Ecuadorian Guitar

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 20:29:08 -0500

Crown boundary microphones are pretty well known. The most prominent is probably the Crown PZM. However, there is another boundary mic by Crown... the PCC. It is less omnidirectional, better protected from a 200 pound foot stomp, and in a lot of ways a little less flexible. But boy does it rock on nylon-string guitar.

A pair of these on the floor a few feet away sounds like this:

Compare to a much more expensive pair of Neumann KM 184s several more feet out and up on a stand:

Then try blending them together:

Shades of Wind Band

Thu, 3 Nov 2011 16:44:08 -0500

The Wind Ensemble is a large group that spans at least 35 feet from left to right. I like to record this ensemble with two omni mics on the wings about 10 feet to either side of center. Right in the middle, between the two omni mics, I use a ribbon mic which comes in only one pattern: figure 8. The ribbon mic stays panned right up the middle and the other mics are panned hard left and right.

I also like to use a little artificial reverb, because the auditorium in which the Wind Ensemble performs doesn’t have a sufficient reverb length for my taste.

I usually finish the mix off with a little exciter across all the lower bands to warm things up. Here are the elements as they take shape:

The first file is the raw audio from only the left and right omni mics.

This file adds in the center ribbon mic, pretty subtle on a quiet section but significant nonetheless.

Now the artificial ambience comes in.

Then the mastering (exciter, loudness).

Here’s a louder excerpt to demonstrate the left and right mics only....

And then with the addition of the center mic.

If you have a speaker set up with at least a little bit of distance between the left and right speakers, one of the things you’ll notice about the addition of the center mic is that the “hole” in the middle of the stereo image is filled. There is also a better representation of all the instruments in the center of the ensemble. The ribbon mic is a warm, natural-sounding mic with less of an emphasis on the high frequencies than many other types of recording microphones. This makes it a great option for a center mic, as it helps to center the bottom end in the middle of the mix where it sounds most powerful.

The artificial ambience adds the perception of more physical distance between the mics and the performers. It softens the sound a bit, warms it up a bit, makes it wider and generally bigger-sounding. And it provides that detailed reverb tail that characterizes the best concert halls. Adding just enough usually requires a fairly conservative ratio of somewhere between 5-15% wet and 85-95% dry.

The last bit of mastering punches up the overall volume level so everything is closer to digital zero, and the harmonic exciter adds harmonics to specific bands to sweeten the sound.

On the last two examples listen specifically to the difference in the percussion at the end of the excerpt. Big bottom drums from the ribbon mic!

It’s all fairly subtle by itself, but hopefully the sum of all the little treatments ends up making a big impact.

Which do you prefer?

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:32:08 -0500

There are two primary ways to record art music. One is with a stereo pair of mics placed at a distance which captures both a desirable amount of direct sound and a desirable amount of ambient (or echo) sound. Another way is to close mic sources, record them all to their own discreet tracks (multi-track) and balance (mix) them over speakers back in the studio adding artificial ambience as needed.

In the first example the stereo pair is right up against the stage, which is very close for “room” mics. But because the room is a small recital hall, there are still a lot of early reflections that cause sonic ambiguity to set in very quickly. In fact, the critical distance of the room is only about 5-6 feet. This means that any microphone positioned at a distance greater than that will have more reflective sound present than direct sound. In this case, a stereo pair literally cannot be close enough to both a soloist AND an accompanying piano to achieve a good blend for both. At least, not in a live concert setting. Further, the stereo pair would need to be so close that it would basically appear to be a close mic pair - something that can be distracting for some performers and audiences. In this case, if the room were significantly larger, the balance would be easier to strike with one stereo pair.

In the second example there are two microphones a foot or so over the strings of the accompanying piano. The soloist has her back turned to the hall and is facing the piano, so her microphone is rejecting the piano sound (and the piano mics are rejecting her). The soloist is about 2-3 feet from her mic. The ambience is added via an artificial sample of a larger concert hall.

It is the same song, same soloist, same room... different recording technique and production.

Clearly the soloist cannot perform a live concert with her back to the audience, but even a normal stage setup can utilize close mics (minus the extra isolation that comes from pointing mics opposite each other) and keep most of the benefits.

If you are listening over small laptop speakers, you may have a harder time hearing the ambiguity in the first example. If you have good headphones and/or larger speakers it should be more obvious. The true purist may still prefer the room mics, because of the natural damping effect distance has on the voice. Others may prefer the close mic’d sound of example #2 because of the clarity and detail in both the voice and piano. Which do you like?

Country Art Music?

Thu, 4 Aug 2011 14:52:21 -0500

Okay, so it isn’t art music, per se. This is Nashville singer/songwriter Jason Lee McKinney and his new tune “I Don’t Do Lonely Well.” The vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, and upright bass were all tracked with me, using the M-Audio Sputnik tube mics (stereo A/B on the Martin D-35) going into an Apogee Duet audio interface. The fiddle (because it’s not a violin if you’re playing country or bluegrass) was tracked with a Cascade Fat Head II ribbon mic. The kick was a sample, and the dobro and accordion were recorded in Nashville and then sent my way for mixing. I’m not sure this is going to be the final mix, but it’s close.

Roberto Mancusi, bass-baritone

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:40:30 -0500

Here’s a sample of a preliminary mix from this summer’s recording session with bass-baritone Roberto Mancusi. The primary philosophies functioning here are: 1) have the soloist face the piano and use the directional properties of the microphones to aid in the sound isolation for both the piano and the voice, 2) deaden the natural ambience of the hall by using the microphones in fairly close proximity to the sources and place extra sound absorption (gobos) in key locations, 3) use sampled ambience to give space to the individual tracks in a very controlled manner.

I used M-Audio Sputnik tube condenser mics in the cardioid pattern for all sources; two on the piano and one on the voice. The mics ran into 3 channels of Millennia HV-3D pre-amplification, into the Apogee Ensemble for conversion to Logic Studio. Audioease’s Altiverb was the choice of reverb plugin and Izotope’s Ozone was used for loudness maximizing and gentle EQ on the stereo output.

PHOTO GALLERY

PHOTO GALLERY

PHOTO GALLERY

Choir

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 13:41:09 -0500

This audio comes from one solitary pair of Neumann KM-184s about 18 inches apart in a “wide” A/B configuration. Considering the stage depth at which the choir had to perform (to accommodate the orchestra that would be performing with the mass choir afterward), and considering that the Steinway D is on short stick... I’m impressed. These mics have some serious ‘reach’ to them!
The first several seconds of this video give you an idea of the distance between the choir and the microphones - they aren’t even in the frame of the shot! I’m guessing at least 30 feet...

Please enjoy the whole performance, as this piece is public domain!

Wind Ensemble

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:15:42 -0500

For the last several ‘large ensemble’ concerts, Tom and I have been using the cardioid (uni-directional) Neumann KM184s in the spaced A/B configuration. They have usually been spaced at about 1/3 the width of the ensembe (between 6-8 feet), about 20 feet back from the front row of musicians, and about 18 feet in the air.
[A/B means both mics are aimed straight forward; there is no angling involved in generating the stereo image, only the time delay between mic positions.]
The Neumanns do a fine job all by themselves, but in order to help the room sound a bit more friendly to art music, we usually add some artificial ambience via AudioEase’s Altiverb (to simulate something like the Vienna Concert House). But for this concert, I wanted to return to a different technique that I’ve also found to be useful, though a bit more involved.

In the past, we’ve used the textbook approach of placing an ORTF stereo pair a few feet behind the conductor (and WAY up high) along with two omni outriggers (omni mics set at the same distance but spaced 6-8 feet away from the center pair on either side). The middle pair up close really draws out the already impressive detail of which the Neumanns are capable, and with the omni outriggers blended in, the perceived space, dimensionality and warmth is further enhanced.
[ORTF requires the mic capsules to be spaced approximately 17 centimeters apart and angled at approximately 110 degrees. It can be adjusted to taste, of course, and this technique usually results in a much sharper stereo image than the A/B approach.]

This time, rather than using a textbook ORTF behind the conductor, I set up something more like a narrow NOS (almost A/B actually, just widened outward a bit). The idea behind this was to try to help smear the stereo image in the manner of the standard A/B technique we’d been using while still benefitting from the omni outriggers. I was interested to see what the combination of omni outriggers and artificial concert hall ambience would sound like.

Turned out to sound pretty cool. We received our first unsolicited atta-boy from the conductor. Perhaps we’ll set up some distant mics next time and compare the sound of the real hall with the sound of Altiverb.

The audio clip above progresses as follows: at first you will hear only the center pair (Neumanns) all by themselves, several seconds later the omni outriggers will be added in abruptly, then the artificial ambience will come in and out a few times. That last change will be the most difficult to pick out. Impossible if you are listening over laptop speakers! You probably won’t really hear a “reverb tail,” but there will be a greater sense of distance/more room when the artificial ambience is engaged.

Bawn in the Mash Live

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:03:38 -0500

Fall 2010 is here! The semester, that is, not the pleasant temperatures.
This year WKMS asked me to record the kick-off concert in the quad for broadcast. Normally when Lovett Live brings in a show, I have a nifty little quarter-inch style 24-track digital recorder that patches neatly into Lovett’s live sound board. I don’t set up mics or set levels (that’s all on the live sound guy), I just take the individual feeds out of each channel, dump them to the computer later and mix in the studio.
For this outdoor gig the Lovett system must have been deemed too small, so Mason Sound was contracted. But their equipment did not play well with my 24-track. I discovered this well in advance, when I called the guys from Mason several days out to chat about nerdy audio equipment stuff. So while the live sound guys still set up all the mics and set the levels, I had to use two computer interfaces linked via an ADAT optical connection to accommodate the 12 XLR-only outputs they had to offer. In English all that means is that it wasn’t quite as neat, clean and easy as usual.

So about outdoor live bands... among other things, they use really loud monitors in order to hear everyone else on the stage. Those loud monitors are usually pretty close to the microphones into which they are singing. If there are three or four vocal mics left open throughout the concert, you end up with a bunch of extraneous noise muddying up what is supposed to be a fairly clean lead vocal (with occasional harmonies). So as much of a pain as it is, it almost always helps to go through and mute any mic that is not being used. Any time a vocalist is not singing, it’s best to kill the mic. So there is a whole lot of on/off happening for every mic that sees only periodic use throughout the concert.

Aside from that trick, I usually listen to the band’s previous recordings on iTunes. If I can hear how their studio project was mixed (vocals in front or back a bit, guitars hot or not, lots of bass and kick or just a little) I feel like I can get a better idea of how I ought to mix the live show.

And last but not least... if a show is indoors it is usually pretty easy to add some real room ambience to the otherwise sterile-sounding direct feeds from, say, an acoustic guitar’s pickups. But when a show is outdoors, room ambience can sound pretty silly. If any extra ambience is added in this case, it usually makes sense to use the sort of ambience that would be found on a guitar amp (spring or plate reverb) rather than trying to faithfully recreate an indoor room sound.
Quite a few of the bands I’ve recorded for Lovett Live have had what I call a “low-fi” sound as part of their character. As such, they may require less production than a squeaky clean and technically impressive national bluegrass act like Alison Brown. Such was the case here. I appreciate Bawn, and I know that a couple of the guys are actually even better players than you’d think from watching a live show. But for a Phish-meets-The Shack Shakers (with Sam Bush along for the solos) this band is a lot of fun, and I don’t have to freak out about keeping every track sounding like pristine, hi-def audio.

Oh yeah, one more thing. You absolutely cannot use Autotune on a band like this. Even if some vocal line is obviously out of tune, there is too much purposeful pitchy-ness going on to try to fix the accidental pitchy-ness. So you have to live with the honest-to-God naked vocals, in all their glory and shame.

Choir

Fri, 28 May 2010 14:07:12 -0500

There isn’t anything amazing about the technical approach to this concert. It was the choir, so we naturally moved the Neumann KM184 mics back several more feet (into the seats) in order to try to get a blend of voices rather than highlight individual throats. So the set up was: spaced directional mics (probably about 6-8 feet wide) around 30-plus feet from the stage and 18 feet in the air.
What was different about this concert was the program. Bach. He’s awesome, in case you were unaware. But even in a big hall like this, the ambience is just not ideal. Especially for a choral concert. So out came my new reverb toy Altiverb again, this time simulating Mechanics hall in Boston. I might have gone for something more suited to choir specifically, but with the orchestration, I decided a concert hall ambience would be nicer than a church ambience. Fun stuff.

Trumpet and Piano

Fri, 28 May 2010 13:35:15 -0500

So...

I had a baby. Well, my wife did. Child #3 actually, and I’m afraid that adventure sort of brought this semester’s blogging to something of a halt. Sorry about that. On the plus side, I’ve been able to look back over everything that we recorded from early April until now and pick a couple of interesting recitals to highlight some less common approaches. As for the rest of the recitals, well... I think I’m gonna have to let those remain shrouded in mystery and start fresh again next semester. But on, now, to recording the trumpet.

This hall, as you may recall, has a very long reverb tail. It’s so long, it’s actually rather startling. Even with everything mic’d closely, there is still a bit of a subtle, natural tail on this recording (even though 95% of the perceptible ‘verb is provided electronically by Altierb.

I’d been aching to try the ribbon mic out on a trumpet for over 6 months. This was my chance. I placed the Cascade Fat Head II (Lundahl transformer) just off the front of the stage, and low, right where the bell was aiming during the performance. This sort of handicapped the trombone player who was assisting on the recital, but it was (after all) the trumpet player’s senior recital. So I went with making him out to be the star.

My standard close piano mics, the Avenson STO-2 omnis, went on the baby grand just over the strings about 6 inches apart (this hall and stage really can’t accommodate a Steinway D).

By itself everything sounded really dry (with that funny reverb tail going forever in the distant background). Exactly what I wanted, since I was going to simulate the Schubert Hall in Vienna for my ambient needs thanks to Altiverb. I’d known about this plugin for years, but shelling out over $500 for reverb was not something I wanted to do lightly. I had talked myself into believing that the convolution reverb that came with Logic (Space Designer) was probably a close second in quality.
In some ways, it is. But the variety of tones available from so many different churches, concert halls and recording studios is Altiverb’s strength. All those samples (impulse responses, convolutions, whatever you want to call them), provide a huge palate of options, and they are worth every penny.

I was content with the results, especially for a live recording. I felt like the ribbon did a good job of keeping the trumpet sound under control. It was forgiving, which not too many undergrads will complain about. The Avensons did their usual fine job of being flat and natural. As I think about it, these 3 mics represent some of the best bang-for-the-buck mics out there. The Avenons are around $500 for the pair, and the Fat Head is around $300. That’s pretty cheap (compared to our Neumanns) and for this sort of close-miking, I think they are great. At greater distances, the internal noise of these mics can start to be a problem. But up close where the signal is nice and strong, they really shine.