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In Reply to: Re: Miking techniques on classical DVD-A discs posted by unclestu52 on November 29, 2005 at 11:34:42:
Well the Decca tree seems to use three mikes for stereo. This seem to be still reasonably minimalistic. I am more concerned with lots of spot mikes used by DVD-A companies. AIX uses stereo spot mikes! I find that unusual (and probably unnatural to one's ears too). Wonder if other companies do that.What about the Living Stereo & MLP re-isssues on SACD? Did these have a lot of spot mikes or did they use 2 or 3 mikes?
Follow Ups:
Deccas actually used more than three mikes for most of their recordings, using directional mikes on the tree to pin point on solo passages.
The Mercs SACD are being reissued in their original three channel feed, IIRC, but the RCA's are mixed down. Haven't heard the first three minimal miked recordings, though....
Actually, the Decca tree originally used 3 Neumann M-50 omnidirectional mic's. Any additional miking was done to capture soloists. I have used "Trees" to great effect for recording orchestras, especially for TV.
Some of the RCA Living Stereo Popular and Jazz releases used more than 3 microphones. It is the RCA Living Stereo Classical releases made between 1954-1965 that are being released on SACD. The 2 microphone recordings are released on 2 channel SACDs and the 3 microphone recordings are released on 3 channel SACDs. All the Classical Mercury Living Presense SACDs were made using 3 microphones.
When I visited SoundMirror where the LS transfers to SACDs are being done, I was told explicitely that highlight and other mike streams were subtly mixed into the 2 or 3 channel mastertapes, live at the sessions.
. . . 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.)
. . . that the "other mike streams" your SoundMirror contact was referring to were the ambiance mikes, such as those in the '62 Reiner Also sprach Zarathustra?It's hard to imagine "highlight" mikes being used for the Living Stereo recordings, based on everything else I've read about those recordings. Maybe they were used in a VERY subtle way (?).
Or would the addition of "highlight" mikes have been routine for some, but not all, of the LS recordings?
On my system, I can hear the spotlite mikes clearly. Take a recording like Scheherazade or the Lt Kije, both of which have many solos on various instruments. You'll hear the soloist stand out and when the solo is over the instruments will move back into the orchestral mix. Based on the reviews in TAS, you would think this should not happen, but it is there and you can hear it.
For a more natural approach, the Mercs are still my favorite as the soloists are localized and in proportion to the rest of the ensemble. The drawback is that the Mercs have audible tape hiss and a slightly brighter top end....Unfortunately, nothing is perfect.
Thanks for the post - I'll take my recording of Scheherazade (XRCD - don't have the SACD yet) and give it another listen. (I've only listened to it once - I tend to listen to Fedoseyev on Canyon when I'm in the mood for this work. And Reiner's Lt. Kije has always been under my radar for some reason.)Do you feel all the LS recordings exhibit spotlighting, or just the two you mentioned? Thanks again!
No. On the concerto recordings, the center channel was almost exclusively reserved for the soloist. (Heifetz wouldn't have it any other way.) What I am speaking of is more subtle use of additional mikes mixed in to the main 3 channels at the recording console under the guidance of the recording engineers. No way to separate those out.
Been collecting them for about 25 years and this is the first I heard of accent microphones. About 15 years ago I did read an article in the Absolute Sound that said that unlike Mercury Living Presense, RCA Living Stereo used spot microphones for soloists. Thus the Mercury's are true 3 mic recordings even with concerto recordings.This is the first I ever heard of RCA Living Stereo using extra microphones on non-concerto recordings.
I guess we learn something new everyday.
"The Mercs SACD are being reissued in their original three channel feed, IIRC, but the RCA's are mixed down."AFAIK, the new RCA Living Stereos are based on 3 channel master tapes that WERE mixed down by the original recording team. The guys who prepare the SACD masters are working with only three channels/tracks.
I assumed that the "Golden age of stereo" was due to minimal miking. I seem to be wrong. Then what was unique in that period? Or is that just a marketing lie?
What made those recordings good was dependent on many factors.
One is that they all used tubed electronics: tape decks, mixing consoles, etc. While some will dispute this, and I do admit it is highly subjective, tubes give me a more vivid, up front sound and more dimensionality. That is a primary reason why a lot of vinyl audiophiles still prefer original issue LP's over their modern reissues.
The commonly used mikes were more sensitive than many used today, although it is very true that many of the older mikes are still in service. Neuman U-47's can pick up a whisper at 10 feet away. Still for some reason modern singers prefer to hold a mike up to their lips and then screech away.......PBS once had a showing of the old Nat King Cole programs and it was interesting to see that no microphones were ever in the camera's field of view. Also,it was interesting to see people like Ella singing. When she hit those high notes she would turn her head away from the presumed microphone location so as not to overload them. Nice example of man working with the technology, knowing their limitations....
The musician's union was weaker and the conductors had almost dictatorial power. Try reading the liner notes for the RCA Scheherazade. It states the recording session started in the morning and did not finish till the evening. Today, after two hours, the orchestra goes into double time pay. No recording company today wants to pay those rates! They would rather multimike and splice to make a perfect recording instead of rehearsing to perfection. Bear in mind that even in the old days splicing was done, but not to the extent that some modern recordings will go through. I've heard of one modern recording session where the orchestra had to stop every 10 measures because the soloist's emotional state wouldn't permit her to play any longer.....
Tube sound could be one factor, but once the tube sound is IN the recording, would it not remain there, even in today's SACDs?You have a good point in mike distances. It's so unnatural to hear a person sing with the mike next to their lips. Possibly that generation of engineers being more exposed to natural, un-miked sounds reproduced the same in their recordings. Now most people are more exposed to miked sounds than un-miked. Maybe thats why recordings are getting more and more unnatural and compressed. Electronic sound re-enforcement is so common in meetings even if the group size is small! Lot of modern music does not work without amplification. Our ears are forgetting what pure sound & voice sounds like :-( This will probably get worse as lo-rez MP3s & cell phones proliferate. Reporters of our local radio stations often call the stations with their cell phones with the latest live news or do interviews with a MP3 recorder using the inbuilt mike. This usually sounds so distorted and unnatural that often I HAVE TO turn off the radio, even if it is useful news.
Double pay after two hours of work! That sounds cool. My office would not pay me extra even when I worked extra hours because the project deadline was close and often they knowingly came up with infeasible commitments to the client.
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