Orchestral Recording Session

[Ermz]

Hey guys,

It'd be mighty helpful if any of you could link me to some articles written about orchestral recording and/or some session documents which detail what was done on particular releases.

I'm most interested in modern music/film based sessions where every orchestra section has its own set of mics, and learning how that was done.

Standard classical recordings with the decca tree/ORTF/whatever methods are still welcome though!

Thanks a heap in advance.

 

[Nebulous]

When you get your techniques down, I'll bring my Folk band in and we can try some of them out to get one of those oldschool sounding "can barely hear the bass and vocals" folk recordings going. Deal?

 

[LSD-Studio]

Did some Orchestral stuff, bigbands etc...
no need to be scared, nothing special, just keep some "anti-phasing-rules" in mind (like 1:3 rule) and you can work pretty intuitively (does that word exist?) just with with 1 (or more) set(s) of stereo mic-pairs and some aditional mics for the sections.

keep in mind the goal is pretty much to capture the sound as it is in the listeners position and the additional group-mics are just to get the balance right, no need for any forther editing, compressing etc.

just use a great room, great mics and great musicians and you should get a killer-recording pretty fast without too much post-production-work

 

[Ermz]

When you get your techniques down, I'll bring my Folk band in and we can try some of them out to get one of those oldschool sounding "can barely hear the bass and vocals" folk recordings going. Deal?

I can proudly say that I have never listened to any folk through my monitors, so I have absolutely no idea how those old recordings sound.

@LSD: Thanks, I appreciate the input. More than anything I'd just like to read about some sessions where certain stereo mic techniques were used and why... for instance Sound on Sound had a shootout of different techniques. Spaced Pair vs ORTF vs XY vs Midside vs added LDCs to double bass group etc.

I'd just like to familiarize myself with the differences between them, and also what mics are commonly used for the groups, how they are placed.. whether they are commonly stereo pairs of single mics etc.

 

[LSD-Studio]

sorry, no articles...

used to teach that topic a McNallySmithCollege (stereo-micing etc), so all I can say there is not one general way, it's always really depending on the room-situation and what you want to achieve.

Don't think there's a need for stereo-micing sections (cept for intruments like piano etc perhaps but even there it's not really that important in a huge orchestra situation) for a start I would use a combination of 3 stereo-pairs (widely spaced pair in front, XY or other coincident-pair in front, stereo-pair above the orchestra and single condensors on the sections (usually no need to use stereo since the mic is just to raise them a bit if they're too low in volume (shouldn't be a problem with a proper room and musicians-placement though)...just pan the single mic like it's placed in the stereo-image of course...usually you shouldn't really need it at all, thats how the operahouses etc are designed, it's meant to deliver a balanced sound in audience-position).

I know, you wanted something to read...can't find anything yet (have like 20 books here though.....but nothing online)

 

[Ermz]

Great LSD, cheers for that. Those stereo pairs you talk about, is there a rough distance away from the orchestra that you'd put them? I've heard about XY pairs being put essentially above the conductor's head, and spaced pairs about the same distance but spaced out further of course.

With the section mics... how far would you normally think of putting them, and how would they face? Just straight at the middle of the section, about 1m above ground or so?

 

[LSD-Studio]

like you said.
above conductor's head is a good position for the coincident or almost coincident (ORTF) pair I'd prefer XY in that positions cause it's 100% mono-compatibility, have never tried M/S for stuff like that (love it for acoustic guitars though)

for spaced pair keep in mind that the distance between the mics should be at least 3 times the distance between mic and soundsource to avoid phase-issues.

you might wanna put the section-mics above the section, not between the musicians....should give you a more natural sound and glue together better (room included).

good read:

http://www.discmakers.com/music/pse/stringso.asp

 

[Ermz]

Thanks man, that helps a lot!

 

[Ermz]

Hey LSD, I just read that Swedien article and figured I'd shoot some more questions your way if you'd care to answer.

He mentions using the stereo pair covering the whole orchestra in non-cardioid patterns. Would you say figure 8 or omni is more effective? I've never used an XY pair in anything other than a cardioid pattern.

With the section mics... those would be cardioid, pointing downwards from above the section, yeah?

 

[LSD-Studio]

would use omni on the spaced pair and cardioid on the XY.
(8 on XY would be pretty blumlein).


spaced pair works with runtime-differences, XY with differences of intensity to create the stereo-localization, using O on XY wouldn't do anything cause you wouldn't have directional pickup-patterns and so no localization in the stereo-field.

for group-mics you can chose whatever you want/have I prefered Cardioid.