String Quartet Recording...

[Praqtice]

I'm recording a string quartet this friday for a band im producing and was wondering if anyone could give me some tips for getting a good library record style string sound?

I'm pretty confident with getting a decent 'string' sound but I'd quite like to give it some class and character...

Any ideas I'm all ears!

the room is about 10 x 8 m and about 10ft + high and well treated...

thanks, sam

[Zygomorph]

by "library record style" do you mean like you'd find on a record in a library?

what i would start with, even if this weren't in the context of a larger production, would be to use two stereo pairs: one near and one far. the near pair would be hypers in ORTF or maybe even XY. the farther pair would most likely be spaced omnis. i would place the omnis in such a way that they about evenly balanced between the direct and room sounds, and could stand on their own as a minimalist recording in a pinch. the close pair should be placed to get you as balanced and dry a sound as you would expect to ever need/want during mixing.

my reasoning is that a natural string ensemble sound cannot exist outside of a room, which mixes together the complex spectral emissions in a (hopefully) pleasing way. jamming a cardioid mic right up to a single spot on a violin or cello might be fine for sound reinforcement, or for a bit of articulation when needed, but it's going to sound quite 2 dimensional (i.e. not "classy" which is what you said you're going for).

PROS: you can mix between a fairly dry and wet ensemble sound.

CONS: this set up assumes that you have a decent sounding room and that the arrangement and musicians are up to snuff. not that there's much you can do to compensate for this with mic'ing and mixing, though...

you can also do similar things, in concept, with fewer or different kinds of mics, but stereo gives you more psychoacoustic "room" which is a lovely option to have in denser mixes.

supposedly, coles ribbon mics were designed specifically for recording bowed strings; but as i am not rich and have not worked in rich studios owning them, i cannot weigh this hearsay evenly. i have been recorded, as a cellist *by* them, but I can't give you a engineer's perspective.

FWIW, my favorite most "unnatural" string sounds are on Stereolab's "Emperor Tomato Ketchup" which features hyper-compression and chorusing. fun fun!

[signorMars]

Don't forget to take monitoring into account... String players sometimes can't play in tune with headphones on, since they're used to hearing their instrument pretty directly in their ear. Headphones on one ear works fairly well, but just be ready for an adjustment period while they get used to it, unless they are experienced in tracking with headphones. Also, double or triple tracking is always nice... in addition to making the strings sound bigger, it can disguise small intonation issues that might be glaringly obvious if tracked only once. If you can suss out the phase issues, spot mics on the instruments are nice too, in case their balance is off and you want to bring up an individual instrument.

[Ronan Chris Murphy]

It really depends on the track, but a good start is an XY pair and move it around until you have a sound you like. If you are going for something dramatic you might need to put a spot mic on the cello.

Also put out a pair of room mics. Even if the sound of the room is not that great, being able to feed the room mics to a different reverb than the close mics will open up some cool possibilities in the mix.

[Praqtice]

Great advice thanks...

I was thinking of having 2x U87's quite close and a pair of AKG C414's as omni stereo pair further back in the room... + then adding any close mic's later on if need be...

Any oddball ideas out there? Echoes, Reverb, M/S, Compression? I'm all ears...

The idea of doubling is great... Will try that for sure!

By Library I mean KPM, Bruton, Spectrum etc. Stock music for television in the 1970's. Incredible string sounds.

Here's an example of a Kieth Mansfield KPM 1000 series string sound:
https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php? ... f58600f958

Any ideas how they got THAT sound?

Thanks again,

Sam