AA Week 5 - Cello
I was particularly excited about this week's session, as I had found out I would have to opportunity to record a friend of mine, Louise, who is a cello student at the Con, and a fantastic player. The piece Louise chose to play for us is Suit for Solo Cello, 1st Movement. Preludio-Fantasia (Adante Maestoso) by composer Gaspar Cassando. Dragos and myself worked on this project cooperatively and began by experimenting with various positions around the EMU live space, deciding on an area which really complimented the cello's character. We also had a variety of mics to play with, all of which yielded different results.
Neumann U87 0'46, 320kbps, Download
We angled this mic facing the bottom section of the f-hole on the cello, with a cardioid pattern. This was to capture the resonance emanating from that part of the instrument. The 87 was used as it has a large diaphragm to capture low end, but also because of smoothness in the mid to high frequency range.
Neumann KMi 0'46, 320kbps, Download
This microphone was angled directly at the top of the f hole. We were hoping that this mic would provide some nice highs, and it did. I belive this mic had the most accurate representation of the sound in the EMU live room. Top notch!
Neumann U89 0'46, 320kbps, Download
This mic was used as an ambient source. Dragos and I walked around the live space searching for the sweet spot. We both agreed on a position roughly 2 metres away, at around 8 o'clock in front of Louise. This gave an excellent effect, with resonance intact without harshness in the mids and nice reverberance.
Beta 52 0'46, 320kbps Download
This was intended to capture to extreme bottom end of the cello due to its nature as a kick drum mic, however results differed from expectations. Sounding very scooped around the low mids, the 52 just sounds a bit "quacky".
Beta 57 0'46 320kbps, Download
Sounding similar to the 52 this mic lacked the frequency response of the Neumann's.
Final Mix 0'44, 320kbps, Download
Overall the Neumanns sounded the best. In the final mix, the two Shure mics were dropped in volume with a small drop in the ambient mic. I added some subtle reverb to add space to the mix, as well as some multiband compression to add some crispness to the highs. I believe this recording captured the sound of this fantastic cello player with accuracy and warmness.
Suit for Solo Cello, 1st Movt. 6'52, 192kbps, Download[9.45Mb]
Here is a copy of the full version of the piece(I had to compromise on quality due to file size restrictions).
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[1] David Grice. "Audio Arts: Semester 1, Week 5. String Recording." Lecture presented at EMU, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 27th March 2007.
posted by Daniel Murtagh @ 17:58
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