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DVD-Audiobahn New DVD-Audio music releases and talk about the latest players. |
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In Reply to: Re: FYI: All RCA Living Stereo Classical recordings use either 2 or 3 microphones. posted by Kal Rubinson on December 1, 2005 at 09:20:34:
. . . and found an interview with Jack Pfeiffer (who certainly ought to have known what RCA was doing with the LS recordings!). The excerpts I'm printing below suggest (at least to me) that if indeed RCA was using more than one microphone per channel, it was probably in connection with concerto recordings:"How did those first stereo recordings turn out to be "fantastic"?"
Out of sheer ignorance. I had only used a couple of microphones - literally, one for each track. I set up two in front of the Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall in Chicago. And the clarity and definition that we got - of course, a lot of it had to do with the acoustics of the hall, the quality of the musicians, Reiner's balances, and so forth - were so dramatic. It was completely different from anything we had ever heard before. I set up listening sessions down on 24th Street and grabbed anyone who was around to come in and hear this fabulous sound. I remember getting some of the RCA executives to listen. They were all enormously impressed.
I think the early stereo experiment proved the point, that the fewer microphones you have, the more likely you are to get a really first-class recording. Microphones are stupid. They pick up everything that comes their way. So the more mikes you have, the more phase differences you get, plus you pick up all the reflections from the acoustical environment. It all adds up to a mess. I've always tried to limit the number of microphones.
"Still?"
Yes. Of course, there are certain advantages in multi-miking. You have only a limited amount of time in a recording session to get a good performance; in a live situation you only have one chance. You use all the insurance you can get - you put up a lot of microphones so you can try out various combinations later on [in the mix] rather than during the session, when costs are enormous. I've always felt that multi-miking gave a satisfactory result, but not the best result - not as good as just two microphones.
"Did the progression of stereo machines from two tracks to three alter your miking philosophy?"
Somewhat. In '54, Ampex came out with a machine that recorded three discrete tracks. That seemed practical, because very often you had a soloist, whom you wanted to isolate from the rest of the orchestra - so you could record the orchestra on two tracks and the soloist on the third.
"But you were still thinking one mike per track?"
Yes, although then we began to think that sometimes the center of the orchestra, which was behind the soloist, sounded a bit subdued - that it wasn't being picked up properly. So we thought, let's put a couple of mikes up for the woodwinds, just to have a little more control. And then, well, maybe we don't hear the percussion quite enough. Eventually it just got out of hand.
(The whole interview is at the link below.)
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Follow Ups
- Just did a little bit of Google searching. . . - Chris from Lafayette 22:34:25 12/07/05 (0)
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