wife will be on piano and they'll be doing the Beethoven "Spring" sonata and the Mozart e minor K 304 as well as a few lighter pieces.

Why do you need to attach the mic onto violin? For live PA?
For this lovely piece, if played in an acceptable acoustic venue, any stereo technique will be better than close up miking from my preference.
My 2 cents.

Jim, nice program .. sounds like it's going to be live 'lowering the violin between pieces'

If so I'd instruct him to watch the mic cable doesn't interfere with his playing by putting it back over his shoulder as he assumes the position each time. What mic is it? A stereo rig won't work?

Cheers.

A violin recorded with a close mic technique needs careful eq and treatment to make it sound 'correct' - I'm 100% with Antony - a recital needs ambient recording techiques, with x/y or m/s to suit your taste. Not an on camera mic - a static, correctly set up pair (or one-piece)

When filming a recital,I place a stereo digital audio recorder, the Zoom H4N, on a mic stand only a few feet from the performers. When I'm done with editing the muticam footage from the cameras, which are usually up in a balcony, I sync up the audio tracks from the H4N on the timeline with the waveforms from shotgun mics on the cameras. Once I'm satisfied that the audio tracks are actually in sync, I delete all the other tracks except for the track from the H4N. (Except for sometimes keeping the applause the camera mics have picked up.)

The Zoom H4N has made doing recitals much simpler for me. I'm not a sound engineer. It gives a quality recording at a budget price.

I agree...close miking, especially a good violin will not yield good results unless you know what you're doing. And even then, for classical, it's not going to sound right. Rock & roll...perfect with delay and reverb. Much better to have a good stereo pair and position it so it gets the proper balance of piano to violin. As if it's the ultimate audience seat in the house.
I've been a recording engineer for close to 21 years now and I have worked with Decca Records and Dorian recordings which are two of the best in the biz. Can't tell you how many live concerts I've done. If you have to get a mic close to the violin for PA, put it on a large boom stand about 2-3 feet above the violin and mark a spot on the floor. you'll be much happier with the sound and it won't hinder the artist.

What mic(s) do you plan on using?


Nicole

Well, I normally prefer an ambient M/S arrangement, (Allan and I have had this discussion several times!) but in this case I'm planning to do both - an ambient M/S (or MAYBE X-Y) setup as well as close mic on both piano and violin. I'm really suspicious of the acoustic environment so am thinking of a belt and supenders approach.

In fact I know the environment is sub-optimal and there are some known resonance issues around the F at the top of the treble cleff. It's a boxy room with a tile floor (carpeted in the vicinity of the piano, but still tile underneath) and I'm hoping that when we get a bunch of people in the room it will help and all will be well with the ambient recording BUT just in case...

And I am also thinking about using a boom mic on the violinist

not a bad idea to have both close and stereo pair. Have you tried the ORTF method for the stereo pair? I liked it better than XY or M/S. Here's how to do it...
ORTF stereo technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORTF_stereo_technique)

And if you can keep all the mics on their own tracks to mix later, even better. When I did stuff with Decca, we used almost 40 mics throughout an orchestra BUT the main stereo pair was the primary thing heard. The close mics were used only if necessary to enhance dynamics.

Another trick from my days of classical recording...get a bunch of movers blankets to place around the room to simulate an audience. We literally just covered all the seats in a theater which provided enough damping to help tune the room.

Hey Robert - I think we're on the same wavelength - I was just debating going over to the moving store and getting a bunch of blankets to toss around to simulate the audience (although hopefully the real audience will applaud more than the blankets.)

For one rehearsal they're going to invite some of their students and use the rehearsal as a teaching exercise as well, so we'll have a few mobile sound absorbers/people plus a few blankets and we should be in good shape.

Yes, of course I will put the close mics and main stereo pair all on separate tracks and hopefully just use the close mics as "emphasis" when and where necessary.Hopefully not necessary at all!

I know about ORTF and it's first cousin NOS but haven't actually used them. I was sort of thinking that they might give a "larger" stereo image, rather more suited to a bigger group, but since I have a couple of rehearsals to try things I might as well give ORTF a shot as well.

If I wind up putting a mic on the violin itself I was thinking of using a DPA 4061 - any thoughts pro/con? Main pair (and close mic on violin if we use a stand mic) will be Schoeps but I haven't 100% settled on the capsules yet. Again - I'll try several.

I'm thinking to record the main pair to a Sound Devices 702 and everything to a MacBook through a Mackie firewire interface.

My biggest concern is room acoustics. If things work out well, the close mics won't be necessary, but if the room is messing things up too much I may be glad I have them.

I used a DPA 4061 for micing a violin with excellent results.
I have a DPA kit which includes fixing brackets to attach the mic to the violin.
The wire to the mic wasn't a problem.
The mic is designed for recording musical instruments.

can't go wrong with the Schoeps. The DPA will probably work fine but as I mentioned, you'll end up with more of a "pickup" type sound rather than the natural tone. The advantage to it will be no change in the sound when the player moves. The last album I recorded with violin, I used a U87 about 5 feet away. There's so much projection and thus presence, you'd swear he's playing right in front of your face. This was in a studio environment and was multitracked which is quite different from a live show.
Sounds like you have a good plan though...let us know how it goes!
Ah..one last tip...if you do deaden the room down too much, whether by accident or on purpose, you can always add the ambience back in post. We had to use this trick on a Dorian records small ensemble. There's plenty of good reverb/room simulator plugins for DAWs these days!

When filming a recital,I place a stereo digital audio recorder, the Zoom H4N, on a mic stand only a few feet from the performers. When I'm done with editing the muticam footage from the cameras, which are usually up in a balcony, I sync up the audio tracks from the H4N on the timeline with the waveforms from shotgun mics on the cameras. Once I'm satisfied that the audio tracks are actually in sync, I delete all the other tracks except for the track from the H4N. (Except for sometimes keeping the applause the camera mics have picked up.)

The Zoom H4N has made doing recitals much simpler for me. I'm not a sound engineer. It gives a quality recording at a budget price.

Hi Roger,

At what angle (90°-120°) do you adjust the Zoom H4n's stereo microphones when you place it a few feet away from the performers?

Thanks.

Hi Richard

Yeah, the DPA attachment is quite clever in that the little triangular clip attaches to the strings below the bridge and you can flip it over so the mic is really close to the violin body or a few inches away (above the strings) I think because it's relatively soft and not directly attached to the soundboard a lot of resonant coupling between mic and soundboard is eliminated.

Which way did you orient it?

Robert

Thanks much for the comments. I know exactly what you mean - I always think, particularly for classical pieces, that a reasonable amount of air between the instrument and the mic is your friend. It lets the sound from different points on the instrument blend into a a single sound. I've done a few demo discs for a classical guitarist and I think you need to be a few feet away from the instrument if you want the recording to resemble what you really hear.

I play tuba and the instrument is so large that the player at least can hear different notes emitting form different locations on the horn. Getting in too close would be deadly IMHO. Less of a problem with the smaller instruments, though.

On the other hand air space lets the room and other instruments exert more influence - and sometimes it's a bad influence. Balance, balance, balance - listen, listen, listen I guess.

I had a cousin who was a cellist with the Philadelphia Orchestra and I listened up close to a lot of practice and without air between you and the cello a lot of the sweetness disappeared.

Jim
I think it was on top. But it was 18 months ago now and I honestly can't say for sure.

Thanka for trying to remember. I would think that it would sound less "pickupy" on top.

I should probably add that the recording I was making wasn't live to-camera. I used it as part of the soundtrack.
The remarks that have been made about micing off the instrument to give more presence make sense.
However DPA state the Yo Yo Ma uses the 4061 on his Cello so if it works for him .....
Will be very interested to learn how you get on Jim. Not an easy decision to make!

I was playing around with mic placement today while Yukie was practicing and doodling with a couple of pieces she's thinking of as encores. I'll get a first run through with the violin tomorrow.

A couple of mic placements sounded really BAD - muddy, boomy, etc.

But I think this one sounded reasonably good - opinions/comments welcome.

This was a Schoeps Omni MK 2/Figure 8 M/S about 7 feet from the piano (Bechstein model A grand with lid closed) recorded into SD 302 -> SD 702 @ 96kb 24 bit

http://www.j-e-andrada.com/End.mp3

Jim did you run it with the lid open? Didn't sound M/S to me which is not to say it didn't sound good. The hall was vacant I take it.

I can hear the violin sitting further forward in front of that sound. Is that how you intend it?
Cheers.

Yes, the violin will be a bit in front. And the room was empty except for Yukie and ME (and at 300 pounds plus I think I qualify as an expert sound dampener if nothing else).
I would have tried to open the lid if there hadn't been so much stuff on top of the piano!

I think there are spots where the room resonance shows up a bit, but overall it wasn't as much of an issue as I thought it might be.

I finally got around to putting the files from the February concert online

All things considered I don't think it came out all that badly.

I wound up not putting a mic on the violinist as he just wasn't comfortable with it. I did however have one inside the piano, but in the end I just went with the main pair.

We played around with the piano lid quite a bit duing rehearsal - even on short stick the piano was a bit too much, so we improvised a support and had the lid open about 4 inches.

There were about 35 - 40 folks in attendance which pretty well filled the available space.

http://public.me.com/jimandrada

I finally got around to putting the files from the February concert online.

MobileMe (http://public.me.com/jimandrada)

Interesting, and thanks for putting that up. That's really quite good. Would that I could do so well.

It sounds a little tight and crunchy to me, but this is what I normally hear with classical music MP3s. Much more the MP3 codec than your source.

For my taste there's too much separation between the two instruments. It almost sounds as if they were recorded separately and mixed together. Doesn't make sense to me, but that's what I'm hearing. Is it real or is it just me? If it's real, is this a choice on your part? Is it due to mic setup (and what setup did you use)? IDK. But I'd like to hear what you have to say on it. I'd love to learn more.

About 2:20 into the first Mozart clip something happened. I can't figure out from the sound what that was. Was that something the violinist did maybe?

HI Bruce

Thanks for taking a listen

Re "tight and crunchy" - I think it is more the mp3 than the recording as it has sounded much better on a CD when played through good speakers.

Re 2:20 into the Mozart - I'll have another listen. There were a lot of problems early into the piece - so much coughing and sneezing that I thought we were having an outbreak of Swine Flu:<). May be an artifact remaining - thanks for the good ears. Maybe next time we'll start with The Star Spangled Banner or something to let the audience settle in.

Re separation of violin and piano - yes, that was a conscious decision - whether it was musically a good decision or not or was a bit overdone would be a great subject for discussion. Our initial concept was that these pieces represented a dialogue between two instruments (particularly in the 3rd movement of the Beethoven where the piano and violin are intentionally just a hair apart from each other with the same basic pattern - so much so that before the piece the violinist told the audience that it might sound like they were off but to relax it was how Beethoven had intended it!) and also thanks (?) to room acoustics, it was really easy for the violin to get lost with the piano "behind" it. Balancing the piano with the violin - probably took more time than anything else and still not 100% sure we got it right. As the title of this thread suggests, my initial thought was to add a separate violin mic to let me make minor tweaks to balance, but the violinist didn't want to use it.

Re tech stuff, main pair was a Schoeps M/S config with figure 8 and omni (direct sound field version) into a Sound Devices 302 into an SD 702. There was a DPA mic on the underside of the piano lid as well. The DPA mic and the AES output of the 702 were run into a Mackie Onyx Firewire interface and then into Cubase 5 on a MacBook Pro.

Mics were positioned about 8 feet up and a couple of feet beyond the small end of the piano and aimed pretty much at the right end of the keyboard trying to split the difference between violin and piano for separation.

The "hall" was actually our living room which is a rather strange shape (another reason for the off center mic placement - the sound seemed better with this placement independent of balance/separation concerns). Room has 12 foot ceilings and was big enough to accommodate 35 seated folks plus me and a couple of other standees - maybe 40 in total plus two grand pianos and a violinist and pianist and page turner. It was sort of like coach seating on a budget airline but everyone was happy particularly as we served snacks etc after the concert. My wife's overall concept is that chamber music should be in an environment where the audience and the performers are up close and personal and not in a typical hall setup where all you see are white shirts a mile away.

I'll post a photo of the room also as it shows the whole setup as of the evening before the big show..

Thanks again for the comments - it's the reason I post these things so I can also learn from the comments.

As a chamber musician myself & my wife a violin teacher, I was interested in listening to your efforts. However, when I tried to download & play your files it indicated that it needed a password ?? - Can you please enlighten me.

When I record this type of performance I use a simple cardioid crossed pair on a stand in front of the group, and with just a little experimentation re distance & angle etc., I usually get a pretty good result with little fuss.

Where possible I use a pair of AKG 451's and at a bit less than 90 deg. Stereo effect is noticable but not overly wide with excellent phase.

When I travel overseas, I take a miniature crossed pair I made, consisting of modified electret capsules all mounted inside a little foam windsock. - Not very rugged, but extremely portable and very effective compared with on-camera mics.

RonC.

Hi Ron

Wow - shouldn't need a password as it's supposed to be a non-protected public folder

As I said, first time to use the Apple site for this kind of thing

I'm an amateur musician myself (tuba in a British type Brass Band) and my wife was a performing classical pianist long ago in Japan (where we met) She ran a small rehearsal space cum hall and used to organize chamber performances with great regularity - we also had a very large apartment in Tokyo where we put on small chamber music performances, and now she's doing it again! I'd really like you to take a listen and comment and if I can't figure out the internet issue I'd be happy to send you a CD.

I do all the recording for our band and use the M/S setup usually placed almost over the conductor's head and so far have been happy with it although an X-Y pair would also work just fine as you point out. My thinking re the M/S setup was that I could have a single figure 8 and then a variety of other single cartridges that I could use depending on the conditions.

Re the funny noise at 2'20" - at first I thought it was from the violin strings because there are a couple of other funny noises (a kind of not-enough-rosin-on the-bow-noise at about 0'26" -0'28") but I can't see a violinist of that calibre having such basic bowing problems. Might it be caused by movement from the players or audience causing an item of clothing or even a cable to move making a kind of scraping noise? Hard to tell exactly without having seen the performance. There's a different sort of noise at about 0'31" and another scraping noise about 1'50" which covers appears to cover up a note from the violin at the cadence.

I've isolated the ones at 2'20" and 1'50" as QuickTime mov files

Colin - thanks

I've checked them and you're absolutely right - how I could have missed them in all the times I've listened to this is beyond me. Something about too much familiarity, maybe? Also remembering what it really sounded like!

I think the first one was audience rustle and the second - maybe me being a bit heavy handed in cleaning out a sneeze.I'll crank up Izotope again and have a look. The mics were mounted on an overhead bar and the cables were all routed down the side of the room along the baseboard and then gaffer taped in place so I'm pretty sure it wasn't cable related.

Hello again Ron

So far I've tried two different computers and four different browsers and none of them asked for a password.

I'm off to check it out on another system

Make that FIVE browsers.

I think I found the problem with the Mozart - I originally uploaded a different file than I intended. As you can imagine I had lots of takes of the same piece.

Hi Jim, sorry a bit slow to respond, - have had connection problems. I listened OK to the files that Colin provided & had no trouble listening to them. The noises just sound like audience noises as you said. I don't think they are anything to do with the equipment.

RonC.