Recording piano and trumpet

[Amyd]

Heya guys,

Hope I posted this in the right forum, because I really feel like a newbie on this one.

A friend asked me to help record for the soundtrack (which I will later edit and mix) of his movie the music, which will be a live performance from a concert piano and a clasic trumpet, playing both alternate and at the same time. The conditions of recording will be a rehearsal studio, kinda large and "reverby".

Now since my background is editing and mixing for movie, and the closest I have come to recording is ADR, and a bit of dialog booming and ambiance recording, I am quite unsure about how to go about recording musical instruments.

Since it's a no-budget movie, we cannot afford to hire a pro to do recording, which I know is the wise thing to do. Then again, I thought, why waste a perfectly good opportunity to learn something new...

Anyways, since it does have to sound good, I thought maybe some of you will want to offer a few tips and tricks to make the job go smoother.

I'll be recording to a 4-track portable hard-disk (Deva), and for the mike setup I was thinking 3 condensers across the piano chords and one dynamic in front of the trumpet. What kind of mics will do the job? (yes, I know it depends on the conditions and so on, but at least some general ideas? of course, you can imagine, no budget for high-end mics, think middle to low end).

Does it make sense or am I heading for a pitfall? Also, I have to be able to create a pretty good stereo image from this recording, because the movie will be mixed in 5.1, and the music will have to sit in there with the sfx elements.

Again, any info will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, guys!

Cheers,
Andrei

[Ang1970]

3 mic's on a piano could be overly complicated. I would just place a stereo pair in xy configuration several feet away from the piano, facing the soundboard with the top open.

Don't be afraid to put a condenser in front of the sax, about a foot away.

You can use the 4th track for a dynamic close on the sax if you want to cover yourself, or just save it for cues.

These are "blind" suggestions, and you'll probably have to play around with positioning for a while, especially if the room is as live as most practice rooms I've seen. You might try pinning/taping some blankets on the walls to cut down annoying reflections.

I'm assuming you have neither time nor budget, so you probably won't be buying or building gobos. If you can find an old, used twin or full sized mattress it might help to get some separation between the sax and piano while enabling the players to still see each other. Or even a heavy blanket draped across a leveled boom could work.

Hope that helps, Good luck! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[captain_analogue]

If you can get away with it try to position both instruments well and do the whole thing with one X/Y (or ORTF)pair.
However, since you have four tracks: an RE20 works really well for horns, as does an MD421. For piano, I like an ORTF setup. You might consider some Audio Technica 35-series mics for this, good sound for the money. If you can beg/borrow a decent omni mic, you might use the forth track to capture both instruments and some room sound.
Good luck :D :D