This month I’m
planning a week’s worth of recording for a commercial release of my own
viola-led instrumental music, and I’d appreciate your thoughts on
getting the most of my proposed viola-recording setup. The room is the
inside of a 7x4-metre wooden shed, with lots of rafters to hang quilts
from, and the proposed mic is a Coles 4038 ribbon design, with an SE
Electronics Reflexion Filter behind the mic and two or three quilts
suspended behind the performer.Simon Lyn, via SOS web site
SOS
contributor Mike Senior replies:
Experimentation is likely to be a big
part of finding the sound you’re after, and the space feels like it’s
big enough that you shouldn’t have to put up with any boxiness.
I checked out the files on your site (www.simonlyn.com);
I think you want to try to capture quite a dry and up-front sound for
putting together such intricate and detailed arrangements, so that you
have complete freedom in terms of the ability to synthesize involving
imaginary environments for them at mixdown. However, I’m sure you’re
already well aware that the viola (like any string instrument) often
doesn’t sound that great if you mic it too close; the string buzz and
mechanical noises tend to dominate over the fuller and more resonant
tone of the wood. This makes me think that your instinct of using
a directional mic of some sort in combination with acoustic padding is
eminently sound. That way you can get far enough back from the
instrument to get a balanced impression of all its frequencies, but
without getting too much room sound.
This
frequency dispersion diagram for violin and cello from SOS May 2006
also provides some useful guidelines for recording viola, given the
structural similarity of the instruments.
In that regard, using the Coles (naturally
a figure-of-eight polar pattern by nature of its design) might not be
a bad idea, as you’ll get the same kind of direct/reverb balance out of
that as you would out of a cardioid, but any off-axis pickup will
probably be better behaved tonally. The idea of a Reflexion Filter
behind the mic is also eminently sensible, in that case, to cut down on
rear-arrival sound levels. The Coles will also probably give you
a smoother high end to the sound than a condenser would.
Are
there any possible down sides, though? Well, you might actually want
a bit more forwardness at the high end in your case, to emphasise the
tiny high-frequency nuances and to keep the sounds up front. Also,
you’ll need a good deal of gain to pick up all the internal details of
your softer playing with a ribbon mic even a few feet away, and a lesser
preamp design might not give you that degree of level hike without
unacceptable noise levels. If you’ve got a good preamp, though, then the
ribbon should be plenty quiet! And, speaking of noise, the one
disadvantage of pulling the mic away from the performer is that you may
then be in more danger of obtrusive background noise if the hut you’re
working in isn’t soundproofed or in a reasonably isolated location.
The
rest of the job will just be a question of trying out different miking
positions, and there are some pointers in Hugh Robjohns’ excellent
‘Recording A String Section’ feature back in SOS May 2006, which might
be useful here, especially the dispersion diagram. One other idea to
throw in is that I might actually be tempted to record in stereo,
especially for the lead lines, simply because stereo recordings often
seem more natural and present to me for single string instruments, and
you’ve got more than enough room to accommodate a wider instrument image
given the comparatively sparse textures you create with your
arrangements. Again, though, I’d probably go for directional mics when
specifying a stereo mic rig, rather than using anything involving omnis,
again so that you can keep things nice a dry without having to mic too
close.
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