vienna1897
09-05-2006, 10:46 PM
I'm finding myself in a little bit of a self-induced quandary involving a self-produced recording project for solo violin. This summer, I wanted to record the 12 Fantasy Sonatas for Unaccompanied Violin written in 1735 by the German composer Georg Philip Telemann. I thought it would be interesting to emulate the practice followed by some popular musicians I've known of in the past (Stevie Wonder and Todd Rundgren come to mind) of putting together albums completely on their own, i.e. serving not only as the "talent", but also as recording engineer and producer. Considering the extent to which digital recording has made the process of making recordings so much more accessible, and given that I am reasonably fluent in using a computer, the idea of doing this type of thing with these Telemann pieces seemed interesting and reasonable.
In terms of the particulars directly affecting the product: I'm a Juilliard grad, my playing is in good shape, and I have a fine old French violin. The recording took place in an old New England Church; acoustics there are nicely resonant but not unduly "echoey". For equipment, I used a matched pair of Earthworks QTC40s, a separate 48V phantom power supply, an MBox 2, my Mac iBook G4 and a dedicated 160GB external Hard Drive. After much experimentation, the final microphone placement had the mic stand placed 5 feet in front of me (I was standing in what I had determined to be the room's "sweet spot", with the mics 7 feet high and 15 inches apart from each other, pointed downwards towards me at about a 45 degree angle. The mic gain knobs on the MBox were set at what would be the number "2" on a clock.
My initial reaction to the various microphone placements I tried was a certain shock at the level of "crispness" and detail these microphones reveal; it struck me that they are the aural opposite of the special "warm and fuzzy" lens that is sometimes used when filming actors whose faces have started to show the wrinkles/markings that come with getting older. Everything was there: all the sound, all the vibrancy, but also all the string noise and other "extraneous" noises that one hears when listening to an acoustic instrumentalist up close. The basic performance practice of playing in a way that will project to the back of the hall, even if there is some "grit" up close, seemed at first like it was something to be desperately avoided in this circumstance; I wondered if it was like being an actor who has worked for years in the theater having to adjust his/her style rather radically when doing TV work, so as to avoid the appearance of overacting. I've done plenty of recording before, but of course there was always someone in a booth on the other end making all the necessary adjustments.
At first I found myself backing up the stand so as to lose some of the extraneous playing-related noise, but as I continued I started to find that to some extent, some of that grit is embedded in the essence/vitality of the music-making. In some ways, I started to find that all of that clarity of detail created a type of "warmth" I hadn't quite expected; it was as if a greater level of detail created a fuller picture. The sound wasn't warm in the sense of being lush; instead, it was warm in the sense of being "full" and "rich in detail".
For monitoring (in my case, listening back to takes), I used a pair of Sony Studio Monitor Headphones; considering that I was working in an acoustically resonant church, playing back takes through speakers wasn't going to be helpful. I've continued to use these headphones for editing, and I have been generally quite happy with what I've been hearing. The problem is, whenever I play back what I've recorded and/or edited through speakers (I've tried a number of different speaker pairs, from a pair of Wharfdales to a Boombox to my Car Stereo to the 3-Speaker system that goes with my digital piano), I find myself really disliking what I'm hearing. The recordings sound edgy and non-resonant.
While admitting that I really know very little about recording engineering, I have to say I have been surprised by this result. I would have expected that listening through a good set of headphones to be a sort of "acid test", in which all flaws would be most disturbingly apparent; and yet the recordings sound very vital, nuanced, interesting and even technically more polished (the playing, that is) when listening through headphones. It seems like 70% of the quality evaporates when the recordings are played through speakers.
Clearly, there's something I'm missing here. I find myself wondering if I miscalculated in terms of mic placement, mic gain, or some other equipment-related element. Then again, perhaps I'm learning the hard way that the fine recording engineer is indeed an artist. As musicians, we interact with all sorts of sonic/acoustic environments which can radically change the way our playing is aurally perceived, but we tend to get feedback based on what we hear coming back to us in the room/hall, and adjust accordingly. To an extent, it seems like one of the functions of the engineer is to understand what sort of adjustments may need to be made in the "electronic environment" so that the essence of the playing can be communicated most effectively through medium of RECORDED sound.
I've written this tome because I'm trying to gather input on possible ways to proceed. I suppose I could try starting over again, this time with an engineer in tow, but I truly hate the idea of scrapping everything and going back to the beginning. Or perhaps what I'm experiencing is not unusual, and I could simply do what editing is necessary and then send my sound files to an engineer for final mixing and mastering, who would have the knowledge and equipment to make my files sound well when played back through a reasonably wide variety of equipment. I imagine an exploratory step could be to send a small excerpt (for instance, a three-minute movement) that I have found unsatisfactory when played back through speakers and send it to a studio, asking them (for whatever fee they'd charge, of course) to mix it, master it and send it back to me, as an example of what they could do for all my files.
Any and all thoughts, opinions and suggestion are welcome. Thanks.
Vienna
In terms of the particulars directly affecting the product: I'm a Juilliard grad, my playing is in good shape, and I have a fine old French violin. The recording took place in an old New England Church; acoustics there are nicely resonant but not unduly "echoey". For equipment, I used a matched pair of Earthworks QTC40s, a separate 48V phantom power supply, an MBox 2, my Mac iBook G4 and a dedicated 160GB external Hard Drive. After much experimentation, the final microphone placement had the mic stand placed 5 feet in front of me (I was standing in what I had determined to be the room's "sweet spot", with the mics 7 feet high and 15 inches apart from each other, pointed downwards towards me at about a 45 degree angle. The mic gain knobs on the MBox were set at what would be the number "2" on a clock.
My initial reaction to the various microphone placements I tried was a certain shock at the level of "crispness" and detail these microphones reveal; it struck me that they are the aural opposite of the special "warm and fuzzy" lens that is sometimes used when filming actors whose faces have started to show the wrinkles/markings that come with getting older. Everything was there: all the sound, all the vibrancy, but also all the string noise and other "extraneous" noises that one hears when listening to an acoustic instrumentalist up close. The basic performance practice of playing in a way that will project to the back of the hall, even if there is some "grit" up close, seemed at first like it was something to be desperately avoided in this circumstance; I wondered if it was like being an actor who has worked for years in the theater having to adjust his/her style rather radically when doing TV work, so as to avoid the appearance of overacting. I've done plenty of recording before, but of course there was always someone in a booth on the other end making all the necessary adjustments.
At first I found myself backing up the stand so as to lose some of the extraneous playing-related noise, but as I continued I started to find that to some extent, some of that grit is embedded in the essence/vitality of the music-making. In some ways, I started to find that all of that clarity of detail created a type of "warmth" I hadn't quite expected; it was as if a greater level of detail created a fuller picture. The sound wasn't warm in the sense of being lush; instead, it was warm in the sense of being "full" and "rich in detail".
For monitoring (in my case, listening back to takes), I used a pair of Sony Studio Monitor Headphones; considering that I was working in an acoustically resonant church, playing back takes through speakers wasn't going to be helpful. I've continued to use these headphones for editing, and I have been generally quite happy with what I've been hearing. The problem is, whenever I play back what I've recorded and/or edited through speakers (I've tried a number of different speaker pairs, from a pair of Wharfdales to a Boombox to my Car Stereo to the 3-Speaker system that goes with my digital piano), I find myself really disliking what I'm hearing. The recordings sound edgy and non-resonant.
While admitting that I really know very little about recording engineering, I have to say I have been surprised by this result. I would have expected that listening through a good set of headphones to be a sort of "acid test", in which all flaws would be most disturbingly apparent; and yet the recordings sound very vital, nuanced, interesting and even technically more polished (the playing, that is) when listening through headphones. It seems like 70% of the quality evaporates when the recordings are played through speakers.
Clearly, there's something I'm missing here. I find myself wondering if I miscalculated in terms of mic placement, mic gain, or some other equipment-related element. Then again, perhaps I'm learning the hard way that the fine recording engineer is indeed an artist. As musicians, we interact with all sorts of sonic/acoustic environments which can radically change the way our playing is aurally perceived, but we tend to get feedback based on what we hear coming back to us in the room/hall, and adjust accordingly. To an extent, it seems like one of the functions of the engineer is to understand what sort of adjustments may need to be made in the "electronic environment" so that the essence of the playing can be communicated most effectively through medium of RECORDED sound.
I've written this tome because I'm trying to gather input on possible ways to proceed. I suppose I could try starting over again, this time with an engineer in tow, but I truly hate the idea of scrapping everything and going back to the beginning. Or perhaps what I'm experiencing is not unusual, and I could simply do what editing is necessary and then send my sound files to an engineer for final mixing and mastering, who would have the knowledge and equipment to make my files sound well when played back through a reasonably wide variety of equipment. I imagine an exploratory step could be to send a small excerpt (for instance, a three-minute movement) that I have found unsatisfactory when played back through speakers and send it to a studio, asking them (for whatever fee they'd charge, of course) to mix it, master it and send it back to me, as an example of what they could do for all my files.
Any and all thoughts, opinions and suggestion are welcome. Thanks.
Vienna